Castle Creations XLX-2 just released

[phildogg]

I have seen a few fires on FB. That being said I was a beta tester and most of the testers pushed these esc hard! I myself saw a 600a log or really close to it. I have in my possesion 4 xlx2 right now and have ran 3 of them. One is still in the package but i will install it in a car soon. Glad to hear Castle has found the issue and they will stand behind their product. I don't understand why anyone would let a car burn on purpose other than clickbait.. The esc is awesome guys don't be afraid to pick one up.

 

[robert@castle]

I have seen a few fires on FB. That being said I was a beta tester and most of the testers pushed these esc hard! I myself saw a 600a log or really close to it. I have in my possesion 4 xlx2 right now and have ran 3 of them. One is still in the package but i will install it in a car soon. Glad to hear Castle has found the issue and they will stand behind their product. I don't understand why anyone would let a car burn on purpose other than clickbait.. The esc is awesome guys don't be afraid to pick one up.

We didn't experience any of these fire issues with the Beta units because they were hand built by engineering so we had slightly higher QC than we can manage on the production lines. The fires are not being caused by excessive load on the ESC, they are just shorting out the battery.

 

[3d-rc.myshopify.com]

@10:45 he talks about us lol he broke another 1. I'm still saying 3200kv is too high for that esc.

 

[Yas]

Kevin's appeared to have shorted under load. He was prepared this time to prove the shorts are not staged. I'm skeptical if these shorts are due to an apparent KV limit, because he didn't get the opportunity to apply full throttle. I did hope he'd try the second XLX2 with a lower KV motor first though. It's reasonable to suspect they're faulty units

 

[jondilly1974]

Kevin's appeared to have shorted under load. He was prepared this time to prove the shorts are not staged. I'm skeptical if these shorts are due to an apparent KV limit, because he didn't get the opportunity to apply full throttle. I did hope he'd try the second XLX2 with a lower KV motor first though. It's reasonable to suspect they're faulty units

He hasn’t had any issues with the MAX5 or MAX6, so the issue clearly is the XLX2. Really glad mine didn’t pop like that. There were rumors of people smoking lipos during beta testing.

 

[wills2095]

I think the fact that he tested the hobbywing ESCs in the same way as the XLX2 and the XLX2 immediately popped validates the fact that there is indeed an issue. If there is a KV limit that needs to be established it should be in the product info page. I love castle products and have run them in my RCs for years, however they dropped the ball on this one and need to own up to it. Definetly not an isolated issue either, before Kev's videos came out there have been fires reported in numerous facebook groups I'm a part of. I don't think all these people could be faking it, and they are running them with the motors included in the combos (800kv and 1100kv 2028)

It's understandable that there is an issue that needs to be resolved, however getting on forums and denying it is not the right way to handle it. Not sure who's steering the ship at Castle these days, but the Castle I'm familiar with would do right by thier customers and try to keep their reputation by recalling these ESCs and getting back to the drawing board.

 

[m4inbrain]

I noticed he ran smart sense without sensor (the entire harness was missing), could that increase the amps pulled?

I also don't believe for a second that the ESC doesn't have a KV limit (just that it isn't stated anywhere).

He hasn’t had any issues with the MAX5 or MAX6, so the issue clearly is the XLX2. Really glad mine didn’t pop like that. There were rumors of people smoking lipos during beta testing.

Eh? There's a thousand reasons why this could've happened without claiming a lethal flaw in the ESC. Talbot being one of them. I don't believe that he faked either fire (though the first one struck me odd too - i do put it down to "okay, never seen it happen this way but might not be impossible"), and the second clearly was authentic - but there's always the fact that Talbot is very British Leyland about stuff (in case you don't understand the reference - it refers to cars built by british leyland back in the days, where no panel was sitting straight - because "that'll do").

For starters, he has exposed pins (sensor harness unplugged) on the board - he puts the truck in water/rain. He runs it in smart sense, without sensor harness, things like that.

I'll not absolve castle of anything, it might very well be a faulty ESC (twice) - but until there's actual evidence one way or another, this entire hysteria is just childish.

That being said: i do absolutely expect Castle to follow up on this, including contacting Talbot and replacing his ESCs (while having engineers go through the blown ones to figure out what went wrong) - and accept responsibility if it turns out to be their fault.

 

[Tinchox]

C'mon Mr Castle, do your thing.

 

[Luigibell78]

C'mon Mr Castle, do your thing.

??

 

[deezomaxima]

Not going to lie, that looks like a staged fire. I don't get how the tires would be on fire from that. Tires don't just light on fire unless there is an external fuel source or a lot of heat. The wheels would melt long before the rubber caught on fire. Not saying it can't happen, but the whole thing looks a bit suspicious to me.

We have had an above average failure rate with the XLX2 in the first batch (~5%), but we have identified the issue and put a short term fix in place while we research actual fixes for the issue so we don't have to continue using the more expensive short term fix. I'd be surprised if Kevin has one of the first batch because we didn't ship any of the first batch to international customers or retailers.

Robert, you represent Castle and with that said, how can you make a statement about it being staged? Do you think the guy spends money on your product to make you all look bad? The right thing to do would have to been to reach out to him directly and have him ship those ESCs right back to you guys to verify FIRST whether this was a product issue or not.

 

[Lukas412]

Not going to lie, that looks like a staged fire. I don't get how the tires would be on fire from that. Tires don't just light on fire unless there is an external fuel source or a lot of heat. The wheels would melt long before the rubber caught on fire. Not saying it can't happen, but the whole thing looks a bit suspicious to me.

We have had an above average failure rate with the XLX2 in the first batch (~5%), but we have identified the issue and put a short term fix in place while we research actual fixes for the issue so we don't have to continue using the more expensive short term fix. I'd be surprised if Kevin has one of the first batch because we didn't ship any of the first batch to international customers or retailers.

This is a bad look dude...

 

[Sequest82]

Just got my warranty esc back from castle....guess it will be sitting around for now.

 

[Mr.Duke]

Feel free to attack ideas but please do not attack other posters. This forum is designed to be a discussion and exchange of ideas, so please keep in mind that other people’s ideas may well be different than your own. Please keep it civil.

 

[MFM]

Aren’t these designed to handle certain kv motors? I love my 2028 1100kv. I’m geared 1:1 (40/40) in my Mojave and she doesn’t even break a sweat. I am also only running in 6s...
I wouldn’t run anything other than 1100kv on this this Esc for sure.

 

[emreyurdakul]

Is there a way to check if my xlx2 is first or 2nd batch? It says "C27964:1 11/20" on the aux wire (got it early december, ordered it late november, Germany)

 

[robert@castle]

I think the fact that he tested the hobbywing ESCs in the same way as the XLX2 and the XLX2 immediately popped validates the fact that there is indeed an issue. If there is a KV limit that needs to be established it should be in the product info page. I love castle products and have run them in my RCs for years, however they dropped the ball on this one and need to own up to it. Definetly not an isolated issue either, before Kev's videos came out there have been fires reported in numerous facebook groups I'm a part of. I don't think all these people could be faking it, and they are running them with the motors included in the combos (800kv and 1100kv 2028)

It's understandable that there is an issue that needs to be resolved, however getting on forums and denying it is not the right way to handle it. Not sure who's steering the ship at Castle these days, but the Castle I'm familiar with would do right by thier customers and try to keep their reputation by recalling these ESCs and getting back to the drawing board.

KV limit is kind of a made up metric. There really isn't a limit per say, and when you do hit a limit the motor just stops spinning faster and nothing blows up. We can spin an 4000kv 4 pole motor on 8s, but good luck finding a motor that can spin that fast and not explode. As KV goes up, torque goes down and if you don't gear appropriately is can cause excessive loads. Some people seem to think that if their car goes 100mph with a 1000kv motor, that swapping to a 2000kv motor without changing the gearing will allow them to go 200mph. When in reality they need to gear down a lot to run the higher kv motor. Another factor is that higher kv motors tend to have very low phase resistance and if they are using a lot of current at startup it can cause very high spikes of power because of the low resistance.

One issue we have identified and are looking into fixes for is running delta wound motors. We have done some testing with other brands' delta wound motors and we are kind of shocked how bad they run. Something about them just uses a lot of power. We have seen our startup beeps use 500-600 amps of power for a few microseconds. For comparison, the startup beeps on our 1100kv 2028, use about 100 amps peak. We've blown up a few monster x 8s' just trying to spin a delta motor unloaded. Our logs show an average current, but we have much faster current sensors able to show us instant current readings on our oscilloscopes. Our wye wound motors will peak ~20% higher than the average. The delta wound motors we have tested will peak ~90% higher than the average. There power usage is very inconsistent.

I handed my response to Kevin's video poorly. I'm sorry about that. There is an issue that we are actively working on that is causing some fires. My initial skepticism of Kevin's fire was more down to not trusting him rather than trying to deny there is an issue.

Also worth pointing out, that I am here on my own time. Anything I say on here is not an official statement from Castle. I am not paid to post on here or anywhere else. I just like helping people and don't like the amount of bad or confusing information that exists about RC and I'm trying to educate the internet to try to unlearn bad habits and information.

 

[Lukas412]

Having a castle email address and a castle logo as an avatar, like it or not you’re definitely representing Castle with your comments.

 

[deezomaxima]

KV limit is kind of a made up metric. There really isn't a limit per say, and when you do hit a limit the motor just stops spinning faster and nothing blows up. We can spin an 4000kv 4 pole motor on 8s, but good luck finding a motor that can spin that fast and not explode. As KV goes up, torque goes down and if you don't gear appropriately is can cause excessive loads. Some people seem to think that if their car goes 100mph with a 1000kv motor, that swapping to a 2000kv motor without changing the gearing will allow them to go 200mph. When in reality they need to gear down a lot to run the higher kv motor. Another factor is that higher kv motors tend to have very low phase resistance and if they are using a lot of current at startup it can cause very high spikes of power because of the low resistance.

One issue we have identified and are looking into fixes for is running delta wound motors. We have done some testing with other brands' delta wound motors and we are kind of shocked how bad they run. Something about them just uses a lot of power. We have seen our startup beeps use 500-600 amps of power for a few microseconds. For comparison, the startup beeps on our 1100kv 2028, use about 100 amps peak. We've blown up a few monster x 8s' just trying to spin a delta motor unloaded. Our logs show an average current, but we have much faster current sensors able to show us instant current readings on our oscilloscopes. Our wye wound motors will peak ~20% higher than the average. The delta wound motors we have tested will peak ~90% higher than the average. There power usage is very inconsistent.

I handed my response to Kevin's video poorly. I'm sorry about that. There is an issue that we are actively working on that is causing some fires. My initial skepticism of Kevin's fire was more down to not trusting him rather than trying to deny there is an issue. My first exposure to his videos was shortly after we released our line of 1406 'Slate' crawling motors. He made a video saying he bought a 1406 Slate 3800kv motor, but he actually had a 1410 3800kv motor, which is rated to 3s max. It was paired with a Mamba X ESC. He saw the rating on the Mamba X said 6s max and so he threw it in a TRX4 and ran it on 6s. Then when the motor blew up, he tried to claim warranty on it, and then bashed us for not replacing it for him. More recently he is making his dual motor car to try to beat the top speed record. He was running a pair of 12s ESCs each with an 8s battery hooked up to them and then claimed he was running 16s. He may have had 16 cells, but it was not 16 cells in series which is what 16s stands for. He then went in the comments of that video and bashed anyone who commented that it wasn't 16s.

Also worth pointing out, that I am here on my own time. Anything I say on here is not an official statement from Castle. I am not paid to post on here or anywhere else. I just like helping people and don't like the amount of bad or confusing information that exists about RC and I'm trying to educate the internet to try to unlearn bad habits and information.

Thanks for the response but you still work for Castle and people will still tie you to being a representative of Castle if your on the clock or not. Even I work for a company in which I can be held accountable for what I say and how I handle myself off the clock. Thank you for standing up and stating you did the wrong thing here. My response was edited by the mods because I kinda let loose on you so I apologize for that. All everyone here wants is to know is if Castle is going to investigate so no one is hurt down the road or burns their houses down. Tesla had to do the same thing when their cars were catching fire after collisions.

 

[rotauq]

Hey Kevin, since you are reading this anyways.
Come on dude! I tested that foam burns within 8s. Rubber tire takes much longer to start burning like that. So I make a remark in your defense and that's the line pick to mention?

Sad to see what happened with the second ESC. But with a scientific hat on, i am impressed how you filmed it this time. I take back my initial response to the video Kevin is not the best point of reference imho
You have proven that the xlx2 can definitely not deal with that motor / voltage combination.

The hobbywing has hard limits on amp draw and has a hold back when exceeding it's rpm limited. That's why the max6 is faster as it's rpm limit is about 40k (8S*1200kv) whiles the MAX5 has a limit of 33k some margin (8S*1000kv). I assume it's managed by software.
The XLX2 supposed to have 'no determined limit' on rpm limit. Now it has...

 

[sefmoon]

Regardless of semantics, or possible minor technicalities, an ESC fire has the potential to be fatal & name calling should absolutely be 2nd place to getting to the bottom of why this happened.