Posted by Mr Gecko on September 24, 2013 at 4:59pm
Hey guys,After having a few problems with ESC and motor connections, everything is working now (well maybe not battery life).Question I have is, did you all cut the bullet connectors off and solder the ESC wires to the motor wires? I've seen it recommended and wonder if this will help efficiency.I'm a little addicted right now at least 4 flights a day. Two over lunch and then two in the evening :)Cheers,Mr Gecko
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I removed the bullet connectors and also saved about 100g. I had two badly soldered bullets which would of definitely failed at some point, and for some reason the motor bullets used this weird silver 'solder' i've never seen; looked awful. i'm really happy now knowing all solder points are now 100%. thanks for pushing me to do this!
In the future I will always check all the bullet connectors, if not removing them altogether. it's upsetting that you can't trust this stuff, but better to take the time and be sure.
OK so smallish update. I found that all of the bullet connectors had dry joints and one of them was so dry, the wire pulled right out of the bullet... no wonder it was temperamental!
I'm going to send a picture into 3DR, hopefully it was just mine. One of the ESCs seems to be damaged from the experience so I ended up transferring 4 of the motors/escs to a DJI 450 Flame Wheel. Man that thing is stable :)
So far I've had 3 different motors cut out in flight. One was my fault as there was my flux left on the blade of the deans connector that inhibited the current. The other two were likely bullet connectors that came from the supplier with funk on them. It seems like black magic problem solving why it dips and darts after 2 minutes of rock solid hover. Today I actually saw one blade come to a complete stop in flight. All I can say is I think that a Y6 was a better choice than a Quad as a Quad would have flipped and crashed multiple times in my learning process.
Tonight I redesigning the layout so that the wires are not exposed on the ends of the arms and there are no stacked esc's. I am left with 6 to 8 inches extra on each motor. Tomorrow I'll do one more conformation that it went back together correctly and then will remove the excess wire and bullet connectors. When done I will weigh it and see the difference with a bonus of knowing that bullet connectors are not the cause of future motors cutting out.
The bullets help if you need to remove motors or ESC. I remove them to save weight. Just like the NASA space program, every gram counts. Remover 12 bullet connectors can save you 50 grams.
Replies
I removed the bullet connectors and also saved about 100g. I had two badly soldered bullets which would of definitely failed at some point, and for some reason the motor bullets used this weird silver 'solder' i've never seen; looked awful. i'm really happy now knowing all solder points are now 100%. thanks for pushing me to do this!
In the future I will always check all the bullet connectors, if not removing them altogether. it's upsetting that you can't trust this stuff, but better to take the time and be sure.
OK so smallish update. I found that all of the bullet connectors had dry joints and one of them was so dry, the wire pulled right out of the bullet... no wonder it was temperamental!
I'm going to send a picture into 3DR, hopefully it was just mine. One of the ESCs seems to be damaged from the experience so I ended up transferring 4 of the motors/escs to a DJI 450 Flame Wheel. Man that thing is stable :)
So far I've had 3 different motors cut out in flight. One was my fault as there was my flux left on the blade of the deans connector that inhibited the current. The other two were likely bullet connectors that came from the supplier with funk on them. It seems like black magic problem solving why it dips and darts after 2 minutes of rock solid hover. Today I actually saw one blade come to a complete stop in flight. All I can say is I think that a Y6 was a better choice than a Quad as a Quad would have flipped and crashed multiple times in my learning process.
Tonight I redesigning the layout so that the wires are not exposed on the ends of the arms and there are no stacked esc's. I am left with 6 to 8 inches extra on each motor. Tomorrow I'll do one more conformation that it went back together correctly and then will remove the excess wire and bullet connectors. When done I will weigh it and see the difference with a bonus of knowing that bullet connectors are not the cause of future motors cutting out.
It might help with reliability, but impact on efficiency is close to zero.