8000ft
Quarry Creeper
First off I will say this, maybe this esc is better left to the racers on dry ground.
When I built my Yeti I decided to save a few bucks by purchasing some lower grade aluminum parts because I wanted the best ESC and motor by popular recommendation and it was unanimously the Tekin HD PRO 4 and RX8.
Pricy to say the least but what the heck it is the heart of the beast right? I knew that it was not waterproof but I will be running in the snow. I did a lot of reading and took great care in doing it right with silicone conformal coating.
Everything was alright for a week or two then on hard acceleration it began to stutter and buck off the line on hard launches. I went so far as to get into a personal correspondence with a Team Tekin tech. He and I tried to sort things out but no real luck. After a few more trial runs and replacing the sensor wire we could not get it to run smoothly again so he sent me a return RMA for out of warranty service. I still haven't sent it back with the only reason being that I had ordered a new RX8 and I figured that I could send it back when I get a few extra dollars.
The new RX8 was waterproofed with even greater care figuring that maybe water was the culprit, I still don't have an answer and at this point I don't see how my waterproofing could be any different than the way others have done it with great success.
Last night everything was running normally when quite suddenly (and I should say that everything was dry) the Yeti started shuddering and bucking violently on acceleration. After 2 or 3 times it just shut down. Strange I thought and when I got to it I found the both of the battery connections at the ECS Deans plug had become unsoldered and were still very warm.
I took the bottom of the ESC off just to verify the everything was dry and it was so I thought that maybe the battery was at fault.
I put the Turnegy battery on the charger and an error message came up that said something like 'main connection port error'. after a couple of tries I did get it to start charging but the number one cell was acting really weird. It started out at a lower voltage than the other two but gained voltage very rapidly and went over 4.22.
I shut it down and took it to our local fire station for their training exercises.
I put my other battery in it today and it ran fine for about 3 minutes and the it started to shudder again. I shut it down, took it home and opened up the ESC. Again it's dry, but this battery is now giving me the same error code.
In summary this has cost me 2 top of the line ESC's, 2 batteries, and the total loss of confidence in Tekin products.
I will now be looking for a new, factory waterproofed, modestly priced, bashers ESC.
If anyone is interested in 2 RX8 paperweights just send me a PM.
I am extremely upset about the situation. I can not fully blame Tekin but at the same time I find the situation a bit questionable and how their product may have caused a dead short going back to the battery and the potential of a fire and losing a $1900.00 vehicle.
How difficult would a fail-safe of some sort be to design?
When I built my Yeti I decided to save a few bucks by purchasing some lower grade aluminum parts because I wanted the best ESC and motor by popular recommendation and it was unanimously the Tekin HD PRO 4 and RX8.
Pricy to say the least but what the heck it is the heart of the beast right? I knew that it was not waterproof but I will be running in the snow. I did a lot of reading and took great care in doing it right with silicone conformal coating.
Everything was alright for a week or two then on hard acceleration it began to stutter and buck off the line on hard launches. I went so far as to get into a personal correspondence with a Team Tekin tech. He and I tried to sort things out but no real luck. After a few more trial runs and replacing the sensor wire we could not get it to run smoothly again so he sent me a return RMA for out of warranty service. I still haven't sent it back with the only reason being that I had ordered a new RX8 and I figured that I could send it back when I get a few extra dollars.
The new RX8 was waterproofed with even greater care figuring that maybe water was the culprit, I still don't have an answer and at this point I don't see how my waterproofing could be any different than the way others have done it with great success.
Last night everything was running normally when quite suddenly (and I should say that everything was dry) the Yeti started shuddering and bucking violently on acceleration. After 2 or 3 times it just shut down. Strange I thought and when I got to it I found the both of the battery connections at the ECS Deans plug had become unsoldered and were still very warm.
I took the bottom of the ESC off just to verify the everything was dry and it was so I thought that maybe the battery was at fault.
I put the Turnegy battery on the charger and an error message came up that said something like 'main connection port error'. after a couple of tries I did get it to start charging but the number one cell was acting really weird. It started out at a lower voltage than the other two but gained voltage very rapidly and went over 4.22.
I shut it down and took it to our local fire station for their training exercises.
I put my other battery in it today and it ran fine for about 3 minutes and the it started to shudder again. I shut it down, took it home and opened up the ESC. Again it's dry, but this battery is now giving me the same error code.
In summary this has cost me 2 top of the line ESC's, 2 batteries, and the total loss of confidence in Tekin products.
I will now be looking for a new, factory waterproofed, modestly priced, bashers ESC.
If anyone is interested in 2 RX8 paperweights just send me a PM.
I am extremely upset about the situation. I can not fully blame Tekin but at the same time I find the situation a bit questionable and how their product may have caused a dead short going back to the battery and the potential of a fire and losing a $1900.00 vehicle.
How difficult would a fail-safe of some sort be to design?