OK experts, what would you do about this?
I experienced an ESC failure on launch last week. The model lost all control and nosed in from 10 meters -- luckily only minor damage. When I tested the ESC afterwards, I found that the BEC stage was dead, but the throttle control still worked when an external power source was applied to the receiver.
The ESC itself is a HET 80 amp with 4 amp switching BEC. I bought it from Icare as part of a package one year ago. The model itself has 6 analog servos (no digitals), so I don't believe it was overly stressing the BEC. I mentioned this issue to Etienne Dorig today but there was no offer to replace (not that I expected such after a year).
So anyway -- I have a 5 amp UBEC that I could graft onto the non-working ESC, which would presumably make it usable. If you were me, would you do that or would you just toss the ESC and start over?
Thoughts, comments, smart remarks?
That is too beautiful, not to mention expensive, a model to risk a suspect ESC. If you have room, do a Ubec and an ESC and have a less than stressful flight.
Jack.
Since you don't know what exactly failed I personally wouldn't trust it.
Anything integrated with the ESC is subject to thermal shutdown... I have resigned to the fact that the ESCs are pretty robust these days but the secondary power supplies are usually an after thought. If they claim 3A, expect 1.5A nominal, 3A peak for less than 10 seconds. If they fail you can never rationalize if it failed because of temperature, manufacturing or the crash....
That said, external BESc are cheap as beans. Hobbyking HXT 5A BECs are less than $6. Castle Creations 10A BEC is $24( the hobbyking equivalent is in the $16 range)..
Go external, save your model.