My first Quadcopter - Short circuit?

Steve George`

Steve George`

Member
Hi all,

I need some help. Recently, I've been trying to build my first quadcopter, however have encountered a few problems, which I have been struggling to solve.

I'm using a Naze32 flight controller, and I have been using clean flight to calibrate it. The Naze32 board works, at least the gyro does when plugged into my PC. When I proceed to calibrate the motors with throttle etc, my PDB burns out as soon as I plug the battery into the circuit. My initial thoughts were perhaps a short circuit? I'm relativity confident all my components are rated OK (ESC's rated higher than my motors etc etc). On further evaluation, I noticed my ESC's do not have BEC integrated, and all four are powering the Naze32 Board. Could this be the issue?

Are there some common newbie problems that can occur? Am I missing something extremely obvious?


Best regards


Steve
 
Steve George` said:
Hi all,

I need some help. Recently, I've been trying to build my first quadcopter, however have encountered a few problems, which I have been struggling to solve.

I'm using a Naze32 flight controller, and I have been using clean flight to calibrate it. The Naze32 board works, at least the gyro does when plugged into my PC. When I proceed to calibrate the motors with throttle etc, my PDB burns out as soon as I plug the battery into the circuit. My initial thoughts were perhaps a short circuit? I'm relativity confident all my components are rated OK (ESC's rated higher than my motors etc etc). On further evaluation, I noticed my ESC's do not have BEC integrated, and all four are powering the Naze32 Board. Could this be the issue?

Are there some common newbie problems that can occur? Am I missing something extremely obvious?


Best regards


Steve
Click to expand...
Give some more info on the power system, like 3S LiPo, and what are the ESCs designed in regards to voltage. Also what do you mean by shorting out? Usually a short with a LiPo involves fire, smoke and some melted metal near the short.

ESCs usually have a Diode connected across the positive and neutral which acts as reverse polarity protection; if you have reversed polarity it shorts at the diode before it gets further in the ESC.
 
Hi, thanks for replying.

I bought the majority of things from hobbyking. The links below will take you to the parts I purchased. Also, I didn't buy them blindly, I did some calculations etc etc (Possibly incorrectly since somethings going wrong haha), however some of the items are likely to be overkill for my primary objective which is to get it to fly.

Frame: S500 Glass Fiber Quadcopter Frame 480mm - Integrated PCB Version
Flight Controller: AfroFlight Naze32 Rev6 Flight Controller (Acro)
Motors: Turnigy Aerodrive SK3 2822-1275 Brushless Outrunner
ESC's: Turnigy Multistar 10A V2 ESC with BLHeli & 2A LBEC 2-3S V
Battery: Turnigy 3000mAh 3S 20C Lipo

When I say shorting out, I mean there was some smoke and the copper strips of the PDB melts/breaks just before the first ESC. Which by the sounds of it, from your description, its the polarity causing this. However, I did initially think this was the issue (I had been an idiot) and went back over my circuit. Everything seemed to be soldered up correctly. I'm pretty new into electronics, and didn't cover it alot in my degree (MSci Physics), but am I correct to assume that the energy stored in the battery can only be drawn from a load, aka motors & flight controller in this scenario. And so is it the motors that narrate the ratings for the rest of the circuit? e.g The Motors I bought are rated at 8A MAX, therefore the maximum amount of current being drawn in the circuit will be 8A? hence a 10A ESC is perfectly rated?

Thanks

Steve
 

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Do you have a continuity tester? I'd suggest checking to see if the solder on one of the ESc's wires is touching something it shouldn't. A lot of those PDBs built into the frame are close enough to short if you use too much solder in a joint. I'd suggest checking that and perhaps de-soldering the ESCs and testing the PDB it'self to see if it has some manufacturing error or short that you missed.
 
I need to purchase a new frame (PDB) anyway (Its a mess from repairs etc), but I shall try the continuity test on all my solders before advancing. I shall keep this thread open and updated if that's okay in case I still have the issue?
Jackson said:
If there is no BEC there is no powering.
Click to expand...
^^ Also, I will be changing my ESC's to an integrated BEC, and follow some tutorials online to help me wire that up to the flight controller correctly.

Thanks!
 
Steve George` said:
I need to purchase a new frame (PDB) anyway (Its a mess from repairs etc), but I shall try the continuity test on all my solders before advancing. I shall keep this thread open and updated if that's okay in case I still have the issue?

^^ Also, I will be changing my ESC's to an integrated BEC, and follow some tutorials online to help me wire that up to the flight controller correctly.

Thanks!
Click to expand...
The BEC just steps battery voltage down to a voltage the flight controller and other subsystems can use (usually 5v). You could buy a BEC seperate to avoid getting any more ESCs. Confused on what you mean by short and the PDB burning out though. Is there heat, smoke, or a fire?
 
These are great thanks! So i'm guessing the BEC/UBEC doesn't have anything to do with this shorting problem?

So i assume its shorting, it may be something completely unrelated. But it does show the typical signs of a short. When I plug in my battery, there is a quick spark/noise between the connections, very soon after, smoke starts to come from the PDB, around where an ESC is soldered (No fire, unsure about heat but id assume there is. I wasn't too keen on putting my finger to it to feel it after it happened). The copper tape breaks, thus breaking the circuit. The photo below you can see the postie terminal for the battery, and the broken copper tape above & right of it. This didn't occur anywhere else.
17888785_10158663515360352_924042794_n-jpg.2603
 
Steve George` said:
These are great thanks! So i'm guessing the BEC/UBEC doesn't have anything to do with this shorting problem?

So i assume its shorting, it may be something completely unrelated. But it does show the typical signs of a short. When I plug in my battery, there is a quick spark/noise between the connections, very soon after, smoke starts to come from the PDB, around where an ESC is soldered (No fire, unsure about heat but id assume there is. I wasn't too keen on putting my finger to it to feel it after it happened). The copper tape breaks, thus breaking the circuit. The photo below you can see the postie terminal for the battery, and the broken copper tape above & right of it. This didn't occur anywhere else.
17888785_10158663515360352_924042794_n-jpg.2603
Click to expand...
Must be a smaller short, but if there is smoke then you're right. Does your frame use any carbon fiber? Most people forget that it is somewhat conducive. Or perhaps a wire is clamped between two things like the arm and bottom plate. These are just guesses, you should be able to open it up and find the damage.
 
Hi everyone!

So today I soldered it all up again, and plugged in the battery. No short, ESC's started beeping! All worked perfectly. I never found the true cause to the original problem, I'm going to assume something related to polarity/small short/BEC... Thank you all for your help! Much appreciated!

And as for everyone venturing into new hobbies and inetrests , I have jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire with more new problems to solve and learn from. Currently sat looking with cleanflight receiver tab open, and not getting anything from my transmitter. Everything is fixed. Throttle, Raw, Pitch, AUX 1, 2 ,3 4 etc.. I'm assuming my transmitter and receiver are not bound, even though it apparently already comes already bound (FLY SKY FS-T6 & FS-R6B).

Thanks again!

Steve
 
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