ricknkim

I just about burned my house down with a tower hobbies battery and receiver. plugged the battery into the receiver, the wires start smoking, the red and black plastic is melting, the battery pack itself is smoking and I burn the heck out of my fingers getting the thing out of my plane. The receiver is fried too. I just e-mailed tower to tell them what happened as well. Any ideas what the heck could have caused that?

LuckyArmpit

Yep. The positive and negative leads were crossed. Your lucky it wasn't a lipoly battery pack. It would have exploded and you would've gotten a very hot and bright fire.

Dave...

DBCherry

My Feedback: (4)

Sure sounds like you plugged it in backwards causing a dead short. Your fault, so Tower won't replace anything.

Sorry,
Dennis-

rc-sport

My Feedback: (12)

Reversing polarity won't cause a short, I think there was a short in the receivers circuit board. I'd send it back for assesment.

moodier

My Feedback: (1)

Sorry!Done the same thing myself hook things up backward and gets hot real fast!!!Can tell the problem by the smoke rolling out of the wires etc.Doubt if Tower will do anything!This shouldn't happen if plugging a Futaba connector into futaba receiver but easy to do if plugging in a Hitec plug as can easily go in either way.I-ve learned tostop and think before plugging in as have melted some wire!

ricknkim

Yeah I thought about that, I was using a tower connector which is supposedly universal...we'll see what tower says...

ricknkim

On second thought, I'm not sure I buy the explanation of plugging it in backwards. If you look at those connectors, there are only 2 of the 3 holes that are "hot" or have metal conductors in them. The third hole is empty. There are also only two posts on the receiver. So if you plug it in "right" then you get two posts into two conductors and things work. If you plug it in "backwards" then you only get one post into a conductor and the other post is just sitting in a plastic hole with no wire. No circuit is formed. So if you plug it in "backwards" then it should just not work...not short out and almost cause a fire. Plus, if the battery could do that every time you plugged something in the wrong way, why haven't my batteries all exploded then I plug in the recharger backwards? All that happens there is the little red light doesn't come on and the thing doesn't charge...

Flypaper 2

Futaba has the pos., red wire in the centre of the connector. JR would be the opposite, black in the centre. If there is still some poop in the batt, check it with a voltmeter to make sure the have the colour coding right.

TLH101

My Feedback: (90)

WRONG, Fut., JR & Hitec are wired the same on battery & servo connectors. JR,however, is wired opposite on the transmitter charge plug. Old style Airtronics(black connector) is wired with the ground(-)in the center & pos(+) outside. New style Airtronics(blue connector) is the same as Hitec, Fut. & JR.

Rodney

Yes you can plug the battery in backwards in a Futaba or Tower Hobby receiver and get a dead short. The battery slot (and that slot only) has the center conductor tied to the positive buss on the PC board. Now if you plug the battery connector into the slot normally used for the battery and the connector is reversed, you have a dead short accross the power leads. If you plug it in backwards on any other slot, no damage would have occured, it just wouldn't work. If you do not believe this, just take the case off your receiver and check out the PC board. Chances are, you did not hurt the receiver, just burnt up the switch and battery wires.

cwrr5

My Feedback: (32)

Ok guys, I'll ask the obvious.

Got pictures? Preferably close-ups?

ricknkim

Ask and ye shall receive...the first is of the battery and the wires. As you can see the wire fried right down to the battery insertion. Also you can see the red and black covering on the wires has melted off. The next two are of my horribly mangled thumb and index finger...I was looking at the receiver, I can now only see one post in the battery slot. I think that the solder on the other post melted or I just yanked it out when I was pulling out the burning battery...there are supposed to be two posts in there right?

kdheath

Every once in a while, we all get a reminder of how much energy is in a modern battery pack. Zowee. I wonder if the pack shorted internally.

balsatermite

nice blister,, it will feel better when it heals [sm=thumbup.gif]

Flypaper 2

I see the batt., wire and connector. What is the other wire above in the picture for, a switch?

khlash

My Feedback: (6)

you plugged it in backwards.... You did it...I've done it...half the people here have probably done it.... Dont waste Towers time.

Khlash

ricknkim

No, the battery from tower did not come with a switch so I soldered on a switch. Before anyone asks I did solder it red to red and black to black...(duh). One thing that did come to mind though, if there was a gap in the electrical tape where I had to strip the wire to solder it and there was a connection there, would that cause the same thing? BTW, haven't heard anything from Tower yet. I can't say whether the thing was plugged in backwards or not because all the wire covering was melted off. The receiver is no good, the posts were pulled out of the board on the battery slot when I yanked the burning wires out. Other than that I am just out a generic 1200 mAmp battery so no big loss. I am just happy I didn't put the thing into my newly finished super chip and have a massive fire on my hands.

redfox435cat

the futaba and the tower stuff are the same. I mean exacally the same. If you pull the tower sticker off it has the futaba part numbers so follow the futaba wire code. Anyway something was backward when you plugged it in. Even a backwards servo will short through the control circuit of the reciever

FLYBOY

My Feedback: (11)

Hate to dissagree, but I have never heard of a battery being plugged in backwards shorting. I would have to ask someone more about that.

Your problem was caused by the two wires contacting each other where you stripped them. They came in contact, caused a dead short, and turned the battery into a welder until you got the wires away from each other. When the two wires touch that are connected to the pos and neg on the battery, things get really hot really fast.

Don't ask me how I know this!!! [X(] I melted one too. Use shrink wrap when you solder on leads, and get good stuff, not cheap stuff, and make sure to use long enough pieces or you will do it again.

Paternguy

My Feedback: (1)

The connector is dummy proof, three holes, two wires in the connector, two posts in the receiver. If you put in the connector back wards their is no circuit. This can't passably cause a short. I agree that the most likely culprit is the two unprotected wires touched causing the short. I love these knuckle heads that have "done this same thing!".Apparently the laws of physics don't apply within the confines of their shops. LOL.

Next time buy a commercial switch with the connectors already installed. In the end this is cheaper than buying new batteries and receivers. LOL. And it wont add any significant amount of weight to your bird.

Chalk this up to a learning experience. Send the equipment back to Tower, you might get lucky and they will replace the equipment, I think they can afford to bite the bullet on one or two of these, I bet they can afford it out of their huge profit margins. LOL

rccrazedman

My Feedback: (10)

not to mention that tower and futaba has a little tab on the one end of the connector not allowing you to connect thing backward. and as explained before you can't connect something when you are not connecting the two wires. Just one wire is contacting another therefore you cannot get a connection. My bet is on the wire touching at the solder point.

paladin

My Feedback: (9)

Rick, its easy to find were the short occurred. Just look for the point were there is no more heat damage. Like mentioned previously you need a complete circuit to start this and once the circuit has been completed the wires heat up making the connection is dozens of other places making it impossible to stop. Once you find the spot were the heat damage stops think back about if anything was done to that area that could cause this. You’ll figure it out in time.

Reversing polarity will not cause the wires to fry. Most of my radio equipment is old Airtronics so I know for a fact that reverse polarity will not fry the TX futaba or Airtronics, will not smoke a airtronics servo but will smoke any futaba servo! But the key there is that in all the three cases of doing this over the last 28 years in every case a transistor fry’s in the futaba servos before the wires turn to heater elements.

Look for where the run-a-way stopped, that is were the circuit was completed!

Joe

JohnVH

My Feedback: (38)

those that say he plugged it in backwards have clearly never done it. Nothing happens. Done it a million times not paying attention. IT WILL NOT SHORT THIS WAY

Paternguy

My Feedback: (1)

LOL. and once in band camp....... LOL

ricknkim

Well to give a little more info on the situation, I did use shrink wrap on the solder points and also wrapped them in electrician's tape. I inspected it to make sure there were no areas touching but I could have missed something I guess. Anyhow, super duper kudos to Tower!! Here is their response:

Mr. *******,

We were sorry and alarmed to hear of your predicament with the battery and receiver you had purchased from us.
Since this is an atypical occurrence, our technician would like to inspect your items. We will mail a pre paid label to send these to our service center (a letter will be enclosed explaining how to utilize this label). As a courtesy, we are sending a new receiver and battery to you. These should arrive shortly.
Again, you have our sincere apology for this incident.

-Tower Hobbies

How about THAT for customer service!! My purchases will come from Tower from now on, they have gained a loyal customer for the price of a receiver and battery!

Rick