Blades not turning just one wiggles

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Hi, I am total new to this. I don’t even have own one yet. However I was given an older Phantom 2 to look at because it is not working correctly (blades wont startup) and I work with electronics. A co-worker has much experience with these drones went through the basic and advance calibration procedure but it did not help. The only response from trying to start up is one of the blades will wiggle back and forth two or three degrees when the other three don’t do anything. Only one-other thing that I noticed was 2 screws from each arm is missing believe for holding the blade guard.
 
When you start the Phantom 2 it goes through a self-test. If anything is broken or not connected, it just won't start. I would open the shell and look for any loose cables. Remove the GPS module to check for any cracks in the ceramic antenna.
 
And if you can, take pictures of the innards... I'm sure tons of folks here can spot something amiss if they can see it.

If you pop it open, maybe look for any noticeable signs of malfunction... burn spots, pinched cables, etc...
 
Welcome to the forum .
What color are the arms flashing ?
Pull the screws in the arms out under the motors see how long they are very good possibility that someone ran the long screws into the motors when removing the prop guards .
 
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+1

Sure sounds like damaged motor coils from prop-guard screws so far.
 
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Wow, thanks for all the replies. I opened the bird and found no burn marks or cracked boards. I noticed the moto driver boards get a little warm and the one arm with the twitching blade is hotter than the arms that don't turn at all. I re-seated some of the connectors with no improvement to the problem. Also the motors turn freely by hand so I don't think the screws are too long. The person who own it and last to use it has not contacted me yet so I don't have any idea what occurred before it stopped working. I am suspecting firmware issue because everything else seems to be working. It responds to being hook in to a computer and iPhone app. There is no indication of an more/new updates. I was wondering if there was a way to go back to an older firmware revision?
 
Also the motors turn freely by hand so I don't think the screws are too long.

But how freely do they move? I might be wrong, but isn't there supposed to be a little snap to the motor? Like when I spin mine, I can feel a "bump, bump, bump" when it spins. Hopefully I'm describing it well enough.. lol...

But like N017RW said, maybe the long screws from the prop guards damaged the motors. Even though they spin doesn't mean they are ok...
 
But how freely do they move? I might be wrong, but isn't there supposed to be a little snap to the motor? Like when I spin mine, I can feel a "bump, bump, bump" when it spins. Hopefully I'm describing it well enough.. lol...

...
They do that snap because of the magnets in the motors ken and is normal what you are describing .
.
 
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They do that snap because of the magnets in the motors ken and is normal what you are describing .
.

Yea, that's how to describe it! lol... And thought it was normal. Thanks for replying... :)
 
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Stole this from J Dot but you can see why the click .
04B65EB6-9917-4C93-AC30-22A9492C17C2_zpsjrwbntxm.jpg
 
So it sounds like you saying that when using the prop-guards you use different longer screws and maybe perhaps the person had put them back in after removing the prop-guards jammed the motors/ damaged the coil windings then removed the screws. I did notice that the motors wires are not attached with connectors and would have to be un-soldered if I wanted to check them with a tester.
 
Yep that's it. Just open one of the motors and found that the coil is broken under where the screw hole is. Mystery solved, need 4 new motors! What does that cost?
 
About $22 per motor
 
Go ahead and get the E300 motors while you're at it, they're a bit better.
There may be a newer model now (310?). The price isn't much different for better build quality and reliability.
Oh and you can get a new screw set that'll include 16 fresh motor screws with new thread lock. Couple bucks and worth it.
 

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