Ripmax RTF DG-1000

[David Hurst]

       Having returned to model flying after a long break after walking into my local model shop, I bought a brand spanking new DG-1000, Early flights were with a friend to set trim and mixes etc and all was well. I noticed that on a couple of occasions the battery pack was getting very warm but not having dealt with Lipo batteries before I concluded this was probably normal.

       Yesterdays flight was a little more dramatic. From a hand launch I climbed out to about 150' and leveled out. I was just about to throttle back to stow the engine when I lost total control over my new plane as the engine died! The park I was flying at is right next to the sea front and my lovely DG was slowly floating out to sea, strangely with smoke coming out the bottom. 

      To cut a long story short, She came around slowly and hit the water 100' off shore (The beach was packed so some blessing there) was recovered by a nice lady in a sailing dinghy. A very smelly hole was burnt through the fuselage, all around the ESC. 

          Is this normal with this model and has anyone suffered similar fate. . .Did I do something wrong by doing a full throttle climb for that duration? 

       I'm glad I bought the DG locally as it was replaced FOC by the shop but my battery and reciever were fried in the incident. Probably something to do with being immersed in sea water for 20minutes.  

[David Ashby - Moderator]

Hmm, it could just be a component failure David, what prognosis did the shop offer?

[David Hurst]

Prognosis was ESC faliure. General consensus is that the ESC is inadaquate for the job in the first place. Too small and jammed into a tight space.