Arrma Granite/Fazon Voltage 2WD ESC Stops Working

[rinconchuck]

Looking for advice. I purchased as christmas gifts a total of 8 Granite/Fazon Voltage 2wd cars this last christmas for grand children.

Everyone of them has displayed the same problem. They run with full batteries for about 3 minutes and then stop. The steering still works and upon inspection, the ESC led is blinking as if it is a depleted battery problem. However, the batteries are not depleted. Switching the ESC-Receiver off/on will return it to working condition for about 45 sec to 1 minute. I can take the battery (Nimh 3000mah) into my trusty old Associated RC 10 and that car takes off. The heat sink on the ESC does not even seem warm.

I bought these from Horizon Hobbies through Amazon.com. Has anybody any insight as to what might be going on, other than defective ESC's? Since these cars are located in 3 different states, it is going to be a real pain to have to collect them and send them all in.

In addition, we had one catch on fire with the Lion batteries, which made a nice mess and made me get Nimh batteries and upgraded chargers for all the kids. The car that had the fire still works, but the battery compartment is melted and will never see a Lion battery again. I have also had to replace Outdrive cones on transmissions.

I got these because there seemed to pretty good reviews on them, but unless I can find solution for these problems, I am going to be really sorry that I bought them.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

 

[Notorious J]

Looking for advice. I purchased as christmas gifts a total of 8 Granite/Fazon Voltage 2wd cars this last christmas for grand children.

Everyone of them has displayed the same problem. They run with full batteries for about 3 minutes and then stop. The steering still works and upon inspection, the ESC led is blinking as if it is a depleted battery problem. However, the batteries are not depleted. Switching the ESC-Receiver off/on will return it to working condition for about 45 sec to 1 minute. I can take the battery (Nimh 3000mah) into my trusty old Associated RC 10 and that car takes off. The heat sink on the ESC does not even seem warm.

I bought these from Horizon Hobbies through Amazon.com. Has anybody any insight as to what might be going on, other than defective ESC's? Since these cars are located in 3 different states, it is going to be a real pain to have to collect them and send them all in.

In addition, we had one catch on fire with the Lion batteries, which made a nice mess and made me get Nimh batteries and upgraded chargers for all the kids. The car that had the fire still works, but the battery compartment is melted and will never see a Lion battery again. I have also had to replace Outdrive cones on transmissions.

I got these because there seemed to pretty good reviews on them, but unless I can find solution for these problems, I am going to be really sorry that I bought them.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

You may want to check and make sure the esc is programmed to Nimh or Nicad. You did not mention that you did or didn't, and that would be a first guess.

 

[rinconchuck]

Sorry, I was carefull to move the battery type plug when I changed battery type from Lion to Nimh.

 

[Mockduck]

I have not had any bad luck like this, although I did have a Fazon Voltage ESC break after some decently hard bashing and needed to replace it. The stock two-lithium ions run for about 8-10 minutes, so are pretty short. Sounds like you got a bad batch, though.

It may be worth, one at a time, re-pairing the controller and ESC. This is done by turning on the controller first, then pushing down a small pin button on the ESC until it blinks and makes a sound. Read up on it in the manual.

 

[rinconchuck]

I have not had any bad luck like this, although I did have a Fazon Voltage ESC break after some decently hard bashing and needed to replace it. The stock two-lithium ions run for about 8-10 minutes, so are pretty short. Sounds like you got a bad batch, though.

It may be worth, one at a time, re-pairing the controller and ESC. This is done by turning on the controller first, then pushing down a small pin button on the ESC until it blinks and makes a sound. Read up on it in the manual.[/QUOTE

Thanks, I'll try that tonight. Let you all know if it helped.

 

[GRspeed]

Mistakenly entered text, please ignore and see my response below.

 

[GRspeed]

FWIW, two things:

#1) I'm 44 without grandkids and can barely see the writing to indicate where the battery-type jumper needs to go, so check, check, and recheck.

#2) the scenario you described is EXACTLY what our cars did when the battery voltage got low and the ESC cuts off the engine to prevent LiPo battery damage/fire from over discharging. Your scenario of fire sounds exactly like that happening.

It is highly unlikely that they all have the same issue. It is likely to misread LiPo and LiIon and then misplace the jumper. I've taken a little dot of paint on a brush to indicate where our jumpers need to be.

 

[rinconchuck]

GRspeed, thanks for your reply.

I have checked the settings for the esc and they are correctly set with the jumper. That being said, I am re-addressing the low voltage possibility. Also, I received an email from Armma that basically said this is normal, if I run the trucks off-road on grass, as the ESC's overheat after about 3 minutes. Armma does want me to send them pictures of the melted battery compartment of the car that had the battery fire. The battery that caught fire was one of the Lion single cell batteries, which caused me to convert all the cars from the Lion cells to Nimh packs. I do not know how the battery was oriented regarding +/- in the car as it was at my grandsons home when it happened. Armma also wants to see my invoices for the cars.

I had previously ordered a new Nimh battery from an ebay vendor and it tested out okay. Since that one tested out okay, I ordered 8 more from the same vendor for the 8 cars I gave as christmas gifts. The cars would then run about 3 minutes and quit. So I tested one battery of the 2nd batch of batteries by giving it a full charge and then discharged it on my Triton Charger. I found that the new batch of batteries only discharged about 199 mah. So the second batch of batteries are probably all bad. I have just picked up two new batteries from a local hobby shop and I have an ESC cooling fan that I will install on one of the combo receivers/ESCs. I will test them out to see if it really is a battery capacity problem or an overheating problem.

I do have to note that had I known that these cars ESC's overheat after 3 minutes of running off-road on grass, I probably would have bought another brand. This is a starter car and younger kids are the most likely users who are going to go to a park and run them on grass.

Hopefully, this is just a battery problem and I can chalk it up to another bad vendor from China selling poor quality Nimh batteries and not Armma. I will let you know what I find.

 

[GRspeed]

We've run ours through and over grass at a local park. We only did this in spurts as we were on and off a gravel path ring around the field area. The grass we ran on was maybe 3"-4" high and it was wet, which makes it even harder for the cars.

Because of the higher ground clearance and larger tire footprint, my Voltage Granite had less difficulty trudging through this surface than my son's Voltage Fazon did.

All that said, we didn't have the issue with the ECU shutting down to protect itself from heat damage. This makes me wonder, what kind and height of grass were you all driving through? Do you have a picture of the surface?

 

[rinconchuck]

GRspeed,

Well, as it turns out, to paraphrase Wil Smith, I am the Stupidest smart person I know! It turned out to be the batteries that I bought my grand-children. I was able to test out a new 5000mah Nimh battery in one of my grandson's Voltage Granite today and it ran for 25 minutes before it ran down. All of this was done at flat out racing. So the problem all along was just as the car indicated, low battery! The Nimh batteries that I bought online, from a chinese vendor (very low price) were rated at 3800mah, but on my Triton charger, only discharged to about 200mah. Soooo, the fault is all my mine in regards to the battery.

In regards to the Lion battery that came with the Voltage Granite, that caught on fire, Arrma was very graceful and have offered to replace the car. So at this point, I am very satisfied with both the car and Arrma's response to the fire (Armma by the way calls it a thermal incident). So all I can say is well done Armma!

Now all I have to do is buy seven more of the better quality ($$$) batteries for my other 7 grandchildren!

Thanks to all who responded!

 

[GRspeed]

Glad to hear the happy ending

 

[Lukesrc]

Good to hear ?