u/Fit-Sock-394

Okay, so I picked up a Big Rock 223s a little under two months ago and I haven't been able to run it much because it kept shutting off prematurely. Hear me out... I'm new to Arrma and running 3S, so please forgive me if I sound like a rookie in what I'm about to write.

I've literally only had the BR out like 4 or 5 times since I picked it up and it was having issues where it would stop running after about 10 minutes of driving. Like I've said in previous posts, I don't jump any of my trucks and I mainly just power slide and do donuts on baseball fields.

Anyhow, I had initially thought that the batteries I was using were falling into an under-amperage condition, thus cutting the run time based on some of the posts I was reading. I typically use Zee 3S batteries, so I switched to an OVANIC 3S 5200 mah, charged it with a Gens Ace charger at 7A and pushed the total amperage of the battery to 4.2amps. Again forgive me if I am saying something wrong as this was the first time I used that charger over the Traxxas ezpeak chargers.

I ran the BR with that battery for just under 15 minutes before it quit and again I thought I was running into an under-amperage condition. So I pulled that battery and actually put in a 2S Zee battery. It ran for about 15 seconds before it died again. I gave up on that session and brought everything home.

Fast forward to today... I used the same OVANIC 3S battery charged with the same parameters and took the BR back out. This time... something super strange happened. I had steering, but no throttle at all. This left me scratching my head for a good 20-30 seconds when all of a sudden the truck started driving on its own! WTF????? No throttle input whatsoever. Thankfully I had steering otherwise this thing would have gone off and declared independence. I managed to steer it back to me (it was running at probably 20-30% throttle) and managed to pull the body and shut it off. I turned it back on... same result... I was holding it this time. Stupidly, I swapped batteries thinking it would give me a different result. Nope... I cycled the car and the transmitter... same result.

I gave up and started searching. I see this thing has an overheating problem.... which describes why it consistently shut off after only a few minutes of running. The solutions I'm seeing is having to replace the ESC and possibly the motor? With that being said... can anyone suggest a proper direction to go in? I mean, if I have to get a new ESC and motor, so be it... but can I just go the route of getting a new ESC that isn't the stock one (Firma 80A) and still use the same motor, or does it not work that way?

Thanks in advanced everyone.

Okay, so I'm an Arrma newbie and only an RC journeyman at best overall. I picked up my first Arrma a couple months ago and only recently have been able to get it out on the baseball diamonds to try it out. In fact, today was only my second time out with it.

The first time, I drove it for about ten minutes before it went into limp mode and then stopped working. Today, it lasted just over 5 minutes before doing the same thing. I've read that these and other Arrmas have massive overheating problems and temporarily die like this... but I wanted to make sure I was diagnosing this correctly. I used two different batteries for each day, both 3S 5200mah fully charged. and both times they came back appearing almost nearly spent (according to the charger I use, which is Traxxas EzPeak ID charger).

I know this is limited information, but can someone tell me an easy way to determine an overheat issue with the Arrmas versus a simple low charge scenario? The ESC was flashing red each time it stopped running (steering was still available), but it wasn't oscillating in a manner that suggested any situational codes.

Thanks in advance for any guidance.

I just checked for MERV parts on Traxxas and what I had expected has finally come to fruition. I was looking for some new rocker arm posts for one of my MERVs, but found that Traxxas definitely pulled it from advertising across their entire website. I remember seeing the Brushed version of the Merv disappear from their inventory, but parts were still available for purchase. Now, both the brushed and brushless versions are gone and so are their parts listing (from what I could find).

I guess this is officially the time to retire my MERVS and pivot to another 1/16 car for my children. Or should I just graduate them to 1/10th scale and keep it rolling? What are your thoughts?