ESS-One Soundcard damaged MMP esc...???

[Orange58Crush]

I'm not the best with the electronics issue diagnostics, I'll get that out of the way first. So if my thought process isn't sound, educate me.

I just put this cool soundcard system in my rig. It has a 6v power input as well as an esc input. My receiver is powered via bec, and the esc and ESS are both fed from the TH port on the rx.

I ran the rig the same as before the sound fx and had a slight issue...when I put my rig in high gear and pinned the throttle, it would only go partial throttle for a quarter to half second and then max out. The same response wasn't evident in low gear.

We were running in the woods behind my house, and the rig started to cut out when over a certain throttle input. The slow blinking green led on the esc indicated forward travel, just as it should, and then the motor would kick out and the led would go to a rapid green blinker, "Throttle trim not centered". As I was trying to diagnose it, the input required to "kick it out"
got less and less, and then it got to the point that I had to restart the esc to get it to respond to the tx.

I changed batteries, receiver, tx/rx system swap, reflashed the esc to a known good version, tried a different brushless motor, reprogrammed the esc to run brushed, and nothing helped. I bypassed all possible components and ran just the st. servo and esc, powering the rx with the esc, and it keeps doing the same thing, runs for a while until you come up to a certain rpm, then it just rolls to a stop...so it's losing power, not signal. If it lost signal, the drag brake would engage...this one doesn't.

By putting a heavy load on it with the 11# truck with the 3200kv brushless motor on 3s and adding the amp draw of the soundcard, I'm wondering if the esc circuitry has fried, just in the upper input signals, from operating the motor and soundcard at the same time.

Is that possible? Everything points to the esc, but I'd like others to chime in before I dump another hundo into this truck.

 

[micro racer]

Did you pull the red wire from the ESC's receiver plug?

 

[Orange58Crush]

Yes, the rx was getting power from the bec, and I had removed the + red wire from the esc plug. After getting the rig back to the bench, I reconnected just the basics...no ESS, no bec, just esc (red wire, too) and steering.

 

[joshsmith512]

just curious is the fan working? might be going into thermal. also i dont think it good to plug two things into the throttle port, i tried powering lights a long time ago and it did wierd things to esc.

 

[Orange58Crush]

The fan works, but it doesn't come on when the esc quits. Your statement about plugging two things into the esc is exactly my basis for this post, as it was the latest thing added to my rig. It only had about 2 hours of run time when this happened.

 

[Alexander_0_1]

No, personal experience with the ESS, but i ve been plugging both my ESC, and my heyok light controller into my throttle channel, I was actually thinking about addng this part to the bundle of wires coming from my channel 2

 

[bigstu]

I doubt the ESS did something to the ESC, but I could be wrong.
According to the info on the ESS, and I have two of them, the ESS pulls all its power from the battery connection, and uses the signal from the receiver to control the sound modulation.
Basically it is the same as having two ESCs hooked up to one port.
What kind of transmitter and receiver are you using?

My recommendation, get one of the Holmes Hobbies servo isolator plugs. Run the steering servo at 6.0v, 7.0v, or whatever it will handle. Use the BEC in the MMP to run the receiver.
It kind of sounds like you might have overheated the receiver and that took out the speedo or more.

 

[Orange58Crush]

I put in a different Tx/Rx system and it still does it. The only component I haven't replaced in this system is the esc.

Is there a way to check esc output?

 

[dna4engr]

I've been trying to help orangecrush in person and this one baffles me.

A few more technical notes for everyone.

The bec was set at only 5v to run the steering servo.
The radio is a spektrum dx4c. Two other radios have been tried since the problem (traxxas tqi and axial ae3 - no change)
The esc will still calibrate and work for about 10 to 30 seconds (this is with only the servo and esc plugged in)
I've fried some mmps before but never had this where it will still calibrate and arm, then stop being armed all of the sudden.
Yes the fan comes on after it arms (we flashed down to 1.32 firmware from 1.46 after the issue started). That's another kicker. We can still go in castle link and change settings and software