Hobbywing XR10 Pro G2 Failure
Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2020 10:09 pm
I've been using various Hobbywing esc's for a couple years now and have been a big fan of their products. My No prep street eliminator drag car is powered with the latest hobbywing XR10 Pro G2 with the wifi module I purchased and installed it less than 3 months ago and absolutely loved it. It's powering my Fantom 4.5t Icon V2 motor. Everything performed flawlessly until our last list race about 2 weeks ago. During one race, at the launch, the car had a "hiccup" off the line. Amost like the 2 step you get when a sensor wire has gone bad. I checked the sensor wire and the throttle response of the car as soon as I got back to the pit and everything appeared to be fine. I finished out the day of racing with no more issues. As many of you know, we've had some serious fires over here in Oregon and the air quality has been horrible. It finally started clearing up a bit here in Medford and I took the opportunity to do some test hits with my car at my favorite spot. My daughter was doing super slo-mo videos of my car at launch to test the grip of various brands and tire compounds. On the third set of tires, after a short carpet burnout, I set the car at the line, pulled the throttle, and------nothing. I took the car back to my tailgate pit area and inspected everything. Nothing was obvious except there was some kind of major failure with the esc. I unplugged everything until I got home and started to go through every type of test I could think of. Replaced the sensor wire, wired up a different motor----no change. Also the esc problem was not consistent. At one point, after resetting all the throttle end points, it refused to turn off with the switch. I had to unplug it. After coming up with no solution, I decided to take it to my hobby shop which is a hobbywing dealer. When I soldered back up the fantom motor and tried to turn it on, it made a horrendous noise out of the motor and a small wiff of smoke. I yanked all connections immediately. Now, apparently, hobbywing only has a 30 day warranty on their electronics now. My lhs is putting in the return claims. They happened to have one on the shelf, so I bought another one. Installed it the next day, only to find that the previous esc meltdown had fried my wifi express module. No light came on and the unit became hot to the touch after about 20 seconds. After installing a mild tune in the new esc and verifying there was no damage to the motor, I returned to my spot to do some passes. Everything looked really good and after installing my second battery for the night, I did a short burnout, set it on the line, pulled the trigger and--------you guessed it, NOTHING! This time it would still work depending on where the motor was rotated, so I thought maybe a motor problem. After talking with Fantom, I ran the motor through all the tests on an analyzer and it tested perfectly. The problem was a second burned out esc. $500 worth of hobbywing electronics burned up within 3 days.
Now I know I've been long winded here, but I wanted to eliminate the questions of how, why, what I did wrong, etc. Here are the facts. Nothing was ever wired incorrectly, neither esc or the motor ever got anywhere near hot (usually around 90 degrees for the esc and 105 for the motor, although the motor got up to about 150 when the first esc burned up), the overheat safeties for motor and esc have never been changed from the factory setting, I only run quality 2s batteries and a flash pack, And the motor is well within the rated capability of the esc. Both esc's and the wifi express are in the process of being sent back to hobbywing. I can only hope that their customer service is as good as I've heard they are. Anyone else heard of anything like this?
Now I know I've been long winded here, but I wanted to eliminate the questions of how, why, what I did wrong, etc. Here are the facts. Nothing was ever wired incorrectly, neither esc or the motor ever got anywhere near hot (usually around 90 degrees for the esc and 105 for the motor, although the motor got up to about 150 when the first esc burned up), the overheat safeties for motor and esc have never been changed from the factory setting, I only run quality 2s batteries and a flash pack, And the motor is well within the rated capability of the esc. Both esc's and the wifi express are in the process of being sent back to hobbywing. I can only hope that their customer service is as good as I've heard they are. Anyone else heard of anything like this?
