Replacement Motor Wiring

[BigDog]

After having two of the Original Phantom motors fail with bad bearings, I decided to purchase two of the "Red" DJI 2212/920KV 450/550 motors to see if they last longer that the original Phantom silver versions.

On the Phantom, the 3 wires are color coded. On the 450/550 motors they are not.

Anybody know the secret to metering out the 3 motor leads to map them to the Phantom?

Thanks.

 

[Gizmo3000]

I believe I read somewhere that you connect the negative to the negative, and then the other two wires are flipped merely depending on which direction you want the motor to turn.

 

[BigDog]

OK, but with all 3 wire black, how do you determine which wire is which?

Is there a way to check with a meter?

 

[pwright]

No stripes or dots or nothing on the wires?

 

[BigDog]

Nothing I can see except an AWG (wire gauge) marking on the wire.

Here is a link to a photo of the motor:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/2n107rd5slwt573/Motor.JPG?m

 

[Gizmo3000]

So what did you determine?

I had bearings go bad in my Phantom motors as well, and opted to buy a few red ones as well, (rather than try to replace the bearings, which I hear is actually quite easy as well).

My coworker put together a F550 with the same motors, and said that it doesn't matter how they're plugged into the ESC, only to switch two wires if the motor appears to be running the wrong direction.
while that doesn't seem to make sense,. I guess in a way it does, otherwise they would have color coded the wires in the first place?

 

[Sac D]

After having two of the Original Phantom motors fail with bad bearings, I decided to purchase two of the "Red" DJI 2212/920KV 450/550 motors to see if they last longer that the original Phantom silver versions.

On the Phantom, the 3 wires are color coded. On the 450/550 motors they are not.

Anybody know the secret to metering out the 3 motor leads to map them to the Phantom?

Thanks.

How long was it until the motors failed? Should we all be stocking up on motors?

 

[Gizmo3000]

How long was it until the motors failed? Should we all be stocking up on motors?

For me,. I'd say about 3 hours of flight time or so.
However I'm sure a few of my crashes attributed to it! (one of which put a physical chip on the top of the motor!

So I figured I'd replace that, and another motor that's starting to make a sound.

However, while the motors are relatively inexpensive ($24 a pop), it's actually possible to replace the bearings themselves (which are apparently cheaply made in china) with true high-quality bearings, for less than $2 a motor.
I'm going to try to swap out the bearings in one of the removed motors just to keep around as a spare.

 

[motobtn]

If your old motors are still soldered on, I just looked at the old colors, the position in the harness (where the wires meet the motor) and installed the new motors according the the wire positioning from left to right. Make sense?
This isn't an ideal way, but I didn't have an easier way and when I looked at the motors, they both appeared to be wound the same way and routed the same.

This worked perfect for me. As an electrical engineer, this drove me nuts and not my preferred way of determining where the wires go, but was the easiest and worked. otherwise, there are other methods if need be.

 

[Gizmo3000]

I just looked at the old colors, the position in the harness (where the wires meet the motor) and installed the new motors according the the wire positioning from left to right. Make sense?

gotcha.
does seem illogical not to have color coded wires.
next time I crack open my Phantom I'm going to look carefully how the motor colors mach the soldering, as to a hint of what's going on.

I'm going to take a bit of a guess tho that the wires are color coded in the Phantom motors so that there's no trial and error needed when they solder things together.
whereas the F450/550 people merely try one combination and then switch wires if a motor needs to be turning the other way.

I just did a bit of googling, and apparently it's true,. because of the way the ESC's and motors work together, it apparently doesn't matter!, from a post on another forum:
" it is impossible to not connect an ESC and motor correctly and no color coding of the wires is required. You stand a 50/50 chance of getting the hookup to turn the motor in the desired direction, and if you guess wrong swapping any two wires corrects the mistake."

 

[herbie-53-guy]

I just did a bit of googling, and apparently it's true,. because of the way the ESC's and motors work together, it apparently doesn't matter!, from a post on another forum:
" it is impossible to not connect an ESC and motor correctly and no color coding of the wires is required. You stand a 50/50 chance of getting the hookup to turn the motor in the desired direction, and if you guess wrong swapping any two wires corrects the mistake."

thanks for the head up here, i just had the same issue. Switch 2 wires and all is good now!

 

[Audaciter]

It does not require any special knowledge. The motors are A/C The ESC'S convert D/C into A/C, so you can
hook the wires up any way you want, and if they don't turn the correct direction, just switch any two wires to solve.