so this has been driving me absolutely insane. i've gone through three ESCs in about four weeks and i can't figure out what i'm doing wrong. the first one i chalked up to a bad solder joint on the motor lead, which fair enough, my soldering was pretty rough when i was first learning. but the second and third ones went the same way and my joints look fine now, i've been using flux and everything.

running 2306 motors rated for 4S, using a 45A 4in1 ESC which should be way more than enough headroom right. the motors dont feel hot after flying, the ESC just gets warm to the touch before it lets out the magic smoke. flying on 4S 1500mah packs, not doing anything crazy just sort of mid-throttle cruising and some mild freestyle. i feel like im missing something obvious here but i genuinely cant see it

check your motor screws. i know that sounds unrelated but if a screw is too long it can nick the windings and cause an intermittent short that just murders ESCs over time. pull each motor off and look at the inside of the bell. also ? and this might be it ? are you running any capacitors on the battery lead? if not, voltage spikes on hard throttle chops can absolutely fry ESCs even ones that look oversized for the application. a low ESR cap soldered close to the XT60 pads does wonders, its like a 50 cent fix that people skip and then wonder why they're burning gear.

yeah cap on the battery lead is probably it tbh. i fried two ESCs before someone told me about this. also worth double checking what firmware your ESC is running and whether the motor direction settings are correct in BLHeli ? i've seen desync cause all kinds of weird heat issues that dont make sense at first. though if its actually smoking its probably the cap thing more than desync