faulty motor or esc's how do I teat.

Colin Doughty

Colin Doughty

Member
On my first flight I found that on shutting down, one of the motors stopped noticeably quicker than the other three. I never got much off the ground as the quadcopter wanted to flip.
after a few hours I thought I would Check the prop rotation ( which was ok) but found the suspect motor (3) didn't rotate, i tried it in another channel and it still wouldn't rotate.
I plugged in the esc from the next motor (1) and still no rotate. I re connected motor (1) again and find that doesn't rotate now.
So I think I may now have 1 faulty motor and 2 faulty esc's.
How can I test them and does the esc's have fuses?

Thanks
 
So, I have a question and of course, I'm not sure of your background, so I'll offer what I can at the risk of telling you stuff your already know.

Is this an RTF copter or did you build it yourself? If you built it yourself, then I can assume that you know how to make the motor/ESC connections. But I was a little confused when you said that you plugged into "another channel".... You should plug into the Throttle channel.

I keep around a spare ESC as well as a spare receiver that I use just for testing purposes. On my current build, which is a Frankenstein quad being built out of spare parts as well as parts salvaged from a crash, I had to test all four motors. I connected a motor and ESC together and plugged the signal lead of the ESC into the throttle channel of the receiver. Then I powered up the transmitter and moved the throttle stick all the way up (full power), and then applied power to the ESC (If you're using OPTO ESC's then you'll need something like a UBEC to supply power to the receiver - plug the UBEC into any of the other receiver channels). You should hear a couple of beeps. Throttle down (move the stick to the minimum position), and you should hear three more beeps followed by a long beep - the motor should now be armed; when you advance the throttle, the motor should start spinning.
 
Thanks for your reply, I am building the copter from a kit.

What I did was to exchange channels, I put no 3 motor (the suspect one) into no 4 position on the flight controller.
I hope I am not wrong but I think one of the motors (no. 3 the suspect motor) may have developed a short and taken our the esc. When I plugged it in to motor (1) esc, it may have taken that out also.
I have never had a faulty motor before so don't know how to test it. Other than plugging it in to a known good esc, but that's a costly way of testing, I thought there may be an another way.

The esc's supply 5 volts to the FC which then powers the receiver.
I will test the motors via the throttle channel of the receiver and try and determine what's faulty.
 
Colin Doughty said:
Thanks for your reply, I am building the copter from a kit.

What I did was to exchange channels, I put no 3 motor (the suspect one) into no 4 position on the flight controller.
I hope I am not wrong but I think one of the motors (no. 3 the suspect motor) may have developed a short and taken our the esc. When I plugged it in to motor (1) esc, it may have taken that out also.
I have never had a faulty motor before so don't know how to test it. Other than plugging it in to a known good esc, but that's a costly way of testing, I thought there may be an another way.

The esc's supply 5 volts to the FC which then powers the receiver.
I will test the motors via the throttle channel of the receiver and try and determine what's faulty.
Click to expand...


Do you happen to have a multi-meter? Might test the ESCs separately, or compare the resistance between leads on a good motor and compare it to the suspected bad motor. There could be a strait short between two of the coils, but I suspect that you would have noticed something melting or getting pretty hot. There could be a broken coil that would make the motor only twitch, or the ESC could have a problem on one of the phases.

If you find that the motor is bad I suspect you may have used cheaper motors which are a real pain to try and work with. I'd suggest replacing the whole set and getting nicer motors. If you are using nicer motors you might get the seller to send you a replacement motor, but the ESCs will likely be out of pocket.
 
This being my first build I have no idea what is a good or bad motor, so I am open to recommendations.
The motors I am using are Chinese A2212/13T 1000KV and the esc's are Readytosky ESC-30A DC:5.5V-12.6V BEC 5/2A
Are these parts "nice"
 
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