Caste HV160 DOA? Or did I do something wrong?

[jag]

Finally got my Castle ICE 160A HV today, so was all excited about getting home and trying it. The thing surely is small. Can only appreciate how small once in your hand:

Together with my Astro 8150 I was also planning for a lightweight powerful package at 1.6kg:

So I hooked the ESC to the motor, connected a powered servo tester, and my 48V Meanwell. Since the Meanwell is current limited I thought that was a better safety measure than a battery pack.

But instead of running the motor just vibrated a little bit back and forth, while the Meanwell was clearly struggling (cutting out).

Tried two different batteries, first a 12V then a 36V. Same result. Tried another motor. Same result.

Measured resistance between power and phase leads. Shorted between power+ and white phase. Bummer

Could I have somehow caused this?
Or have others gotten broken Castle controllers?

I bought it from rchobby experts in Fl over ebay.
I guess neither them nor Castle are open Fri late night...
What should I expect? Return to seller or get warrantly from Castle?

 

[AussieJester]

Or have others gotten broken Castle controllers?I bought it from rchobby experts in Fl over ebay.
I guess neither them nor Castle are open Fri late night...
What should I expect? Return to seller or get warrantly from Castle?

I broke mine being an idiot and returned it directly to Castle for a paid warranty return as it was my fault that
it blew, in your case it would be a standard warranty claim (no charge to you) IIRC they even foot the postage?

Before doing this though, have you got the data cable for it? If so i would check the programing on it
before doing anything.

KiM

 

[drewjet]

Are you supply the 5 volts it needs to run. It does not have a BEC (battery elliminator circuit)

 

[recumpence]

All Castle Controllers are bench tested before they leave the Castle factory.

If it is shorted between two leads, yes it is blown. However, I have never seen a blown controller behave that way. But, there is a first time for everything.

If it is, indeed, blown, I would say that is from bench testing with that puny power supply. If you supply the controller with very low amperage, you can easily blow the controller just by the motor chirping to arm.

I know it sounds like these things are very fragile. They really are not. But, any controller can blow easily in the arming sequence.

Does it go through the arming tone?

Matt

 

[jag]

All Castle Controllers are bench tested before they leave the Castle factory.

If it is shorted between two leads, yes it is blown. However, I have never seen a blown controller behave that way. But, there is a first time for everything.

Does it go through the arming tone?

Matt

Yes, the tone sequence goes like this:
Power on: Audio chirping then counts out cells as expected.
Then when I try the throttle the motor does the vibration and the ESC gives either the 1 beep or 4 beep motor anomaly error. However, I tried with both the Astro and another motor (with higher Ri and I know works), so it is not motor.

I'm guessing that the ESC does not know that high side FETs on white phase are shorted. It tries to start the motor, but current is shunted over blown FETs instead of motor for part of the sequence. ESC detects over current and reports motor fault. Makes sense?

In hindsight I should have maybe first tried with an easier motor than the quite low Ri Astro 4t. However, that's what I intended the ESC for, and of course I was excited to try it out on the bench when I got the ESC yesterday

If it is, indeed, blown, I would say that is from bench testing with that puny power supply. If you supply the controller with very low amperage, you can easily blow the controller just by the motor chirping to arm.

I know it sounds like these things are very fragile. They really are not. But, any controller can blow easily in the arming sequence.
Matt

So on power up it makes the audio chirp *and* also delivers a pulse to the motor?
The Castle manual is short and sweet, but therefore also not very detailed.

I guess pulsing into a low Ri load is going to be inherently dangerous. I just plugged the Castle output to the motor, so those leads where short. However my power leads to battery and Meanwell were longer, and neither the Meanwell nor the battery were low Ri, so there could have been some voltage spikes there if the caps on the ESC wasn't damping those successfully.

I thought I was being gentle by having absolutely no load on the motor. I was just trying to start and test run the motor with nothing attached.

Are you supply the 5 volts it needs to run. It does not have a BEC (battery elliminator circuit)

...

Yes, I powered the servo tester with 5V separately and tested the servo tester output before plugging into ESC.

 

[deVries]

If it is, indeed, blown, I would say that is from bench testing with that puny power supply. If you supply the controller with very low amperage, you can easily blow the controller just by the motor chirping to arm.

So on power up it makes the audio chirp *and* also delivers a pulse to the motor?
The Castle manual is short and sweet, but therefore also not very detailed.

I guess pulsing into a low Ri load is going to be inherently dangerous. I just plugged the Castle output to the motor, so those leads where short. However my power leads to battery and Meanwell were longer, and neither the Meanwell nor the battery were low Ri, so there could have been some voltage spikes there if the caps on the ESC wasn't damping those successfully.

I thought I was being gentle by having absolutely no load on the motor. I was just trying to start and test run the motor with nothing attached.

Assuming your wiring/connections are correct, the problem is 99% to 100% certainty, imo :wink: , that you used the Meanwell. That is a powerful ESC & expects high amp draw to the motor from the battery. Hobby King warns that ESC's will easily burn-up & fry with a low battery not charged properly or an older worn-out battery. I posted that quote from HK in another thread recently.

The ESC is designed for the opposite of this:

Since the Meanwell is current limited I thought that was a better safety measure than a battery pack.

ESC's are designed to pull high AMPS from batteries that can provide that high amp feed instantaneously. I've never heard of anyone using a Switching Power Supply to do that, since the ESC will want high AMPS burst & continuous as the Astro/RC motors spin-up & will suck far higher current/amps than what the Meanwell can provide. Your Meanwell can't provide the burst or continuous AMPS & will fry the ESC, imo.

 

[spinningmagnets]

Matts and deVries posts above reminded me...found the link in my files, it was for a "no-spark" plug-in circuit, right way and wrong way:
http://rc-monster.com/forum/showthread.php?s=2f3773be6c700e445e288d08a74dd3ed&t=16456&page=2

"...The no-spark resistor itself doesn't cause the problem, it's the limited current being drawn while arming (beeping the motor). When the resistor is hooked up, the MMM attempts to arm, but when it does so, it tries to pull more current. When the current increases, the voltage drop across the spark resistor increases which reduces the voltage at the ESC.
Somehow, the MMM doesn't like the fluctuating voltage..."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

http://scriptasylum.com/rc_speed/nospark.html

"...Important Note: Do NOT use this circuit on the Castle Creations Mamba Max or Mamba Monster speed controllers. Due to the way these controllers are designed, using this no-spark circuit may render the unit inoperative. This has been confirmed by Mr. Patrick del Castillo, president of Castle Creations..."

 

[jag]

Thanks for all the insights. I guess I should have posted before trying. Though it is difficult to anticipate everything that could go wrong.

To the average EE is definitely counter intuitive not to limit current an energy when first testing something. I worked on industrial controllers for large asynchronous motors. We would always test the controller with no load on the motor and keeping an eye on currents. B.t.w. these controllers had inrush current limiting, just like most modern switched equipment I see (like PSU's)

From deVries and spinningmagnets posts I realize what might have been unfortunate, but I didn't know. When I tried a battery pack I choose one that was pretty much discharged beacuse I thought that I wanted to limit possible energy to the ESC and motor in case something was wrong. At first it didn't arm the controller. I charged the pack a little more. then it armed, but wouldn't run. Then I charged more, tried again, and got the more violent vibrations. I'm thinking this might have been worse than the Meanwell. The MW cuts quickly and cleanly so there would never had been much energy delivered. I've tested other controllers with the MW and never had a problem. By contrast, the batteries could probably deliver a lot of current and energy, even though they were at first pretty low charged, and at the end at most half charged. The test leads I had connected them with got hot when I connected and tried with the battery, and battery voltage would swing from 48V (off the charger) to 8-9V when the motor had its vibration fits.

Of course I had no idea of the issue of high impedance batteries/power sources. There's nothing in the users manual that the ESC will draw extremely large amounts of current on startup.


Anyhow. I'm not sure if this broke it or it was broken before trying. I would have gotten the same result whether it was broken before, or broke when I plugged it in. Will have to try to call Castle and see what they think.

 

[deVries]

When I tried a battery pack I choose one that was pretty much discharged beacuse I thought that I wanted to limit possible energy to the ESC and motor in case something was wrong. At first it didn't arm the controller. I charged the pack a little more. then it armed, but wouldn't run. Then I charged more, tried again, and got the more violent vibrations. I'm thinking this might have been worse than the Meanwell. The MW cuts quickly and cleanly so there would never had been much energy delivered. I've tested other controllers with the MW and never had a problem. By contrast, the batteries could probably deliver a lot of current and energy, even though they were at first pretty low charged, and at the end at most half charged. The test leads I had connected them with got hot when I connected and tried with the battery, and battery voltage would swing from 48V (off the charger) to 8-9V when the motor had its vibration fits.

I found that statement from Hobby King:

Some of our customers may be unaware of the damage caused to an ESC by a poorly functioning LiPo. If your LiPo is worn out, of poor quality or damaged, do not connect it to an ESC/Motor combination that will push the battery to it's limit. ESC's require a power source that can constantly supply the power needed to open/close the mosFET's in the ESC. A poorly performing battery will cause the FET's to stay open causing the ESC to burn or overheat. Yes, a low voltage or low C battery can damage your ESC!

 

[Kepler]

Thats a real shame Jag. Sorry to hear that. Always hard to take when it seems like you are doing the right thing. Hopefully you can get a replacment quickly and without too much hip pocket pain.