Overheating ESC

[knpc]

here is a picture

[ReddyWatts]

That is a total of 17 inches of wire. I would shorten the wires as much as possible.

[robby76]

don't over look installing a thrust bearing behind the flex cable collet and in front of motor mount.

[txboatpilot]

thanks, I'll give those a try. What do you run on your titan? Was this all because of running at parcial throttle. I had read that was bad for the esc so I guess I will prop down till I get it to run a at 40mph wot. that seems to be a comfortable speed for that hull, 45mph was too fast unless the water was calm.

In my 29" Titan,,,
I run a 10XL and CC 120 hydra esc, with x442 and 2x 2S1P 5000mAh lipos in series,,, or 2x 4S1P 3700mAh lipos in parallel for longer run time... No heat issues, runs 38-42mph, very stable, fast enough to have alot of fun with!!!

Good luck!!

[Bill-SOCAL]

Thanks for the help, any suggestions on prop size. I tried an m445, then went down to a x642 which had been fine till this last time out when it overheated.

Just so you know, the X642 has an average pitch of 2.65 inches.

The m445 is 2.48 inches.

So while you went "down" in diameter you went "up" in pitch.

Also, FE is a balance. Faster set ups run shorter. Slower goes longer.

Example: I run a 10XL in a 32 inch DF Storm, CC120, 4S2P packs.

I can run a m445 and go for nearly 7 minutes with no worries.
Or, I can put a x646 on and get 2.5 minutes before everything is nice and toasty.

And the Castle controllers really do not take partial throttle very well.

Shorten your run times and prop the boat so you can run WOT as much as possible.

[D. Newland]

it happened with both. I did a 5 min run with the nimh, let it cool, the a 5 min run with lipos. the result was the same at the end of both runs.

When you plug in your batteries, do you still get that "spark/pop"? If so, the capacitors are still doing their job. But, if the shrink melted and they look bulged or otherwise deformed, I'd send it back. Also make sure they are still soldered to the board. It's OK for capacitors to get hot, but you're seeing signs that they got too hot. And since they're not cooled, the longer the runtime, the hotter they get.

Did you check your runtime with a stop watch or are you guessing at the 5 minutes? If you really got 5 minutes with the NiMH cells, then you're only pulling approx 45 amps. But, that's just an average. Being on/off the throttle will heat things up more than running wide open.

Get a stopwatch and run for 3 minutes with that setup. Check the temps on the ESC, the capacitors, the motor endbell and the cells. Even the battery connectors. If something's wrong with your setup, you can usually pin-point it by temp readings. If you want to run 5 min, the X442 or X440 would help.

The equipment you have is very common (and good), so I wouldn't look to change anything out just yet.

[knpc]

I checked the esc today, everything seems to be working fine so I didn't do any damage to it. I'm going to order some of the props suggested and see what works. I've always used a temp gun for my nitro cars and trucks, but didn't know it was as important with FE boats. I'll start using it for my boat as well.
Thanks to all who helped, I would not have known how to find and fix the problems without this forum