High speed water crash left two floats bobbing in the water

[ic-racer]

Comparing the servo circuit boards, the new one has some bigger driving transistors. The old blown transistor has been removed from the old board, I was looking for a new one on a junk servo, but wasn't sure if it was PNP or NPN.

[ic-racer]

I soldered the servo lead to the new board.

[ic-racer]

Then assembled it partially to re-attach the potentiometer senosr leads.

[ic-racer]

I put the motor in and got it ready for the final soldering.

[ic-racer]

All done, however, the motor winds up like a spring. Too bad, so I'll put this aside for another day when I come across a servo motor somewhere. At least this servo has a spare set of gears that I can harvest if needed.
I wonder what the "QC" on the bottom of the motor means. Quality Corrupt?

Wonder if it is worthwhile to send this servo back to Align since the seal on the servo has been broken? I don't want to send the new board I just installed or gears or case as these are all good. What if I just sent the bad part; the motor?

[JuanRodriguez]

What's the cost of a new servo ?

[Raleighcopter]

Originally Posted by ic-racer

Comparing the servo circuit boards, the new one has some bigger driving transistors. The old blown transistor has been removed from the old board, I was looking for a new one on a junk servo, but wasn't sure if it was PNP or NPN.

Flip a coin. You really have nothing to lose.

[ic-racer]

$49 for new servos and I bought three already. The circuit board was $9.

[ic-racer]

Originally Posted by ic-racer

ESC works but the BEC heats up to 150F at rest. So it is probably toast also. New one on the way.

More information on this curious Hobbywing Platinum 100A V3 Brushless ESC w/10A BEC heating. I think the BEC is the gray square on the bottom of the device. It gets hot at rest when power is connected. I don't recall if it got hot before the water crash, because the ESC was mounted with the gray square down.

Turns out every other function of the ESC still works fine after the water dunk. I have 20 flights on it since I took it apart and scrubbed the oxidation (new one has not arrived yet) and can't find any fault.

I even found this review of the HW 100 V3 where a user complains of the heat at rest. This makes me think the heat is normal for this device:

The elememt looking out of the housing at the bottom of this esc gets extremely hot even if BEC is more or less unused. Dont think, that this bec is able to handle more than 0.5A if so much. I am angry to use this BEC and will change over to a receiver battery.

But still bad feeling with the unused BEC getting that hot up to near the melting point of solder. So for the first flights, I only will hover because i am angry that the esc quitts work due to extreme overheat of the bec part

.

This is probably a moot point because I think this ESC is outdated and might not be available in the future. My replacement was only $50. The reason I like using it, however, is that it has good specs on paper and it fits the 500X very well! Unlike the HobbyWing V4 replacement, which is larger.

[Krager]

Originally Posted by ic-racer

I think the BEC is the gray square on the bottom of the device. It gets hot at rest when power is connected.

That would not be unusual. The switching regulator within the BEC still uses some power when idle so it can generate some heat even if it's not powering anything. For lower voltages it's usually not noticable, but for 6S I wouldn't get too concerned about it. Should not get too hot to touch though.

[ACITceva]

Originally Posted by ic-racer

More information on this curious Hobbywing Platinum 100A V3 Brushless ESC w/10A BEC heating. I think the BEC is the gray square on the bottom of the device. It gets hot at rest when power is connected. I don't recall if it got hot before the water crash, because the ESC was mounted with the gray square down.

I even found this review of the HW 100 V3 where a user complains of the heat at rest. This makes me think the heat is normal for this device:

Yes I have a Platinum 100A V3 and it also gets pretty hot at rest. I've actually never noticed it IN the helicopter because it's between the frames and I normally don't touch it.

But I did notice it during the build when I had it out of the helicopter and plugged into my PC for programming (with the 6S lipo attached to it).

Otherwise works fine though - and as you say it seems to be pretty common for that ESC according to forum posts.

[ic-racer]

New Hobbywing Platinum 100A V3 Brushless ESC came in the mail. It shows the same heating behavior at rest as the one that was dunked in the water. So both are good.

I have an old Great Planes U-can-Do aircraft that could use the extra ESC for a brushless conversion. It would take the same batteries as the T-rex 500x.

Otherwise, I don't know what to do with old planes. No one really wants them; they are hard to sell or even give away.

[MariaFan]

Originally Posted by ic-racer

New Hobbywing Platinum 100A V3 Brushless ESC came in the mail. It shows the same heating behavior at rest as the one that was dunked in the water. So both are good.

I have an old Great Planes U-can-Do aircraft that could use the extra ESC for a brushless conversion. It would take the same batteries as the T-rex 500x.

Otherwise, I don't know what to do with old planes. No one really wants them; they are hard to sell or even give away.

I would give it a good home.

[ic-racer]

Originally Posted by MariaFan

I would give it a good home.

So I ordered a brushless motor from HobbyKing and a mount and actually got them in place on the U-can-do firewall.

I took the fuel tank out and my T-rex 500X batteries fit in there. Just need to find a way to secure them.

I took out the old FM receiver and put in an extra S-FHSS receiver to run the plane from my Heli controller.

I programmed the ESC to "Airplane Mode" and dropped BEC voltage down to 6V for the old servos.

I actually fired it up in the shop (without prop, of course) and it works!

I'm excited, I have not flown this plane (or any plane) since 2012.

[MariaFan]

Excellent!!
Let us know how the maiden goes.