Motor Failures

Posted by Nelson Salez on February 4, 2014 at 8:21am

After my crash, I had visible damage to the left bottom motor, as the wires got snapped off just as they entered the motor.  I have since re-assembled each arm using the side hole with a grommet, and the wires pointed inward.

Ran a motor spin test, and the Number 1 (with Frame 10 setup) twitched and pretty much didn't spin

Next, I switched the ESCs for the motors 1 and 2, and clearly the ESC was not the problem.  Had one spare motor after replacing one on the left bottom.  I attached it loosely on the ground, and it behaved correctly during the motor spin test.

So although there is no visible damage, the hard landing and sudden stop must have caused some kind of motor problem.

Anyone else experienced this?

Nelson

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Replies

    • F. C. Bearsch > Raph June 22, 2014 at 3:41pm

      Ralph are you running a FPV TX? What is your flight time and battery used?

      How did you pull the amp draw is in in the flight log? Or just from the screen reading

    • David Chong > Raph June 21, 2014 at 8:27am

      Raph,

      With the 800Kv Tiger motors, can you reuse the motor mounting plates on the Y6 to mount the Tiger motors?

      With 17-22amp hover, does it mean that you cannot reuse the 3DR 20Amp ESC? Did you get the T-Motor T18A or T30A ESC instead?

      David

    • Raph > David Chong June 21, 2014 at 5:59pm

      Hi David,

      I was not able to use the circle mounting plates, but the motors come with an "+" shape mount which works perfectly. I can take a picture if you're not sure.

      17-22amp hover for all 6 motors is what I meant; that's ~3.6amps per motor so we are way below the threshold. I am using afroesc (30amp)

      Best,

      Raph

    • David Chong > Raph June 22, 2014 at 8:24am

      Thanks Raph.

      Thanks Tearig. I guess in my haste to get to the field, I installed the 11'' props upside down on both the bottom front motors.

      I have re-installed the props correctly and going out to the field tomorrow to do another hover flight test.

    • F. C. Bearsch > David Chong June 19, 2014 at 11:12am

      My DIY kit had a faulty PDB and one bad ESC, 

      I diagnosed from directly connecting motors and then plugging through the PDB

      I also found a bad ESC, just would twitch a motor... Possibly it could be repaired? idk I am in the USA and 3DR promptly replaced it....

      If this sounds familer you can see my threads and comments tracking the problems I found, ultimatly I think you could use any 20amp ESC with the same specs and firmware SimonK , if need be you can make or relate a PDB... But before all the check all the motors and ESCs direct with a battery...you may find a bad joint ... I felt my solder skills were great but found some porosity in some dirty solder to also give me issues... Be sure to check this simple thing first... I do not like using a voltmeter rather make sure the components function in the assembly... Then if their is issues you can track with a voltmeter

    • David Chong > F. C. Bearsch June 19, 2014 at 9:49pm

      Thanks Tearig

      I did an "all-in-one" ESC calibration and all the motors are spinning. In this ESC calibration, I usually put the throttle to the half way mark and let the motor spin for 5 to 10 minutes.

      So in my case where the "all-in-one" ESC calibration passed, do I still need to a do a manual ESC calibration for the suspect ESC/Motor pair?

      I probably have to bring it to the field and do a low altitude hover to see whether that motor fails again.

       

      The reason 3DR CS suspect the PDB is because that was the board that they did not replace when I return my Y6 to them at the beginning of this year for the same motor issue. They resolve the issue by replacing all 6x ESC/Motor pairs.

      The PDB I have on my Y6 is an older version - there are not Deans connector to connect to the ESC and the ESC has no bullet connectors to connect to the motors, it's all soldered on from PDB to ESC to Motor.

    • F. C. Bearsch > David Chong June 20, 2014 at 9:01am
      You did more than me.. I just made sure they all spun and in the right direction.

      My pdb is the new one with deans/tplug

      What I found was a bad ESC and a bad pdb... Which 3dr replaced promptly after I did a video showing the problem.

      I would suggest doing a video documenting the issue. I have found many times it is a order of operations issue .. Meaning possibly there is a step missing but I am not sure..

      This is a pain but I would try and test each ESC and motor separately with a bat Rx/tx... And see if it is all OK..

      Then do the same with the PDB. Ultimatly a new PDB is less than $20 and I would not be surprised that if you got it, and you make a video showing that this fixed the problem that 3DR would provide a credit for the problem.

      Ultimatly they have been amazing for me, Armando, Lilly and Fernando seem to be both knowledgeable and well trained as I got quite frustrated with the issues that I had with new equipment and they address each one as well as I could have asked...

      Happy to help... Let me know what you find... Also where are you located?
    • F. C. Bearsch > F. C. Bearsch June 21, 2014 at 3:55pm

      You definitly have a issue... What size props and is this the 3dr y6?

      Really the issue could be a few things... Was there allot of vibration plus noise? If so I would check all the props for balance.. And make sure they are on in the right direction... I know when I went through the preflight check I noticed on of my props was on upsidedown on the bottom motor... I had actually flown the day before to test and just felt like the copter needed to be trimmed out but then I saw it was the prop...

      The motors on mine are the 850kv or 880kv blue motors from 3dr and I think it may be less than 50% throttle for hold hover even fully loaded with gimbal FPV equipment and a 4000 mah 4s battery...

      I would not rule out a power delivery issue... If it was the motor amp draw could really make them heat up if the power is intermittently removed even for a brief ms

    • David Chong > F. C. Bearsch June 21, 2014 at 8:04am

      Thanks Tearig

      I figure with all the 6x motors spinning after an ESC calibration, I will bring my Y6 out for a hover flight test. There is definitely some issues with my Y6.

      Here are my observations:

      1) My Y6 was very sluggish - I usually put the throttle to mid-point and the Y6 is able to lift off the ground.
      This time the throttle had to be moved to around 70% to get the Y6 off the ground.
      2) My Y6 will usually stay in the air for 10 minutes on a fully charged (4200mah) battery.
      This time it was only able to stay in the air for about 5 minutes and I was not able to keep it in the air even with full throttle.
      I tested this twice and both times the max flight time were 5 minutes each.
      3) After the 5 minutes of flight (hover), I try to find out whether the motors were hot.
      - The two motors at the back were warm to touch
      - All 4 motors in front were very hot to touch but still able to hold it for 2 seconds except for the intermittent faulty motor which was hotter than the other 3 front motors and it was so hot I was not able to hold it at all.
      4) I also notice my Y6 is noisier than usual and I feel the motor bearings maybe about to give way.

      The 3DR CS person helping me with my Y6 issue is Francisco.

      I am located in the sunny island of Singapore. My photo shows the "Marina Bay Sands" casino building in Singapore which is own by Las Vegas Sands Corporation. It's one of the two casinos in this city state of 4+ million people.

      David

  • F. C. Bearsch May 25, 2014 at 4:56am

    Building a DIY y6 I am having issues with not all the motors spinning after radio calibration and ESC calibration, one motor will twitch, seems to be a bad ESC as I switched it to another motor, and it did the same..

    Could half of the esc's on a new kit be bad? I have check solder joints, and did resolder but the solution is evading me...

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