Kraton BLX185 up in smoke

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L3 RC

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Arrma RC's
Took the new Kraton out for for its 3rd run ever and after about 15 minutes of running, it stopped responding.

I assumed one of the connectors on the battery disconnected, but as I walked to check it out, I started to smell this sweet electrical smell and noticed some light smoke. I quickly got the body off and sure enough, the esc was smoking. Luckily I got the batteries disconnected quick enough and the smoke stopped.

Grrrrr

Very frustrating to have this happen on the 3rd run of a brand new car.

Guess it's time to grab an mmx2 and sell the warranty replacement
 
Just for infos, what was your Lipo setup? Any adapters? 4S / 6S? Brand + C rating?
What was your gearing (Pinion/Spur)?

I'm pretty sure it was a bad ESC anyway, but I like those infos from people with a defect part.
 
5s - 7600mah - 75c
Nimh cutoff mode with voltage alarms on both batteries.

Oh and whatever gearing there is straight out of the box
 
Hope you get it sorted and suspect this is an isolated incident (fingers crossed).

Not even used mine yet!
 
Last edited:
Batteries were new hobbystars

Was running the out of the box pinion so I think that's 12.

Terrain was packed/loose dirt
 
I'm not a pro, but I can't see what else it could be then. Faulty ESC it is :(
 
That sucks! Has there been many issues with blx185? I haven't even ran mine yet and that makes me want to gt a different brand.
 
From what I've read, the 185 is a much improved ESC over the 180. I'm thinking mine was just a fluke.

With that said, I still ordered the MM2 ESC for it. I'm accustom to Castle stuff and I like that it can auto detect 5s and I'm not stuck running alarms.

I do have to say, aside from this little snafu, this car is an animal. Granted, I've only got 30 or so minutes of run time into it but it flat out flies.

I've got these little plastic skateboard ramps and I set them up in the same place that I have always for my other cars...

I hit them with the kraton for the first time and was dumbfounded at how high and fat this thing flew.

And the way it handles...steers...etc...everything I have been looking for!
 
Awesome! I will run mine till is quits i guess. In the past I was running Teken and the RX8. Granted they were 350.00 but in the four years I owned it I had it in three different cars and never had one issue. There support was very easy to deal with and it had a lot of torque. Probably what I will go back to if this one dies. So are you just switching out the esc? because that might be the way to go. I only had one castle and that was in my losi 5t. I converted it to electric and the motor was the size of a pop can!
 
Yep! Just the ESC. The motor seems to be just fine to me. Plenty of power. Looks good. I see no need to remove it right now
 
I have two times the BLX 185 and they are fine. As in all electronic products, it fails early, or it last. @L3 RC got a defect, this happens. It's a rebranded Hobbywing and the original has a nice reputation, this is a rare case, nothing to panic about.
 
Yep! Just the ESC. The motor seems to be just fine to me. Plenty of power. Looks good. I see no need to remove it right now

I just ordered a tekin esc. Either for back up or what ever. Direct result of money burning a hole in my pocket.
 
I just ordered a tekin esc. Either for back up or what ever. Direct result of money burning a hole in my pocket.
I put a tekin gen3 esc and t8 motor in my tekno. If I quickly full throttle and break My truck bunny hops. I have only run it on 4s. Tekin is awesome. Wish they made it waterproof.
 
I put a tekin gen3 esc and t8 motor in my tekno. If I quickly full throttle and break My truck bunny hops. I have only run it on 4s. Tekin is awesome. Wish they made it waterproof.

I agree! Been running tekin for years and IMHO the best on the market by far!
 
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