RCU Forums - Attn. Sleuths-HELP!! Big Traxxas Tx Problems

[I thoght that this would fit better in this forum rather than the radio forum, where mostly aftermarket radios are discussed}

Two weird goings on have me concerned about my Traxxas/T-Maxx transmitter. I'm wondering if others have had similar problems, and/or if you have any ideas about what's wrong.

First off, on Saturday I was at my local track trying to get my engine tuned. It seemed to rev fine, but when I accellerated, it would go & then STOP before it got going too fast. Not the engine, but the TRUCK would stop, and only about 50 feet out!

I then took a look at the servo while pulling back on the trigger, and you could see that for some reason the FAIL SAFE was kicking in (brand new OFNA button version, it would activate the brakes and the blinking LED would go solid), and JUST when you activated the throttle servo (steering & reverse servo activation did NOT casue the failsafe to activate). The Tx battery light was NOT blinking, and I have a 2700mah bump pack on the Rx that was fully charged.

Now when the engine was stopped & the car was right next to me, the fail safe would ALWAYS kick in when I squeezed the throttle-it was not sproradic. I tried re-setting the fail safe (no help) & then I figured that the Tx batteries must still have somehow been bad & headed home (they were starting indoor electric races & were shutting down us outdoor truckers).

At home I fiddled a bit (disconnected the failsafe-throttle worked fine), and then I accidently left the Tx on for about 2 hours. After that, the LED was blinking, so I open the battery compartment and...

ALL OF MY BATTERIES ARE LEAKING GOO!!! It hadn't been going on long, and it all fell down into the battery cover (easy cleanup, no damage to the Tx of any kind), but I was obviously freaked out. They were Walgreen's Super Alkalines, not the best, but certainly not bottom of the barrel. I cleaned up everything, put in new batteries (duracells), & then came Sunday.

I was again working on my engine tune, & had run about two tanks with NO problems when the same fail-safe problem arose again (activation during accelleration). I disconnected it again & everything was OK for the rest of the day (no signal loss, good range, etc.). After shutting down & cleaning up, I reconnected the fail safe & did some tests, and I COULD NOT get the fail-safe to screw up! Apparantly the problem only crops up after a bit of run time. And the Tx batteries are fine, no leaking, plenty of juice.

What the #$%& do you think is up? Is it a faulty fail-safe, or do you think the Tx is messed up? What in the world coulda caused the violent destruction of my batteries? I called Traxxas, and they will swap out mu transmitters, but I have to send mine in first, so I'd be sans T-Maxx for about a week (minimum).

Any of you expert sleuths have any ideas?

THANK YOU!!!!

Dean Smith