Faulty Motor Replaced

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Thought I would share my experience with a problem I was having with my P2V, and the solution.

I replaced a motor on my P2V on a hunch that it was the cause of a problem I was having with the quad drifting when yawing in GPS mode. Thankfully, the new motor eliminated the problem. My Vision only has about 10-hours of flight time. I noticed the problem was very sporadic early on, but became more easily repeatable. I was getting 15 to 20 foot of drift when I rotated/yawed the quad any significant amount. If I didn't offset the drift with control input, the quad would eventually stabilize on its own. While trouble shooting the problem I ruled out IMU and compass calibration. The quad has not crashed and the props are balanced and in like new condition I did notice early on that I had one motor/prop that would come to a stop much quicker than the other three on shutdown. It also appeared to have less RPM at idle on startup. I couldn't feel any friction rotating the motor, in fact, the culprit motor had less magnetic resistance than the other three.

After installation of the new motor I did an IMU calibration and compass dance. I did a 15-minute test flight this morning and could not reproduce the drift problem.

I soldered bullet connectors on the wires when I installed the new motor to simplify future replacement (pic below). I'll install the connectors on the other motors when or if I have reason to replace them.
 

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Funnone said:
Looks good just not a Fan of 6 extra solder joints +

Good point. Admittedly I didn't think of it as "6 extra". After I got inside the shell and saw what was in front of me, I gave way to my paranoia of damaging the circuit board, opting to go with the bullet connectors. Some of the boards already showed signs of heat damage around soldered power connections. I figured soldering the connections on the bullet connectors was less risk than me re-soldering the wires to the board. Didn't have to worry about burning a hole in anything going the connector route.
 
Darn. I was excited thinking that the bullet connectors were factory connections. :- (
 
kloader said:
Funnone said:
Looks good just not a Fan of 6 extra solder joints +

Good point. Admittedly I didn't think of it as "6 extra". After I got inside the shell and saw what was in front of me, I gave way to my paranoia of damaging the circuit board, opting to go with the bullet connectors. Some of the boards already showed signs of heat damage around soldered power connections. I figured soldering the connections on the bullet connectors was less risk than me re-soldering the wires to the board. Didn't have to worry about burning a hole in anything going the connector route.

Great post and good information.
Did you phantom tilt sideways during fast take off's?
That's the problem I'm having with my rig and I'm thinking that one motor is faulty.
My P2 is also losing it's position while jawing, not by 20 feet but at least 10-15 feet.

If I spin all four props, one of them has more resistance, it's no friction or drag but rather the magnets feel stronger....did you notice something similar on your old motor?


Thanks



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
 
I was taught to always check motor temps after a flight. It's a great way to monitor your motors and catch problems fast.
 
FSJ Guy said:
I was taught to always check motor temps after a flight. It's a great way to monitor your motors and catch problems fast.
It's an excellent idea and non-contact digital IR thermometers are really inexpensive now... You can pick a decent one up for under $20 from Newegg or eBay.

iDrone
 
CunningStuntFlyer said:
Miniflexalex said:
That's the problem I'm having with my rig and I'm thinking that one motor is faulty.

I had a bad motor and did not have those symptoms.

My bad motor (windings were very loose) would get excessively hot and my flight times were cut in half (due to the NAZA pumping so much power to the bad motor to maintain a level attitude).

Once I replaced it flight times went back to normal and the problematic motor was the same temp as the rest of the motors.

Thanks for the info.
I checked the motor temps after each flight and they are equally warm. If there is a difference in temperature, it's not significant enough to feel a difference with bare hands....those IR temp gauges seem to be a good idea. I'll see if I can get my hands on one.

My flight time is since day one about 15 minutes with about 20% left in the battery.
I blame my flying altitude for the low flight times. I'm living at around 6000 feet altitude.




Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
 
FSJ Guy said:
I was taught to always check motor temps after a flight. It's a great way to monitor your motors and catch problems fast.


good info.....I never knew this...but will do it from now on. Thank you.
 
Good stuff to know... I'm replacing all 4 of my motors here shortly and going to go this route.. radio shack for the connectors?
 
kloader said:
Thought I would share my experience with a problem I was having with my P2V, and the solution.

I replaced a motor on my P2V on a hunch that it was the cause of a problem I was having with the quad drifting when yawing in GPS mode. Thankfully, the new motor eliminated the problem. My Vision only has about 10-hours of flight time. I noticed the problem was very sporadic early on, but became more easily repeatable. I was getting 15 to 20 foot of drift when I rotated/yawed the quad any significant amount. If I didn't offset the drift with control input, the quad would eventually stabilize on its own. While trouble shooting the problem I ruled out IMU and compass calibration. The quad has not crashed and the props are balanced and in like new condition I did notice early on that I had one motor/prop that would come to a stop much quicker than the other three on shutdown. It also appeared to have less RPM at idle on startup. I couldn't feel any friction rotating the motor, in fact, the culprit motor had less magnetic resistance than the other three.

After installation of the new motor I did an IMU calibration and compass dance. I did a 15-minute test flight this morning and could not reproduce the drift problem.

I soldered bullet connectors on the wires when I installed the new motor to simplify future replacement (pic below). I'll install the connectors on the other motors when or if I have reason to replace them.

Can you please tell us what size the bullet connectors are. Thanks and great idea!
 
I used 3.5mm connectors. There are several sources on Amazon (I checked my local Radio Shack and they did not carry them). There are also some good tutorials on YouTube that cover soldering techniques for bullet connectors.
 
Nice work with the bullet connectors.
 
kloader said:
I used 3.5mm connectors. There are several sources on Amazon (I checked my local Radio Shack and they did not carry them). There are also some good tutorials on YouTube that cover soldering techniques for bullet connectors.
Great....I just sent my Phantom to the Emergency Room for an engine transplant, with 3mm bullet connectors!!
Will those work? Or will they be too small??
That was the size recommended......and the place I sent it, doesn't have bullet connectors...go figure.
 
havasuphoto said:
kloader said:
I used 3.5mm connectors. There are several sources on Amazon (I checked my local Radio Shack and they did not carry them). There are also some good tutorials on YouTube that cover soldering techniques for bullet connectors.
Great....I just sent my Phantom to the Emergency Room for an engine transplant, with 3mm bullet connectors!!
Will those work? Or will they be too small??
That was the size recommended......and the place I sent it, doesn't have bullet connectors...go figure.

3mm will be fine...I used 3.5mm because I just happened to find those first, but they were actually a little big and I wish I'd used 3mm in the first place. Even the 3mm connectors give you plenty of room to solder the wire in.
 
OI Photography said:
havasuphoto said:
kloader said:
I used 3.5mm connectors. There are several sources on Amazon (I checked my local Radio Shack and they did not carry them). There are also some good tutorials on YouTube that cover soldering techniques for bullet connectors.
Great....I just sent my Phantom to the Emergency Room for an engine transplant, with 3mm bullet connectors!!
Will those work? Or will they be too small??
That was the size recommended......and the place I sent it, doesn't have bullet connectors...go figure.

3mm will be fine...I used 3.5mm because I just happened to find those first, but they were actually a little big and I wish I'd used 3mm in the first place. Even the 3mm connectors give you plenty of room to solder the wire in.
Thanks....I'm no longer "panicked" ;)
Couldn't belied that the "Drone Hospital" didn't have bullet connectors.....really??
 
havasuphoto said:
OI Photography said:
havasuphoto said:
kloader said:
I used 3.5mm connectors. There are several sources on Amazon (I checked my local Radio Shack and they did not carry them). There are also some good tutorials on YouTube that cover soldering techniques for bullet connectors.
Great....I just sent my Phantom to the Emergency Room for an engine transplant, with 3mm bullet connectors!!
Will those work? Or will they be too small??
That was the size recommended......and the place I sent it, doesn't have bullet connectors...go figure.

3mm will be fine...I used 3.5mm because I just happened to find those first, but they were actually a little big and I wish I'd used 3mm in the first place. Even the 3mm connectors give you plenty of room to solder the wire in.
Thanks....I'm no longer "panicked" ;)
Couldn't belied that the "Drone Hospital" didn't have bullet connectors.....really??

Who or what is the drone hospital???



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
 
I sent it Dronefly in California.....
The only thing I can do on my Phantom is open the body, replace props and battery and fiddle with the gains. For everything else-it goes into the "shop"....because I haven't a clue.
 

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