Novak Super Sport Explodes While Racing

[dj_ski69]

4 Laps into an A-Main my SS blew up....flames, smoke and melting plastic :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:
You can see my pics HERE (http://www.clodtalk.com/viewtopic.php?t=13925) . It Even got so hot that all the solder joints came undone as you can see in the pics...

:(
I e-mail'd novak with the pics...

SkI

[Duster_360]

Don't see any of your pics.....

[dj_ski69]

sorry i forgot you have to be a forum member to see themm...my bad....
how do i post pics here....?

SkI

[RC10racer89]

You can attach the pictures as long as they are under, I think 60k, through the forum. You can also hot link pictures from other webhosting sites like http://www.imageshack.us/ or http://www.photobucket.com/

[dj_ski69]

ok here is a pic

[dj_ski69]

and anothr

[dj_ski69]

1 more

[kufman]

WOW that one is cooked. What car was it in?

[Re-Mix]

Hmm, Let me guess. You probably ran it in a car with little ventilation? What gearing were you running too, the whole setup needs to be listed in order to tell whether or not this was a freak accident.

[Duster_360]

Whoa!! Never seen one do that before. Any response from Novak - guess its a little early to expect that yet?

[eVaDeR85]

Ok I dont care what his setup was it shouldnt have caught fire like that. Dont they have overheat protection? Remind me to never buy a Novak Brushless system. Yikes man.

[Re-Mix]

They'll replace it for free definitely. They have great customer service.

[eVaDeR85]

Boy I bet that thing smells great. Ive been around a blown audio amplifier or two in my days and to me there isnt another smell quite like the aroma of burnt transistors.

[jocktheglide165]

Ok I dont care what his setup was it shouldnt have caught fire like that. Dont they have overheat protection? Remind me to never buy a Novak Brushless system. Yikes man.


you sure about that, "not caring what setup he had" so if I put that SS5800 in my emaxx top geared 21 pinion and 64 tooth it should not still blow up? If he tells his setup then we would know what happened overall picture. this has happened to many brushless systems overall so i guess you will being doing nitro for now so I guess c ya :rolleyes:

[jocktheglide165]

They'll replace it for free definitely. They have great customer service.

I bet you the same thing they will replace it for freee once they find out what setup you had etc.. as long as you did recommended gearing and find no fault from you its free. I know because I sent in 2 of them and got send back within 2 week frame.

[dj_ski69]

FYI
The truck i was racing is a Hybrid RC10T I put together that is lighter than any other stadium truck made....
My ratio was 12.50:1....NOVAK says use 12.30:1 for starters....
My battery packs I race with are IDB3600's
I also ran 2 full qualifiers with no problems and without the esc becoming too hot to touch...
SO.....
I did my part to make sure it was setup properly...

And I have had an esc smoke before, but not catch on fire and start melting chassis parts....This is something I would expect from Lipos not from an ESC...

Heres a pic of my truck so you can see it...

[dj_ski69]

and with a losi cp body

[jocktheglide165]

I wonder with the extra 300mah over a 3300 the time has been extended on running the ESC.

[dj_ski69]

4 laps into a main is hardly extending any time on the esc...
Now If I were stupid and ran back to back or even 3 packs in a row....Maybe(and i big one) it might kick in the thermal protection....
This incident had no thermal protection activation....

[eVaDeR85]

I dunno it just seems weird to me that it would go that far and not go into thermal protection first to shut things down before a fire erupted.

[jocktheglide165]

yeah that is true about the thermal it seems you geared fine hehe probably a production mistake on their part. To be honest I fried mine also one time I used it in an emaxx (had 5 of the ss5800s at the time) for a dually setup, but one was getting hot for some odd reason and guess what it fried also like yours yes burnt down pretty badly I sent it in for repairs and was charged 80 bucks for the esc since the motor they checked was still good. It stunk so badly....

[dj_ski69]

Mine is still under warranty as I just got it....

[CharlieS]

Hey Guys, Ski emailed us and I replied this morning. I agree, it looks terrible. Chances are something let go and shorted, causing the burning and melting. The thermal protection can't stop things like that. It can only shut off power to the motor. That got so hot so fast the temp protection couldn't even react.

Thanks
Charlie

[dj_ski69]

Many thanks to Charlie for the quick reply....I'm sending it back tomarrow....
This whole thing has been quite a laugh in retrospect...

SkI

[CharlieS]

Good man, at least you can laugh about it. I love the guys that get all angry with us.... :)

[deco]

i think your speed control was damaged by a static discharge. When that happens all electronic will fry in seconds.

[dj_ski69]

PLease explain the static discharge theory for me....I want to heart what you have to say...
Thanks

SkI

[kschauwe]

Static not going to do that.

[TheSteve]

Mosfets do sometimes let go, due to the nature/design of a brushless controller the damage can be quite impressive. Doesn't matter who makes the controller, these things happen.(I also don't think it was static related)

[Jev]

The esc does not have thermal shutdown...

I once forgot to reconnect my fan on the esc and the fets unsoldered. Had a friend repair it and it works ok again. So in my case the esc got hot enough to melt the solder on the circuit board but it still did not melt or catch fire. So it looks like you just a had a freak problem.

I wish novak would start selling the ss5800 with a fan. With battery capacities and tire traction going up all the time the stresses is only going to get worse. Mind you I did have to disconnect my heat sensor wire from the motor to get a full 5 min race without thermaling or gear so low I didn't have any top speed ;).

[deco]

"Mosfets devices are static sensitive and will be damaged by zapping them with ESD(electro static discharge)."
If you want to know what happens when a mosfet fail go to...

http://www.uoguelph.ca/~antoon/gadgets/mostest.htm

"Dying mosfets often emit flames or blow-out..."

[kschauwe]

mosfet's are sensitive to static when they are unmounted. Once in a circuit, the other componets will dissipate any static buildup.

[Jev]

Does it matter either way?

The fire was a freak failure...

I've seen people melt just about every make of speedo ever released.

[kufman]

I have some older brushed speed controls that look just like that one. Device failures happen. Lots of reasons, and not much you can do about it except try to keep them as cool as possible. Where I work we have large power supplies (up to 2.4 MVA) that run 24/7 and one of the best things we have done to up their lifetime is to run the SCR's at a lower temperature. It is the equivalent of running a 100A controller with a 50A motor. The FET's stay cooler and their lifetime goes up. Fans, Heatsinks, Ventilation are all good too.

[Raster]

Charlie,

I have to commend you and your company on being so willing to take care of something like that. I think we've all talked to enough companies over the years that like to say, "Hmm... I've never heard of that..." "Hmm... I've never seen that..." "Hmm... That's never happened before..." "Hmm... That doesn't make sense... that shouldn't happen... I don't see how that could happen..."

It's good to see a company be very customer-oriented.

R.

[CharlieS]

Well I just say, I've seen everything and every type of failure. Maybe not yet with a specific product, but something along those lines. To be totally honest, most of the problems that can happen to products all come from very similar areas. The parts that have to do the work for the ESC..... :)

I can't really say I've never used the "That's not what supposed to happen" line a lot. It's all in the person you're dealing with, how much of the truth they can handle. A lot of people the more you tell them, the more they try to "twist" the screws and get something out of you, or back you into a corner and make you promise them something. So I can see for sure, why a lot of smaller companies have to treat things that way. Many times as soon as you mention you've even heard of the problem, the customer expects a freebee. In this case, it's very possible that an outside problem caused this "type" of failure. But from speaking with the customer and seeing his install, I don't think that is the case. But with many people, you can find outside burn marks and things like that, that pretty much "prove" it wasn't a defect. Customer service is tough let me tell you. R/C is changing and so is it's customer base. It's going to be harder and harder to provide really good service, or what people are expecting. A lot less hobbiest, and more people with "money to burn".

Thanks

[rcconcept]

Could using lipo battery pack cause this?

[kschauwe]

Could using lipo battery pack cause this?
No. Something caused all Six FET's to turn on at the same time, thus a large short. :eek:

[Mangokiwi]

Strange. It never happened to me during more than 2 decades.

[kschauwe]

R/C brushless motors haven't been around that long. Aveox first brought them out in 1993.

[AudiTT-Quattro]

Brushless motors have been around forever, just not for R/C applications.

Electronics are electronics. It was a freak event. Not a common occurance at all but it happens to all electronics once in a while especially to SMT technology.

[Mangokiwi]

I mean the electronics in general.
I wouldn't say that the electronic always work perfectly, I deal with it in my job, but some people mistreat them without knowing that.
I know that some devices just get broken through no fault of the owner, but doing some reseach before buying an electronic device and try to recognize the shortcoming can prevent such a bad luck.

[SpEEdyBL]

All you need is a small pebble that conducts electricity to get into your esc. That's what happened to my duratrax 8t intelli. 3 different colors of smoke!