Brushless on fire, twice.

[Riz]

Well, my friend bought a Losi brushless 9400kv for his Mini-baja. He got a 3s Lipo with it. We called the hobby shop he got it from and he said this battery will work perfectly. First run we used the stock battery. It ran very slow and about 5 mins in, it did a thermal shut down.

Changed the settings worked better but again shut down. Put the 3s Lipo in. 5th run with the Lipo the ESC catches fire. Called Losi, got a new ESC.... catches fire again.

I checked the C ratings, they're fine.

[ahDuckit]

I bet that was cool in a very uncool situation. you got any pics of it catching fire

[crawlin_and_riden]

hmm this is strange because the fact that it keeps happening over and over and the fact that your not overloading it correct?.

[moby]

my opinion and experience never put a 3S on a 9400KV
it will burn every time
take the 6000KV or drop it to 2S will do much better
my 2 cents

[Riz]

Well, those were my original thoughts as well, but the guy from the Hobby shop said it will be just fine. So we thought it was just a defective ESC, until the second time.

Sorry no pics :l
First time it happened, we thought it would be fine becuase it was his 5th time running it with the lipo
2nd time it went into flames I wasn't there, He phoned me to tell me though.

I told him to get a Mamba ESC.

[moby]

Well, those were my original thoughts as well, but the guy from the Hobby shop said it will be just fine. So we thought it was just a defective ESC, until the second time.

Sorry no pics :l
First time it happened, we thought it would be fine becuase it was his 5th time running it with the lipo
2nd time it went into flames I wasn't there, He phoned me to tell me though.

I told him to get a Mamba ESC.

be carefull even the mamba will fire up with 9400KV on 3S

[Xcelorin_Brian]

Riz - Sorry for your friend's problems. If you look at our 1/18th scale sensorless motor manual you can see that we recommend caution when running a 9400Kv motor with a 3 cell lipo (see gearing charts on page 2 from the link below) and constant monitoring of the temperatures of the ESC and motor. We don't recommend going higher than 14t on the pinion or you risk damaging the ESC. For maximum enjoyment, runtime, and longevity I would stay in the green zone of our gearing charts. 3S with a 9400Kv motor is frankly overkill for most situations. If you're not getting the speed out of the stock battery or a 2S lipo, I would try gearing up a bit. Brushless motors like to be geared, but watch temps and don't exceed 160F on the motor or ESC. Good luck!

http://www.losi.com/ProdInfo/Files/1-18SensorlessMotorManual.pdf

[Ashley Williams]

Using such a high power system can put alot of strain on the system. He only had to have soemthing a little tight and the gearing wrong and it can cause the system to overheat and catch fire.

A