asupervee72

Has anybody had their esc shoot sparks and smoke out the side when they attempted to program it? Happened to me with one of these kits, the 13.5 http://www.teamnovak.com/products/br...pec/index.html. Polarity was not reversed as this is the only thing i've seen instantly detonate an esc like this one did. Not sure why a reputable company would have an esc that was crap right out of the box. Hopping the issue is resolved but even if it is i'm out the shipping, the 15 bucks i paid to race sat night, a couple weeks for them to investigate it. Is this kit working fine for everyone else?

rc awesome

Novak should send you a new one. How long ago did this happen?

ludeman

I've fired 2 havoc pro ESC's one they replaced and after my new one burned up I was done. I will never buy Novak again!!!

nitroade

My HV Pro packed it in during programming as well.

OvalRacer99

Contact Novak, their customer service is the best in the biz.

Been running Novak for 20 plus years without a single problem.

asupervee72

I wouldn't go that far. I'd give them a 6.5 out of 10 on customer service. 0 out of 10 on their product. I drove to Irvine and dropped it off in person. I should have been leaving with a new esc. I got an email today saying the label has been purcashed for shipping or whatever but ups does not yet have the package. Estimated delivery is tomorrow. This happened on sat evening.

NovakTwo

If you contact [email protected] they can assist you with a replacement.

Things that may cause serious ESC damage:

…poor soldering/cold solder joints
…defective battery cell, or pack
…low "C"-rated pack
…over-gearing
…weak rotor (demagnetized)
…shorted motor coil
...reverse polarity
…loose connectors
…defective servo (motor)
...damaged esc capacitor/module

Generally, when an esc burns up, the assumption is that it is a defective controller; it is always tempting to blame the item that is melting down. However, many other problems in your over-all set up may cause excessive current to be drawn through the esc causing this complete melt down. Continuing to run any electronic product after it has started showing signs of distress will generally completely destroy the item.

NovakTwo

Anything dropped off on SAT would not be looked at until Monday-we are not open on the week-end, so giving you a new esc was not possible. We are a mfg, not a hobby store. If you asked us to hold it for your pick-up, customer service would have called and arranged for you to come get it. I'm unclear as to what you wanted us to do?

asupervee72

not sure i said anything about driving down on sat just that this is when it happened. Things it could not have been. Over gearing, ( i never even ran the motor)

reverse polarity myself and two others checked that before it was plugged it.

Cold solder I used a 100/140 watt soldering gun, the solder flowed into the joint and was smooth and shinny after i was done. the connection was not disturbed while cooling either.

Low c rated pack - I'm using 5000 mah 20-30c, 100 amp cont should be more then enough power for they system.

Defective battery cell or pack- worked and still works fine for my other rc's including a boat that pulls much more amperage then this truck.

Defective servo, maybe if there was only a 1.5 amp bec in the system but according to the Novak website this was updated to a 6 v 3 amp bec in June 2009 and the servo runs flawlessly on the new esc and others i've used.

Weak rotor/ shortened motor coil, I didn't use or modify the motor..

Damaged capacitor It did not show any signs of swelling and it was brand new out of the box.

Continuing to run any electronic product after it has started showing signs of distress will generally completely destroy the item. I noticed this was in bold. The esc was already fried but one of the guys at the track that night wanted to plug the battery in again to see what it did. Being curious i did attempt to connect a battery a second time but the result was the same.... smoke.

I wanted a system that worked that is what i wanted from you guys. Also i would have appreciated not being treated like I was lying to you guys. I would like to be reimbursed for the time I took to go to your manufacturing plant, the tolls I had to pay on 241 and 261 in both directions and the fuel I used driving there. I now have 190 in to a system I bought for 152 and some change. I would like you to recognize the frustration of dealing with a product that doesn't work in a race situation. Not like we were racing for thousands of dollars or anything but i really wanted to race that night for personal reasons and that is why i bought what i thought would be an affordable system that would be nicer then the current unsensored system i was using. I wanted you to go in the back, take apart the esc and find out why it burnt up. If it was an issue on your behalf (which i think it clearly was or you would not have replaced it right?) I wanted the problem to be explained to me, i wanted to hear an apology for a defective product and i wanted the system replaced on the spot, so I could have practiced with it before the next race. Instead I got answers that remained as vague as possible as if to not place any blame on yourselves.

I waited untiltill Friday and got my system, I then called the rc shop and asked Dave if he would return it since it was new from Novak, however, he said that because it was not shrink wrapped and unopened there was nothing he could do, but there was someone that was interested in the kit before i got it and he may buy it off me. So i went sat(march 5) to the shop. They guy was there racing and i asked him about buying it but he wasn't interested because of a problem he was having with his Novak motor.

At this time i decided to just use the system. The original version I bought had the motor hardwired to the esc, the replaced version has 3 mm bullet connectors, could be 4mm but they look pretty small. The esc is rated for 100 amps or so i believe but i know those little baby connectors melt the solders before that. So my faulty equipment was replaced with a lower quality replacement. I know it would have cost at least 10 bucks for some wire ( that you guys apparently manufacturer or just stamp your name on) and 20 min in labor so i can see why you went with the cheap solution. It would have been nice if my 5.5 mm bullet connectors were put back on, glad you sent them back but how hard would it have been to put them on?

Back to the night at the track. I installed everything in time for the 2nd heat and ran that with a 20 tooth pinion as this is the most conservative size recommended in the manual for the 13.5 motor. I had the owner of the track temp the electronics once during the heat and again when it was done. I was not using a transponder or even competing in the race, we were just trying to find the right gearing. It came back with 76 degrees Fahrenheit on the motor and 105 on the esc so i changed to a 24 tooth pinon as this was the next smallest size i own and still in the guidelines set forth in the manual. I then ran the 7 min main and came back with the motor and esc right around 103 degrees. This concluded my running for the evening.

The following day I returned to the track to set up the esc since I didn't like the way it felt on sat. I had Dave, the shop owner program the esc to the settings i asked because he did the programming on his sons esc which is the same as mine. After running for about 10 min the truck stopped and i assumed it was the lipo cut off since it was the pack i ran from the day before so i replaced it with a fresh pack and it booted up fine, but after a couple laps it died again, surely it couldn't be the lipo cut off, so i check the cell voltage with a mulitmeter, it reads 8.2 so since the lipo cut off circuitry should not activate until 6.25 v i doubt this would be the cause. Reprogrammed the esc and it seemed to be working again but then i have the same issue. My lhs where i bought the kit is closed on Mondays so i have yet to try any other motors with the esc. The battery i used took 4000+ mah during the charge so it does not appear to be damaged. Please feel free to call me, you guys should have my records.

ThunderbirdJunkie

My Feedback: (3)

asupervee, it is not their responsibility to install aftermarket parts on warrantied products. If you had a new Mustang lemon-lawed, would you expect the dealership to install your nice, shiny cat-back system, headers, intake, and short shifter? If ThunderbirdJunkie were to take his shiny, low mile Jeep in to have a fuel pump swapped under warranty, should he not pay the extra labor for the tech to remove the 100+ pound gas tank skid? A lot of what you're asking is simply outrageous. In general, your requests seem pretty reasonable until you get to the part about reimbursing for gas and whatnot; you had the option to flat-rate $4.75 priority mail the system to them, which would have likely yielded the same timeframe results. Instead, you opted to drive enough to use 20 or so bucks worth of gas each way. Your poor judgement is not Novak's fault.

MOST manufacturers don't have tech working on weekends. Somebody that works in the warehouse or at the front desk is likely NOT authorized to work on customer's speed controls and motors. Would you want your 1:1 car work done at a dealership by a salesman? Hell no. Such is the ways of having a desk clerk operate and diagnose sensitive electrical equipment. That same desk clerk/guy in shipping could have said "whelp! ya done blowed it up by pluggin it in backerdz. Not are fawlt." Did you want that? Almost sounds like you did, so you could find more reasons to moan and whine.

Did you make it known and leave a note with the ESC/Speedo that you'd want an outline of the problem? If not, that's your fault. 100% on you. If they don't want to tell you, that's on them, but as large of a company they really are, it's completely understandable if they don't want to tell you. At no point did they sign any contract with you that says they need to tell you what was fixed. Chances are, you don't even know what's INSIDE a speed control to REQUIRE to be fixed in such a situation, so telling you what was wrong with it would be a waste of time, and time is money, so why waste money on somebody that clearly doesn't understand the forces at work here?

More to the point, you are incapable of separating subjects with paragraphs, and your giant cluster**** wall of text is too hard to read, so it's difficult to give a crap about the rest of the garbage you said. ThunderbirdJunkie is assuming that's what it is, since everything else was pretty much petty whiny bunk. Nobody is superman, and sometimes **** happens. We live in a world where people are so quick to assign blame that blame for X situation and Y situation are the ONLY important things, regardless of whether or not the problem is solved.

You are on your own for gearing. That is how the RC industry has been for the past...oooh...THREE DECADES? You're supposed to know and understand the risks of improper gearing; if you don't know or understand OR accept them, then you are not intellectually well-equipped enough to play with expensive toys that require thought and math. A 24 tooth pinion on a Losi XXX-SCT with a 78 tooth spur will yield hugely different results than a 24 tooth pinion on an Associated SC10 with an 87 tooth spur. You obviously don't understand motors or gearing, because there's a section in that giant, disorganized cesspool of illiteracy that whines about 100ish degrees for a motor. Since when is this a problem? ThunderbirdJunkie takes his 13.5 off the track after a 7 minute main, sees 122 degrees...and gears UP. You clearly lack the knowledge that a BIGGER pinion can lower temperatures; again, indicating that you are intellectually ill-equipped to deal with these sensitive, complex little electrical devices.

So, go ahead and slam Novak. NovakTwo is on several forums, and is a boon to service in the RC industry. He's gone out of his way to help a lot of people. Mostly people that don't slather unintelligable gobs of text on a screen in an effort to defame a company.

And just for the record...the only Novak products ThunderbirdJunkie currently runs are XXL receivers and a 12ish year old Cyclone speed control. He has a Havoc 3S/13.5 system that's eventually going to go into the buggy, and if it self-immolates...guess what ThunderbirdJunkie's gonna do?

He's going to do the same thing he did in the mid '90s when he burnt up his Rooster ESC by running a 12 turn motor and 8 cells on it; ship it to them, let them fix it, and have 'em ship it back. It's really that simple.

ludeman

I wnet through 2 twohundred dollar Novak systems.
Here is what happend to my last one!
ESC has carbon score on the bottom as well and will not even power up with a new motor
Im done with novak till they get their QC up to par.

savagecommander

when programming?.... that makes me wonder right there...

nothin but good stuff about novak. i run a 10.5 at the track all the time. HV 6.5 too. nothin but power.

asupervee72

My appologies TBJ i was not aware i needed to use an essay format for you to be able to read, perhaps you should try a pair of glasses. If you failed to read my post in it's entirety then you should avoid making rash assuptions as to what i said. I was not saying anything about 100 ish being bad, my point was that i was well below the 175 max novak recommends so i could not have damaged the motor by over temping. If you can find where I whined about this please quote and bold the section. I decided to drive because I had some business in ontario and they are only and additional 35 min plus the tolls.



Just to set things strait i drove down on Tuesday, not Saturday when the esc smoked out but you obviously lack reading comprehension skills so you should stick to blindly making.comebacks with your superior English writing capabilities. It was a tech i spoke to and i spoke to him on Tuesday during tech hours. I drove because i thought they'd have the decency to replace a faulty system on the spot. And if it was my fault i absolutely wanted them to tell me.

I know that it isn't their responsibility to install the 5.5 mm bullets, i said that was the least of my worries i was glad they included them, but it would have been NICE if they put them on, not Novak is crap cause they didn't put my bullets back on.

When i go to the doctors i don't know **** about what is wrong that is why i see the specialist so he can tell me. Do i know what it means when he says a medical diagnosis, ehh not so much but i do believe that is their job.

Ok if i drove my truck ( blitz) for a week and then this happened maybe, but it smoked brand new out of the box. So you are telling me that as a business owner you would tell your customer they need to pay extra to get their brand new system working. Novak boast about being the cheapest system on the market in terms of dollar amount but in reality it cost you extra money to get their stuff going.


The problem you are failing to see TBJ is that this system did not fail to use, it was only installed in my truck long enough to smoke out while entering programming. Judging by some other post i'm not the only one having issues with their products.

i understand how to divide 20 into 88 as well as 24 into 88. The only situation a bigger pinon would lower temps is if you over geared and are running too much of a reduction causing it to free load and build temps. I went from a 20 tooth to a 24 with the goal being to raise the temps not lower.

Also please re read the forum rules, personal attacks are no good. I know i'm not a forum mod but your not an English 104 prof. On that subject it ts considered poor writing style to start paragraphs with and or so, most teachers i know would dock points for even using the word so, but once again this is an rc forum not an english one and i felt it was clear enough to read and i feel you can't read it because of the lack of spacing rather then the flow. Simply put, your eyes are too old to see this many lines of print clearly, you need to wear your reading glasses. Is this section hypocritical? yes it is

I asked the tec several times what seemed to be the matter with it so clearly i did want to know. If they would have told me what the issue was i'm sure i could have understood it, and if i didn't i could have researched it. Nifty little thing called the internet allows you to do research on subjects you previously knew very little about. If it wasn't time to go to work i would answer all of your objections in a more clearly outlined post with a thesis and an introduction, i might have even included a conclusion and some body paragraphs. Did this post say hey i need help with my writing? lol

@savage commander, what is making you wonder? something the user could have done wrong?

ThunderbirdJunkie

My Feedback: (3)

First off, if you would've arranged your hopeless butchering of the English language in a manner that allowed it to be read, ThunderbirdJunkie might've known what you were saying about the temps. He is a capable reader and writer; but even Chip Foose wouldn't undertake a rotted out 1994 Toyota Paseo as a personal project.

RE: the rules. ThunderbirdJunkie never made a personal attack.

About not being an English prof and this not being English class; you're right, but if you expect your whining to be read, then you might want to make it so people can read it without their head exploding. Note ThunderbirdJunkie never said anything about grammar or spelling; both of which are atrocious on your end. Also, you're right about starting sentences with "and". Again, this isn't English class, like you stated. There is a difference between your and you're, their, there, and they're. You also have no idea what "essay format" is. If it were an actual formatting issue, there wouldn't have been an issue.

A lot of the information ThunderbirdJunkie gathered was from NovakTwo's post, because yours was such a giant cluster of poorly arranged thoughts all smushed into a ball and presented in a manner expected of somebody in second grade, so you won't get an apology for not getting facts straight, since it was nearly impossible to find them.

NovakTwo

If you would clearly, and concisely, state what you would like us to do, I will forward your comments to customer service. In most cases, it is impossible to know exactly what causes esc damage; generally we just replace the products for our customers.

asupervee72

Well I want to be sure there is an issue with the system before I would need anything else. Going to try a different radio, an external rx battery, and if i can get someone to let me try their motor I will check that two. For the 20 min i have used it everything was good regarding performance, it is just the cutting out that is an issue right now. I should have some time this evening to test some stuff.

ThunderbirdJunkie

My Feedback: (3)

Just an FYI, only motors with a temp sensor will work with your ESC.

asupervee72

If it came as an esc + motor combo it should have the sensor right?

oh are you saying if i use someone elses?

ThunderbirdJunkie

My Feedback: (3)

Yeah, if you hook up another motor to the ESC, for the ESC to run the motor it has to have a temp sensor. Otherwise the ESC will think the temp sensor is missing, and will just give you an error code.

Speed Passion and Novak are the only two manufacturers off the top of ThunderbirdJunkie's head that can be run with a Novak Havoc series ESC

XXT-CRer

actually, it was very difficult to read. i had to use my cursor and highlight the lines i had read in order to be able to tell which line i needed to read next.

example: at first i failed to detect your sarcasm in the quote above because i interpreted into the following seperate sentences.

sentence #1. sentence #2. sentence #3. seriously though, you might be expecting a bit much. i am a novak owner an very happy with all novak products ive had experience with.

back when the gtb combo's first came out i bought 3 of them. one for myself, one for my brother, and one for my son, and have had zero issues with them in 5-6 years.

give them a chance to win your loyalty with one thats not a lemon. noboby's perfect, but in my opinion, they are square dealers, and thats enough for me.

EDIT: i did have one problem with the gtb/5.5 velociti combos............. they were way to freekin fast for our uses. should have bought the 8.5 combo's instead. i ended up selling the 5.5 motors on ebay and bought 3 ss5800 motors. perfect.

asupervee72

you do know if multiple sentences are talking about one subject you can combine them right? But once again this is not an english class and I am failing to see the issue with my one sentance as compared to what you think should be three. Subject, verb, preposition ring any bells?

I was not aware is not exactly what I would consider a complete thought. My original wording was not vague or ambiguous. Sarcasm is something more commonly done with tone and since we are writing not speaking it is the readers job to detect it.

I am trying to give Novak a chance, but getting a bad system out of the box and then getting another system that isn't working to my standards (or anyone else for that matter) hasn't been the most pleasant experience and this is my first impression, you only get one shot at that.

@xxt-CRer thank you for further proving my point that it is merely spacing that makes it difficult to read, i will edit it later this evening to include spaces between the lines. You know some books use around a size 11 font and use little spacing, for a new paragraph there is only an indentation. Do you guys call the editor and tell them it was hard to read or do you use a book mark or something to keep track of what line you are on. Looking at black writing with a glowing white background isn't exactly euphoria for your eyes, things start blending and maybe this is why it is hard to read. I know my grammar is crap in areas and I switch from 1st to 2nd person and sometimes my verbs aren't even in the same time zone(past, present, future).

Expecting a bit much? I suppose buying something and expecting it to work without having to deal with the manufacturer multiple times is expecting too much? I know I'm not getting my fuel or time back, but I was asked what I wanted.

MCSRacing

My Feedback: (2)

nothing but good things about novak, i been using their gear for over 25yrs and anytime i have a issue it was taken care of fast.

XXT-CRer

no,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, you're right. not a good time to hack on your typing. i'm sorry.

as far as the novak goes, i am sure it was a pain in the butt. you go and spend your money (which for some of us is not ez to get) and then when it lets you down right off the bat, its frustrating.

try to be patient. it happens man. it might not even be novaks fault.

asupervee72

what system are you using?

asupervee72

I'd like to think this thread contributed to Novak Electronics going out of business. I know they wont be missed by me.