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So I got this very nice looking Novak T4 ESC. Looks barely used. It works, sort of, but not real well. I popped it open to clean it up, and I found these terminals, or tabs, or whatever you want to call them, right in between the red battery (+)/motor (+) and the blue motor (-) wires. The one bent at 90 degrees looks to have partially melted solder hanging off of it. What are these, are they to be soldered together or connected some other way, not connected, and could they be the cause of the problem? Any thoughts?

a 3 wire t4? i don't think i've ever seen one.

I thought T4 was a single board. Might that be a later novak? Maybe one that had a solder fuse?

Looks like a solder pop fuse but like scr8p, never seen a T4 with three wire or removable top circuit board. You sure it's not a M1?

Here is the case from the ESC. What you see is all that I know about it. I picked it up from another member here along with some other gear, so I have no clue on this little guy's history. I do have another good working T4, but with 4 wires. Maybe I should pop it open and see what secrets it can reveal?

that is really strange. I just looked in my stash of stuff and yep, my T4 is a single board. The M5 I have the power wires exit from the 'top' rather than the side of the unit, so it's not an M1 or M5.

Maybe it's a really late T4, but those little wires look really like the solder-pop fuse Novak had for a while. This has my curiosity, so I'm gonna do a little digging. See what I can find.

Hey wow, broke the 4k post mark with this thread!!

Anyway, I think given the two boards, the solder pop fuse, this may be a 410-M1c(spf) with a different enclosure. I can't quite tell from any pictures if the M1c (spf) has a single brake FET, but that would be the only thing that would not indicate the M1c(spf). The regular M1c without solder pop fuse runs the wires out the 'top'.

the two boards tells me it's one of the novaks high frequency units, which the standard T4 was not.

so that's a nifty little speed controller you have there.

Congrats on the 4K post milestone! That takes some dedication.

So, if the answer to my question is that the terminals are a solder fuse and that there is likely something else wrong to cause it to fail, if I resolder them together, then the ESC may be "fixed"?

Its interesting that this ESC seems rare. First because I never get lucky enough to find something rare, and secondly because this is the exact ESC that Novak shows in the T1/T4 manual: http://teamnovak.com/file_download/1299712885T1_T4_Instr.pdf I'm going to perform some more research, too, and see what all I can uncover.

Thanks for the input!

one thing i don't see, well...... two actually, are the 2 red wires in the grommet that would be soldered together (outside of the case) for 4 cell operation. maybe one wire should be soldered to each post.

just a thought, i don't know for sure.....

I noticed that those two wires were missing as well. I didn't know if they should be missing or not on this particular ESC. I never thought of them attaching to these posts/terminals.

The guts do not match the case for a T4. Either someone revamped it, or novak did. Maybe they had an update program when esc's went bad? That's definitely a newer board than a T4 had

Hi, I also have one of those late run T4's. It also has the solder pop fuse that later models had. It came as a 3 wire, with the second red coming back out of the Tamiya plug. This one was butchered and needs new power wires, not going to rewire until use is found for it. Enclosed some pic as well.
regards
Philip

well, that answers that.....

Definitely solder the fuse mate and see how it works, I am kinda surprised it worked at all without it being soldered properly... Like filzemail just posted you never know sometimes with running changes and the like you can still learn something new...

I'm blown away. Never seen a t4 updated like that. Good info tho, and that's what it's all about