One motor gets extremely hot

Posted by Paul on January 1, 2013 at 11:08pm

I have an issue with one of my motors thats getting extremely hot. I changed my ESC's and battery yesterday to 4S. Before I used ESC's and 3S battery on the same rig, without issues. Its a quad, X configured, but now the back rightside motor get so hot, I can barely touch it, and its within about a minutes flight.

I double checked everything I can think of (the ESC's is 3S-4S, the motors are for 3S-4S). Its just the one motor. I initially thought it was because of a CG problem, but double checked that, leveled the quad a couple of times and still no change. If the CG was to the back, shouldnt both back motors get warm?

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

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Replies

  • Paul January 5, 2013 at 2:33am

    My Quad

    NTM 1000kv motors, 3S 3300mah battery and 30A esc. These are 11" props, but also tried my original 10" props, same thing. Total weight of the quad is 1.4kg and the thrust per motor should be around 0.8kg

    per motor. Only thing different is that i've reloaded the APM firmware/software. Would this make a difference?

    3692583079?profile=original

  • Paul January 5, 2013 at 2:28am

    Now i dont know what to do next, I've exchanged everything back to the old ESC's, old motors and old battery and still the right back motor get extremely hot!

    All the APM stuff is done, leveling, radio calibration, etc.

    I maybe thought it could be because of mag drift that its trying to correct the whole time, but all electronics is about 4cm away from the APM.

    Im at a lost. Could it be that there is maybe a PID setting that is causing it?

  • Paul January 2, 2013 at 12:16am

    Update: Changed out the motor and still having the same issue. The ESC on that side also seems a bit hotter than the rest. Im using a seperate BEC for the power of the board etc, so disconnected the power cable on all ESC's.

    Are my thinking correct that if the CG was more to the back, that both back motors should get hot, not just the one?

  • Moderator
    Graham Dyer January 1, 2013 at 11:29pm

    Motor binding somehow or bad motor? Motors get hot because they draw more current, usually because they're loaded up more and convert the extra power into heat. Sometimes a motor shorts inside and while it will still run it will draw a lot more current. If it gets very hot it will brown then burn the laquer on the windings, some magnets used in our motors demagnetize at 120-140°C.

    But to eliminate anything else try swopping the ESC on that motor (or move the motor to a different arm)? I presume there isn't more weight on that side?

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