Y6 Hot motors and ESCs

Hi, just been testing my Y6 with it's new 6000mah 4S pack and noticed the motors are getting hot. This is affecting the bottom motors more where if you touch them on the base, non rotating part, they are too hot to touch for more than a few seconds. The rest of the motor is hot but can be held without issue.

To check I did another flight with a 3S 4400mah setup and the motors were again getting hot, not as hot but the flight time was 5 mins vs 13 mins.

It's also worth noting with the 4S setup the ESCs were also getting hot, again after a 13 min test flight.

The flight itself basically consisted of a 13 minute hover in loiter mode, I was testing battery times, and consumed 5000mah. The weather for the UK was hot, 25 deg C. The Y6 is a new 2014 B version weighing 1900 grams or so, std config plus 600 gram pack, with std 10 inch props and 850 blue motors.

And finally to the question, is this normal of does something sound wrong?

The only thing I can think I haven't done is balance the props, guide for this would be handy, but I have no vibration issues looking at the data log.

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Replies

    • Does anyone have a link to a good write-up of what's involved in using the NEO-M8N?  I'm not finding much concrete beyond specs on it.

  • Two test flights with the Sunnysky 690kv motors has shown promise.  For one, no more motors overheating!  I've attached pics of a few log analysis printouts, the BIN file and a URL to share the video of the Y6B in hover testing.

    http://youtu.be/Ds2i1POnPME

    3701870001?profile=original3701869682?profile=originalThe motor snap shots are

    - upper image is motors 1,3, & 5

    - lower image is motors 2,4, & 6

    2014-11-09 15-20-26.bin

    • Doug,

      congratulations to succesful flight. What is the weight of your Y6b during this flight? It seems to be quite heavy because it takes nearly 38 Amp @ hover. 

  • Hi All,

    Rebuild of my Y6B is complete and initial flight test were a bit rough as I need to take it up and perform a Autotune.

    The good news is I was able to increase flight time by 8% and the motors I ran in a hover never showed any heating issues.  

    Tomorrow I plan to video it in flight and I will post my logs for all to review.  

    The Y6B is running Sunnysky 690kv motors with 12 x 3.8 CF propellers.

    Will post more tomorrow after flight tests.

    3701869382?profile=original

  • I received my new props yesterday and slapped them on.  I took Hubertus Paetow’s suggestion and installed APC Thin Electric 11 x 4.5ep for upper (850kv) motors and 12 x 8e for the lower (690kv) motors.

    Took it for a flight today and everything went well until an unexpected roll to the left while in Loiter mode and subsequent crash approximately 4 minutes into my flight.  See attached “.bin” log.  At this point I do not know what caused the crash but it wasn’t from the props.  So I have to figure out what caused it to roll over.

    On a separate note: log analysis shows that the combination of props lowered my over PWM on lower motors from 1675 PWM down to 1550 PWM.  This is significant in that at no time did the motors hit max PWM while in Loitering as it did when I ran 10x47 upper and 11x47 lower motors.  So I’m pleased to see a power and performance improvements. 

    On a seperate note, the upper motors were a little warmer than normal and this is probably due to going with a bit large propeller and the lower motors were ambient in temperature.

    Now to figure out why the crash.

    2014-10-12 14-02-23.bin

    • Doug,

      I´m not a log-expert but as far as i can see it is a sync problem that caused the crash - are you still using 3dr ESCs? I had similar problems with a set of bull-tec 25A ESCs so I reverted to the 3dr 20A.

      Perhaps this is caused by the larger props.3702525243?profile=original

    • Trouble shooting the problem and I discovered that the 850kv left upper motor's rotor/windings worked its way up the output shaft and was rubbing the motor casing.  This caused the upper motor to drag which is one possible reason that the copter rolled.  However, I thought the Y6 was designed to use the other motor to compensate in case of a failure.  In this case it didn't. 

       

      After replacing the upper motor I performed another ground run up test and discovered another potential issue.  This time the new 690kv motor on the lower left side was making a clicking noise.  Further analysis showed nothing apparent with the motor casing, windings or output shaft.  I performed a blown down of the unit with my compressor in the garage but the click still persists.  I also noted that while running the motors around 12-1300 PWM that they started to cut off and on again.  Something like a short or ESC issue.  This only happened on the left side and both top and bottom motors showed independent but sporatic behavior. 

       

      At this point not sure what's going on.  Plan to pull lower motor and replace it and conduct another ground run-up test.  If at that time problem persists, I will pull both ESC and recal and perform run-up tests again.

       

      This is peculiar.  Has anyone run into anything like this?

    • Also found out that the ESC for the lower left motor stopped working!  So I have decided to pull all motors and ESC and build a new y6B using 690 Kv Motors for upper and lower arms.  I also will be replacing all ESCs as well.  The build is near complete, waiting on new ESC from 3D Robotics.

      I'll post photos of the build this evening.

    • Hello Doug

      Great to hear that you are rebuilding the Y6B with 690KV motors for top and bottom arms.

      For me I wanted more flight time and am thinking of replacing the 850KV motors on my Y6A with Turnigy Multistar 650KV motors and 12" props.

      Can you share your eCalc flight characteristics for Y6B build?

      May I know why do you want to stick with the ESC from 3DR?

      David 

    • @David...  I have not investigated other ESC at this time.  I decided to stay with 3DR's ESC for now.  There may be a point when I will branch out to other ESCs, but my main goal was to rectify the motor heating issue.

       

      On a seperate note.  The 3DR ESC I'm using while testing the 690kv motors has shown low heat build up and is significatly less than when I ran the 850kv motors.  As my test progress from hover tests to all out aggressive flying, I will post my results on both ESC and Motor temps.

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