[NSRCA-discussion] Help - Toasted ESC + Battery

[Jeff and Claire]

Unexplained ESC problems happened two weeks in a row-  any ideas why?

Last week- motor shut off near end of flight as if ESC hit low voltage
cutoff.  Only the ESC would not reset. Resulted in off-field landing and
broken out landing gear.  Got to the plane and the ESC was doing the slow
beep (which I think is normal when it's been left on and Tx is off) as
opposed to the type of beep indicating it hit low voltage cutoff. Battery
pack still had 26% remaining, no low cells.  Hacker Q80-11s, Castle HV80
ICE2 (3 years old, unknown # flights), SkyLipo 4400

So I repair the landing gear and install a new OS 1100HV ESC. 1st flight
everything seems fine. Early into the second flight there's a loud screech
during power-up after pulling from a vertical down line. Again, no power.
(was not using brake, had not tried it yet).  Swung around to land and
opened the canopy to find new ESC burnt to a crisp and battery toasted too.
This time Hobby People 4500's, a month old with 15 cycles.  Checked balance
connectors to find one 5s had one cell left, the other had 2 cells left.
Blobs of solder fell out as I removed pack from plane.  Not sure, but maybe
these came from the soldered connections inside the pack. Can see a blob
still stuck inside.  

Checked motor using same Castle ESC from last week, and it seems to run
fine.

Can what appears to be an operating motor cause an ESC to burn up?  
Can a lipo pack cause an ESC to burn up? 
Or did the ESC just fail and take the battery with it?       

Any ideas why this happened or how to avoid in future? Ok, all but the ones
about switching to YS!  :) 
Jeff Worsham
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