nothinglasts

" A gentleman from Australia decided that since his Castle MMM was in the shop and since Caster provides hobbywing escs in the rtrs, it should work out fine. He got a hold of a hobbywing esc and installed it. Then he read the directions..... The problem is that he decided to go into the programming and back timing out of the esc. "this should make it run faster or better"... This is definitely a no no and this is the result.

Sometimes when the manufacturer recommends a setting, it should be followed....."



C'mon, be fair.

There are no Hobbywing instructions saying not to change settings, just instructions on how to.
I did nothing wrong, I only found info suggesting lowering punch settings could hasten an ESC's demise.
What if I didn't read forums? No one should be responsible for hunting down info they don't know exists
about not using options that are advertised in a manual!
I lowered timing because CC recommends 0deg for their Neu motors.

How are you going getting me a new body for my unlucky experience??
I haven't heard back yet...

hakmazter

The points of the thread was certainly not to throw you under the bus, therefore, you remain completely anonymous in the thread. The point of the thread is to prove that electric cars can be dangerous and that people should proceed with caution. There was more information posted in that thread and you conveniently took the rest of it out. I was stating also that there are recommended esc settings that are in our forums and that others should follow them. If not, a situation like yours could happen. I have also contacted a few other guys that had issues, for example, a guy from South Dakota who had another brand of esc completely burn his Hyper 9e car to the ground.

Point 2 is of course, because we chose hobbywing or tekin or speedpassion or castle or maxamps or ace or smc or zippy or orion or reedy or whomever, that it is not our problem as Caster USA or a problem with the cars. Honestly, you could have dead shorted something like maybe the 3 solder tabs on the esc to the motor to the top plate of the differential since it is aluminum and conducts electricity. That would do something similar if you were on the gas or brake when it happened.

What do you mean by getting you a body, etc? Are you insinuating that it is my responsibility to get you a new body and ship it to Australia when there is a distributor there? I am the US distributor. I will gladly sell you a replacement one at my cost.

I can also certainly get you contact info for hobbywing. They actually do a great job of handling warranty issues as far as I can tell.

nothinglasts

I 'conveniently' quoted the relevant part of your post that referred to me. Make sense?

I have contacted Hobbywing who told me to go through the retailer, in my case Himodel who are now handling
the ESC replacement for me. And I carefully constructed my wording to make sure there was no implication
of Caster in any way.

I was waiting for you to get back to me about postage for the body I wanted to buy because it comes up at
over $300 on your website and you said you would look into it for me to organise the international shipping manually.

But honestly, don't bother. You won't hear from me or my wallet again. Bye.

j_blaze

sorry about your truck, its not the first e car i've seen burn up like that. until esc's frying or batteries burning or stuff glitching are a thing of the past i'm staying away from electrics. yeah they are fast and cool and whoop up on the nitro cars all day but if the smallest mistake is made you have catastrophic failure like that.

if racing the k8t/f8t on a loose track try no front sway bar. it makes the truck act like there is traction when others may be struggling to get it and the initial turn-in is awesome.

hakmazter

Well then I owe you an apology. We just had one of our dealers send one over to Australia. I figured that you might be the same person and that since it was purchased from the U.S., that I personally owed you one since you were vague and email names and screen names do not match all the time. You also have no idea how many times people want something for nothing and it gets old. You also decided to bring the post from over there back over here and it appeared as a possible attack. A pm or post at the other forum would have gladly gotten edited if you didn't like how it was written.

People in that forum do know what the settings are supposed to be and you said that the settings were the cause of the fire. I still contend that it was the exposed circuitboard touching the upper diff plate that caused the problem. If I am correct, then we need to do a design modification on the buggies and truggies so it doesn't continue to happen or hobbywing has to make sure that the circuitboard is not exposed. This would also include Speedpassion since they have a similar design.

hakmazter

But I do thank you for making me aware that the settings are not readily available for newcomers. I will try to get it updated tomorrow as a sticky in our forums even though it is a Hobbywing recommendation and memo, etc.....

nothinglasts

They were the same pics I emailed to you. And I had to wait to get activated at the Caster forums.
Anyway I'll move on and say apology accepted.

I've placed an order thru LHS so I'll see how long it takes to get a body. The Aust distributor is expecting
his first shipment of the truggys soon so I hope that includes some spare parts.

I can see how its possible to short two phases on the Al bracket, but I don't think its that likely
at least not in my case.
The bracket may just be wide enough to reach from the centre phase to an outside one,
but the board would have to sit on top to make contact requiring the ESC to be sitting
high by approx 5mm.
The board also has a coating which covers the exposed contacts to offer some protection. It could be
scratched off where the soldered wires stick through, but I saw no trace of any arcing on that side of the board.
All the damage on mine was at the opposite side of the ESC, below the caps.

Still, its not an ideal setup with those ESCs, the mounting plate is rather narrow making the huge HWs
perhaps a bit unstable and their exposed tabs don't give a sense of security.
The new Xerun ESC's due later this year, at least the 150A, look much better with a completely
encased and smaller design.

vnmsgt

Here is a nice video I got of Rick Jenkins racing the Caster F8T in a Truggy A-main. He won by a lap on the field. First nice video I found of the F8T in action.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iJmj9GmmY8

vnmsgt

A couple more vids I found of the F8T Truggy in action and dominating the comp.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRAjZTmmry0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcN3N...eature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-GX6...eature=related

bhcvc

What's the longest motor that will fit in the F8T?

vnmsgt

I am not positive but I do know that some of the largest Mamba and novak motors fit no problem. There is a ton of room. The EX-1 buggy is the one that you have to make sure you get the right length motor.

bhcvc

The largest Mamba motors so far (not counting the new ones that no one has yet) is 75mm long. I'm looking to put an 88mm long motor in there. Do you think there's room for that?
If anyone can measure, I'd appreciate it. Thanks.

hakmazter

Yes I do think it will fit.

bhcvc

Thanks. I think I'll still wait until someone can confirm that an 88mm motor will fit before I pick one up. With my luck, I can imagine there being 86mm of space and I'd be 2mm short...that would suck...but that tends to me my luck with all my hobbies.

hakmazter

It will fit. Verified 100% today. Room to spare.

vnmsgt

Caster F8T Race Roller truggy has new pricing. Its now $250.