Milkybar

Hi, guys and girls. Apologies, but I am very much a newbie to RC these days. I bought my son an FTX Bugsta Brushed for Christmas a year ago, I was assured by the shop when I purchased it that the 1400 NiMH battery should give him about 20 minutes run time, he got it out of the box on Christmas day and 5 minutes later the battery was dead, disappointing to say the least! Anyway, I decided to buy him a couple of new batteries and I purchased 2x 3000 7.2v NiMH's, these now did give him approximately 20 minutes of run time, however, after a weeks use the motor melted! FTX very kindly sent out a replacement motor which lasted a week or so. It sat in the garage for a while and we both sort of forgot about it, then lockdown happened and upon going through the garage I uncovered the truck, so I ordered a HobbyKing ESC & Brushless combo to replace the stock motor and ESC, this went like the proverbial off of a shovel :-), however, a day later when he tried to use it again it wasn't working. With a bit of further investigation, I have noticed that when you connect the battery and turn on the ESC, the receiver (an Etronix ET1095) starts smoking slightly and is warm to touch.

Firstly, does anyone have any ideas what could have caused this?

I have checked the HobbyKing manual and the ESC outputs 6V not 7.4V by default, so it shouldn't be that.

Secondly, I will obviously need to replace the receiver, so would people recommend just replacing the Receiver or do I save money in the long term and buy a better quality Transmitter/Receiver bundle and if so what would you recommend. Personally, I prefer a Stick setup over a Steering Wheel and I'm sure my 8-year-old son doesn't have a preference.

Sorry for the long message, but any help would be very much appreciated.

jester_s1

I have no idea of the cause. There's a short circuit somewhere, which could be internal to the receiver. Whether you should upgrade radios or not really depends on your plans. A computerized radio can be setup for multiple models and has some handy features like end point adjustments and saving your steering trim.
If that truck has a slipper clutch, make sure it's adjusted for some give. A powertrain made for an inexpensive brushed motor can't take a lot of torque.