Electrical issue

[secrtwpn1]

Recently, my Blueback ran well at our latest lake outing. However, I had an electrical issue towards the end of the day. So, when I got home, I tried some trouble shooting. When I turned everything on, the ESC would not come up. My system has the Mtroniks Viper Marine 10 ESC and a Sombra SL8 receiver.

I switched out radios, programmed the SL8 to it, same thing.

I switched out receivers (one I bought from SubTech, now I believe carried by Nautilus models). The radio is a Vex 6 channel. Same thing, but now everything works intermittently. I do not as yet have a BEC connected. When I wiggle the connections to the receiver, the ESC works for a moment, then shuts down. When I had the Subdriver open, I cleaned up my solder connections on the motor and bought a tool to crimp the bullet connectors.
Batteries are fully charged

Could my ESC be kaput?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!!

Farlan

[bob_eissler]

Check the wires with a Volt/ohm meter. It sounds more like a bad wire or connection. Usually an ESC works or it doesn't, not usually intermittent unless a voltage drop is triggering a failsafe.

[secrtwpn1]

It was suggested to add a BEC.....

[crueby]

The viper 10s have been known to fail, most here in our group have switched to the 20s and issues have not recurred. Even on motors with stall currents below 10, we've seen issues on the smaller vipers. Worth a try if you can get another one to test with. Disconnecting a motor lead is worth a test too.
Not sure from your description, but if wiggling the wire from esc to rx makes it work briefly over and over, could well be a broken wire inside that lead. Splice in a new lead there?

[salmon]

Farlan,
I started to go to a dedicated BEC on some of my subs because of the Viper built in one have glitches when running. As mentioned earlier if wiggling a wire makes it work, hmmm that does sound line a break in the cable or it resets the built in BEC. When you ran your wires, did you use solid core or multi strand wire?
The first thought for me, as already suggested, is use a separate BEC. We can make all sort of suggestions, but if that is the source, no matter what we offer, it will not help the BEC issue. You can disconnect some of the servos and demand on the BEC and see if there is any improvement.
Peace,
tom

[lhdockyard1]

It does sound more like a wiring problem being intermittent such as it is. Usually when the vipers go bad they are bad for good. For testing purposes you could also try connecting a 4 cell (dry cell or rechargeable) to the receiver (that way you don't need to worry about a BEC). Remember, when connecting up a separate source of power to the receiver, either a separate pack or another bec, remove the red wire from the viper receiver connector otherwise bad things will happen.

As an aside, as Chris mentioned the Viper 10's appear to be very susceptible to spikes and surges from the motor. They really should not be used on anything larger than a 380 motor no matter what current is being drawn. Unless the small size is desperately needed we never use less than a viper 15