Well I don't have any pics as I already handed the cars over to their owners but I installed them into two different GV Cages. One of them had the original ESC go up in flames 30 seconds after power up (taking out the lipo and most of the plastic in the rear) and the other my friend bought as a roller.
Anyway first impressions weren't all that good. There is no real way of mounting this ESC to your car other than Velcro or servo tape. I guess you could make some sort of a bracket to hold it but there are no screw holes on the bottom of the ESC or any tabs on the side that you could use to secure it. Everything else don't look too bad from the exterior.
Interior was a bit of a let down too. Some of the traces on the PCB looked a little iffy and one of the ESCs had a loose piece of solder inside of the casing. That could have been disastrous if ran like that. Could have easily caused a short circuit. Other than that it looks just like any other ESC but I have to say that it looks a lot like a Castles MMM internally. Well to me anyway.
Soldering was next and the included 10awg wires seem pretty good quality and gave no issues being soldered to the posts. Just make sure you use a pretty powerful iron. I put some heatshrink around each post which made the whole thing look very neat and factory looking.
On the programing side of things it resembles the MMM ESC even more. In fact you can pretty much just use the Castles instruction manual and no, I am not kidding. Tx end points are set the same way as the MMM, it can also run brushed motors and the wiring setup for that is same as the MMM, it also beeps every ten seconds just like MMM......the list of similarities just goes on. Not that it is a bad thing but I can understand if Castle is a little ****ed off with the manufacturers of this ESC. Anyway ESC is easy to set following the instructions (yes you get them and they aren't too bad. Not the usual Chinglish) and the programing card.
Running it was another deja vu. I swear you can close your eyes and gently ease onto the throttle and it sounds like your motor is being driven by a MMM ESC. I mean it has that typical MMM smoothness (well about as smooth as non sensored ESC gets). My Xerun and ZTW ESC kind of lurch forward with the smallest throttle input wheres my MMM can move very slowly without cogging. Same here with the Trackstar. It just does that little squeal and ever so slowly rolls forward. Brakes were very smooth and progressive. Very easy to control but if slammed on hard will lock up. Honestly if you swapped one of these with your MMM you probably couldn't tell a difference in terms of operation. Also it really has a nice and smooth power curve. Feels very controllable. Response to the throttle input is instant but smooth. Was very pleasantly surprised here.
So is it worth the $68? Hell yeah (and then some) but don't expect the same quality as the Castle MMM just because it has similarities with it. Yes they share a lot in common but I doubt you are going to get the same level of quality with an ESC that goes for more than twice the price of the Trackstar. Also you are going to get much better support from Castle if you do have any issues but the Trackstar will be pretty much a throw away job if anything was to go wrong. Also QC wouldn't be even close here given the fact that there was a loose piece of solder in one of them. Still a surprisingly good unit for the price IMO. If it holds up I might even favor this ESC over my ever dependable HW Xerun. It is definitely smoother start up than the Xerun in non sensored mode. I might get one my self and really put it through it's paces to see how it stacks up to some abuse.
I will try to post some photos of the ESC installed next time G-VWOW comes over to my place. Till then just refer to Hobbyking website.
Edit: On Hobbyking site this ESC is listed as 150A with 250A burst ratting. According to the instructions that is wrong. The burst rating is 950A which is more like it for a car ESC. Just thought I would throw that in there.
Anyway first impressions weren't all that good. There is no real way of mounting this ESC to your car other than Velcro or servo tape. I guess you could make some sort of a bracket to hold it but there are no screw holes on the bottom of the ESC or any tabs on the side that you could use to secure it. Everything else don't look too bad from the exterior.
Interior was a bit of a let down too. Some of the traces on the PCB looked a little iffy and one of the ESCs had a loose piece of solder inside of the casing. That could have been disastrous if ran like that. Could have easily caused a short circuit. Other than that it looks just like any other ESC but I have to say that it looks a lot like a Castles MMM internally. Well to me anyway.
Soldering was next and the included 10awg wires seem pretty good quality and gave no issues being soldered to the posts. Just make sure you use a pretty powerful iron. I put some heatshrink around each post which made the whole thing look very neat and factory looking.
On the programing side of things it resembles the MMM ESC even more. In fact you can pretty much just use the Castles instruction manual and no, I am not kidding. Tx end points are set the same way as the MMM, it can also run brushed motors and the wiring setup for that is same as the MMM, it also beeps every ten seconds just like MMM......the list of similarities just goes on. Not that it is a bad thing but I can understand if Castle is a little ****ed off with the manufacturers of this ESC. Anyway ESC is easy to set following the instructions (yes you get them and they aren't too bad. Not the usual Chinglish) and the programing card.
Running it was another deja vu. I swear you can close your eyes and gently ease onto the throttle and it sounds like your motor is being driven by a MMM ESC. I mean it has that typical MMM smoothness (well about as smooth as non sensored ESC gets). My Xerun and ZTW ESC kind of lurch forward with the smallest throttle input wheres my MMM can move very slowly without cogging. Same here with the Trackstar. It just does that little squeal and ever so slowly rolls forward. Brakes were very smooth and progressive. Very easy to control but if slammed on hard will lock up. Honestly if you swapped one of these with your MMM you probably couldn't tell a difference in terms of operation. Also it really has a nice and smooth power curve. Feels very controllable. Response to the throttle input is instant but smooth. Was very pleasantly surprised here.
So is it worth the $68? Hell yeah (and then some) but don't expect the same quality as the Castle MMM just because it has similarities with it. Yes they share a lot in common but I doubt you are going to get the same level of quality with an ESC that goes for more than twice the price of the Trackstar. Also you are going to get much better support from Castle if you do have any issues but the Trackstar will be pretty much a throw away job if anything was to go wrong. Also QC wouldn't be even close here given the fact that there was a loose piece of solder in one of them. Still a surprisingly good unit for the price IMO. If it holds up I might even favor this ESC over my ever dependable HW Xerun. It is definitely smoother start up than the Xerun in non sensored mode. I might get one my self and really put it through it's paces to see how it stacks up to some abuse.
I will try to post some photos of the ESC installed next time G-VWOW comes over to my place. Till then just refer to Hobbyking website.
Edit: On Hobbyking site this ESC is listed as 150A with 250A burst ratting. According to the instructions that is wrong. The burst rating is 950A which is more like it for a car ESC. Just thought I would throw that in there.