Syma X5C-1 ESC symptoms

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Thomas in Niagara

Member
Can someone tell me what the symptoms are of a failing ESC? It's been flying fine and suddenly lost lift. It will fly fine for about 2.5 minutes then loses all lift. All motors are rotating, blades on correctly. I've taken it apart and checked the gearing, shafts and housings and all wiring is firmly attached. Stumped. I could start swapping out motors as I have two more left from the 4 extra I ordered. Some of the motor holders are a bit wanky [loose and rattle...rattly.. ra... they make noise when shook]. But it didn't seem to bother flights this morning. Just towards the end of my last battery did it lose lift. Subsequent charged batteries do the same thing. It doesn't pull one way or another or flip over as I've encounter with motor failures before this. Sheeesh!!! Not a bit of wind outside right now too... :mad:

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer on failed or failing ESCs.
Cheers!
 
Noob9875

Noob9875

Well-Known Member
OK the flight board in this model is all in one there is no separate esc so what I would do is to blow the dust off the voltmeter and test board where the motors connect if u are getting the same readings on all four motors then u know the board is good and I'd buy a motor set and change em out I'll post picir at least a link of the inside of the syma so u can see what I mean o
 
B3Master

B3Master

Well-Known Member
I guess if the motor(s) get very warm after few seconds of spinning their definitly busted...
 
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HDtallrider

Well-Known Member
Have you tested your battery(ies)? For all the motors to slow at once has 2 main possibilities; the battery or the FCB has a component overheating. I had a little Helimax 1si and had a similar problem that turned out to be the charger( cheap little dude) was not fully charging the batteries.
 
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Thomas in Niagara

Member
Will try the meter Noob thanks. I'll check for warm motors B3, I had run through 2 full batteries with temps pretty low this morning without pause. I've seen no reports on X5Cs in cold weather... maybe cold chassis and hot motors bound something up. I hope that's not the case or my quad flying will have to go into the closet with my metal detector for the next 5 months. :( I'll post any results here as I rule things out or find a solution. Thanks guys
 
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HDtallrider

Well-Known Member
One more thing. How many flights on your motors? Around 40ish is usually the max although it would be rare for all four to fail the exact same way. Have you ever cleaned and lubed, very, very lightly, the gears?
 
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Thomas in Niagara

Member
I'll check that too HD. Thanks. I just tried one of the batteries I thought was charged and it died almost immediately. May be the culprit. Now to figure out my multi tester... [grins sheepishly] The motors have been well used. I've changed out the black and whites but not the red and blues. The motor housings I rec'd in the spare parts kit I ordered are pretty wonky and loose and one spins so crooked it looks like a carnival ride.
 
Mike H.

Mike H.

Toy Quad Builder
Im also for checking the batteries...an ESC on a PCB either works or it doesnt...The Mosfets are what send power to the motors..If it was one motor going weak i would say replace the motor or check for binding of the gears'shafts etc and see how that went...Otherwise most low timed flights are typically battery related...Some batteries you buy even if new are duds after even just a few charges... Typically a good battery is good for 40 to 50 charges before going weak or failing all together.

A decent charger is a good long term investment as the cheap chargers actually kill battery performance with over charging them...What ever charger you are using check the battery voltage after its charged...if its more than 4.23v you need to not use it anymore as its killing your batteries.
 
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Thomas in Niagara

Member
Guys I'm just grasping at straws here. I've read a bunch of posts talking about ESC's and if something's wrong it might be those. I figured it was common to all quads even the toys. Oh well.. another myth dispelled... only a thousand more to go and I'll have this sussed. There's a 5 in 1 charger on EBay that comes with 5 - 3.7v 750mAh batteries. Would the higher mAh batteries burn out the motors faster with the longer flight times? I hate the higher priced US providers plus shipping but I don't really want to wait until December to get this from China. It's gonna snow soon :rolleyes:
 
Mike H.

Mike H.

Toy Quad Builder
Thomas in Niagara said:
Guys I'm just grasping at straws here. I've read a bunch of posts talking about ESC's and if something's wrong it might be those. I figured it was common to all quads even the toys. Oh well.. another myth dispelled... only a thousand more to go and I'll have this sussed. There's a 5 in 1 charger on EBay that comes with 5 - 3.7v 750mAh batteries. Would the higher mAh batteries burn out the motors faster with the longer flight times? I hate the higher priced US providers plus shipping but I don't really want to wait until December to get this from China. It's gonna snow soon :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
Imax B6 charger...beware of fakes on amazon and ebay.
 
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HDtallrider

Well-Known Member
Mike H. said:
Imax B6 charger...beware of fakes on amazon and ebay.
Click to expand...

I just ordered one of these;
http://hitecrcd.com/products/chargers/acdc-chargers/x4-micro-acdc-1-cell-lipo-charger/product
$45.00 from amazon and get it next week. $41.00 on ebay and delivery sometime.
I have gone thru 2 cheap chargers that came with the multi packs. One undercharged and now the current one is overcharging. I bought 680mah batteries because they fit without modification. If you already have several of the stock batteries just use them and replace them later. Only takes 20 seconds to change one out.
 
GJH105775

GJH105775

Off and on
Moderator
Mike H. said:
The JJRC1000A board uses 3.5amp FETs:rolleyes:
Click to expand...
Hahaha, ignore my post then. I had been up for a little over 50 hours when I made it, so I really had no idea what the thread was talking about after reading it all twice hahaha.

I said BJTs as that is what the cheaper toy quads that I buy use (I am really cheap when it comes to toy quads) hahhaha, I had to replace a few and now I know why the batter life is so bad on the toy quads I have hahaha.
 
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B3Master

B3Master

Well-Known Member
I have two cx10s. One i thought burned out a motor. Another did burn out a motor. So i used one to fix the other. Turns out the first motor wasnt burned out. So i guesss maybe not the entire board goes bad somtimes... somtimes one fet/bjt/esc can burn out alone on cheap rtf quads..???
 
GJH105775

GJH105775

Off and on
Moderator
B3Master said:
I have two cx10s. One i thought burned out a motor. Another did burn out a motor. So i used one to fix the other. Turns out the first motor wasnt burned out. So i guesss maybe not the entire board goes bad somtimes... somtimes one fet/bjt/esc can burn out alone on cheap rtf quads..???
Click to expand...
DC motors on quads don't need ESCs, so they use transistors (maybe FETs, Mike has me questioning that now hahaha), and they do burn out. You can check them with many multimeters.

http://www.wikihow.com/Test-a-Transistor
 
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