Neither of these have been installed on my wildthumper as yet, but I did a propper connection to a gearmotor and usb to SMC program. After about 5 sec. I noticed smoke coming from the battery, were the + leaves the last battery and it melted small hole in caseing. Disconnected and after cooling down battery I connected the motor direct to battery and no heating. Any suggestions? It appears that the wire and battery shorted, but under 10x magnification the wire is not compromized ,only the heatshrink. Thanks folks
Thank you sir for your reply. Enclosed is a photo of the failed battery it was wired properly to a 18v15 Pololu SMC and connected to smc center threw USB. I have two seperate SMC and batteries as I’m wanting to control a wildthumper and a tank type robot via RC. After connecting up the first unit to smc center I played around and got a feel for the program. Then I connected the second unit up. I turned my eyes to the computer screen and out of the corner I noticed the smoke and quickly unpluged. After opening this up to see if I could find out what went wrong it appears that the heatshrink was a little too short and allowed the wire to short to the outside casing. Not quite enfough for a novel, but close! Bill
Hi willy_p and welcome to the RobotShop community forum.
Smoke is a bad sign indeed and almost always means a short-circuit. It is hard to tell what you had been doing wrong from your description but if you submit some wiring diagrams or picture, we might be able to help you out.
Heat-sinks can indeed create massive short-circuits if they contact wires or other electrical components since they are usually grounded.