Problems with my Novak 410 M1 esc

[RC10 Junkie]

Well heres the skinny guys and gals, I've had this little esc for ages and it has always worked like a champ until, wait for it..... I put my RC10 up for about ten years. I brought my buggy out of a box! snagged a new 3800 mah battery off of the bay, upgraded to Deans connectors and next thing I know I'm melting soldering joints on everything while the buggy is running and now it seems that I can't recalibrate the esc. Also it appeared a diode came off the esc where it says fuse on the hard case and I replaced it with the only one that I could find at Radio Shack that seemed comparable. Now when I turn the esc on I can get the solid red light /neutral ,but when I try to get full throttle and the solid green upon calibration nada. The motor will even twitch when I try to turn the steering servo. I also noticed the esc only gets power when the motor is connected. Like someone has said in other posts I could do this when I was 13, but now it's hard to do. I've been to the Novak site and gone through all of the trouble shooting, but I haven't found anything that might describe a specific component or calibration that might be the issue to address. Okay enough of my rambling and I hope that I have given enough info to help diagnose something. It's probably the nut behind the wheel. Thanks for any reply in advance. Now back to my old is new project yippeee!

[Lonestar]

The motor will even twitch when I try to turn the steering servo.

Couple of things to try:

Try switching the throttle and steering on your receiver
Try another receiver

As said earlier, "non working" vintage ESC's are hard to diagnose from behind a computer screen as the possibilities for failure are endless... is there a track you can bring this to do get "non-virtual" help

Good luck,
Paul

[RC10 Junkie]

Lone star, thanks for the reply I'll try receiver switch and plug in switch as well. I'll post results shortly.

[RC10 Junkie]

Okay switched the plug in and no change, swiitched the receiver still the same response. I even put a new plug on the esc to the receiver. It's very glitchy acting. Sometimes it's just starts without even giving it throttle. I'm not completely sure, but maybe the fact that these early esc models say that the motor requires capacitors to keep them from acting up might be the problem. When I first installed it years ago I made sure to have all of the required capacitors and had no problems. I just picked up a FUZE esc motor combo for my other runner and it's a beast. Love that thing. I'm just trying to see if I can get this booger back up and running though.

To answer the question about the tracks to take it to, I'm not aware of any close by to ask a pro what the problem might be. I'm sure my LHS will tell me to upgrade to a new esc like my other, but I kinda
Ike the problem solving process of fixing things anyway.

Thanks again Lonestar for the help.

[GoMachV]

Iirc the "fuse " on that is a solder pop. You just jumper the legs with a blob of solder. A diode may cause problems.

[RC10 Junkie]

Iirc the "fuse " on that is a solder pop. You just jumper the legs with a blob of solder. A diode may cause problems.

Great info. So should I solder the legs together then, is that what you meant by jumper? And as to the solder pop I've heard of this but wasn't quite sure what was meant. Is the solder pop something that can still be purchased and where? When I showed the internals to a LH they said it was a diode I needed so that's what I went and purchased. Thanks for the help for sure.

[GoMachV]

You literally just solder the pins together with a blob of solder. Again, its been a while but I am 95% sure that unit used the solder pop technology.

[RC10 Junkie]

Thanks for the help. I will do that. Sorry for all of the questions as I never had to fix these back in the day. I hope I can share some useful knowledge in future posts. This is a really great site full of very knowledgable and nice people. Thanks again for all of the help people.

[teman]

Here's my working M1, just solder there as mentioned

[GoMachV]

yeah my memory isnt what it used to be so I had my fingers crossed

[RC10 Junkie]

I did the old solder trick and it worked like a champ for a sec then the solder melted off as I was trying to do a full calibration. It's been a pretty frustrating little thing, but I'm sure I'll get it whipped. I'm also getting very sporadic signal activity. When the new solder joint was created everything was working great . The steering servo was working awesome and now I barely hear a buzz from it. One interesting side note. As I mentioned earlier the esc would not light up before until the motor was connected. After the solder job it was lighting up sans motor. Now the motor goes full blast when I hook it up regardless if the esc is on or not. It may be a lost cause, but I really appreciate all of the help.

[GoMachV]

If you tried the adjustment pots and cant get the motor to shut off, it may be fried- that would also explain why the solder pop fuse keeps blowing. I always set the pots with the motor connected but pinion off, just my personal preference. that way I can hear the motor but it isnt loaded. Might try unhooking the motor all together and setting the pots, make sure it advances to green at only full throttle, and goes out at neutral, and red for brake. Hopefully its just an adjustment thing.

[RC10 Junkie]

Teman, thanks for the visual.

Gomachv, I fear the old esc is shot maybe. I can't get the motor to stop with the pots and like I have mentioned the motor is going full blast when I plug it to the esc, regardless if the esc is on or not. The nice thing is seeing the motor actually topping out though. I wasn't able to get it do that when the esc was kinda working. I fear I may have exhausted all of the time and effort Im willing to commit. I would gladly give this to anyone to try and fix though. As I've said before thanks to everyone for the help.