It does not feel or look like a bad bearing. It feels more like magnetic resistance. It feels the same as another spare motor I have when I touch 2 or 3 of the leads together and try and spin it.
Flys fine, does not make any weird noises. Never crashed it, not sure if I should worry.
Your asking others to 'make a call' on the health of your motor by what you feel.
The only moving parts on the motor is the bearings.
Some motors exhibit more 'cogging' than others due to the manufacturing differences. This is the notchy feel when rotatating them. But that alone is no measure of the health of a motor.
After your next flight quickly feel the motors and notice any temperature differences. This is a very good spot check on motor performance.
Your asking others to 'make a call' on the health of your motor by what you feel.
The only moving parts on the motor is the bearings.
Some motors exhibit more 'cogging' than others due to the manufacturing differences. This is the notchy feel when rotatating them. But that alone is no measure of the health of a motor.
After your next flight quickly feel the motors and notice any temperature differences. This is a very good spot check on motor performance.
The fact that it "may" feel like your spare motor when shorting phase wires would be enough for me to investigate further.
The ESC/motor could have a problem and/or damaged component(s) though I wouldn’t expect it to fly well, if at all.
If you’re concerned enough and comfortable with soldering rework the only way I know to pin this sort of thing down is to swap around known working ESC/motor to determine which device may be different/compromised.
If the motor is running tighter than the others in flight the quad will exibit some odd behaviour when throtling up or turning.
For instance one of the motors on my Phantom,the rear left,is running tight and when I throtle up the quad will turn a bit left even though there is no input from me to make a turn.It's just that the tight motor does not spin up as freely as the other three and the rear right in paticular so that makes the quad turn left.
I am expecting arrival of a replacement early this week.
