A costly failure

[sihinch]

Last week, while visiting TEMAC, I attempted to fly my Dara EF1 plane. On the first flight my battery was not good and I landed dead-stick on the first circuit.

On the second flight, on about the 3rd circuit, I also started to loose power so set up for a landing. I'd forgotten how well these planes glide and unfortunately had a bounce when landing. It came down a little hard and I bent the landing gear and broke the prop.

After retrieving the plane, when I got back to the pits, the ESC let out the little white smoke of surrender! I wasn't really sure what had caused it but didn't think too much about it. I just assumed I'd need to replace the ESC.

During my repairs and tear-down this week I found it was a very costly failure.

The motor was stiff to turn and the windings show signs of burning out. The ESC is obviously toast but so was the receiver and the 2 aileron servos. All dead. No response to power and one servo seemed seized.

So what I thought was just an ESC needing replacement turned out to be new motor, new ESC, new receiver and 2 new servos. So a total retail cost of about $300!!!!

[Frank v B]

If you can make it to this Sunday's BBQ bring your re=powered EF1 racer and I will bring my Pogo.  After that, we can settle our differences with the Nooners.   

Frank