Paul Busby

I think the ESC is actually a new addition, didn't he still have Hobbywing in there for the long jump?

Note that its still a good idea to have a fire extinguisher for a Lipo, as you can prevent the spread of the fire. IIRC a powder general purpose one is the best, as it smothers the surrounding area so the lipo just burns itself out.

He did also just change his battery connectors from XT90 to EC5, come to think of it. I wonder if he overheated the cells during that process?

Ironically, I bet if he left XT90 on he would have been able to swing the lipos free, given part of the reason he changed them was they were old and getting loose. 😂

I've resoldered a bunch of them before and it is impossible to know how much damage you have done in that process, so far no dramas.

No denying that he should have delt with the fire before getting a camera. Real daft decision.

He did shrink it after 😀

I’m just not exactly sure that he’s got sufficient surface area on the contact between the wires?

it was OK with the Hobbywing, but as I mentioned earlier, they do have a current limit that’s tighter than Castle (allegedly) and he never got that up to the speed it should have achieved. If there isn’t good enough connection there, he would have resistance, which would draw more current, and if the ESC doesn’t have the safety mechanism to stop... dunno maybe I’m barking up the wrong tree.
 

I just don’t know what in the ESC would burn to such an extreme level that it would also light up a lipo?

Typically a transistor or capacitor just goes pop, and then that’s it. Bit of funky smoke and a hole in the wallet.

And as for what on earth made the lipos go up,  someone on facebook suggested when the ESC went pop, it could have shorted the Lipo... given it was a fully charged, and probably poorly cared for Lipo... to me that makes a lot of sense.

Then the question is, why did the ESC go pop?

Well It's easy to say, "because it's a Castle", but maybe there is more to it than that.

Little bit of detective work (watched some old videos) and I think the motor he has in there is a 3200kv TP Power 4070 (which is a 40mm diameter and about 110mm long, IIRC)... not exactly the kind of thing you want to be chucking 8S at!
It doesn't say that you can't in the manual though.

So could it be something else?

Well.... there is this

@m4inbrain, do we have anything to worry about with our MMX8S, do you think?

As as for why folks use these instead of Hobbywing, I'm lead to believe it's the current limiter. Hobbywing have a very low sustained current limit which causes big problems for speed runners. Not something i have any experience in, but I have seen videos where folks have struggled with Hobbywing, switched to Castle and increased their top speed.

I cant think of any reason you would need that outside of speed running though. Seems a very niche ESC.