Flite Test Electrohub Trouble - Flip 1.5 Board

makattack

Winter is coming
Moderator
Mentor
Sorry about the early confusion, It must get really annoying when Muti-roter newbies like me come along and ask the same exact question the last 10 people asked.

As you can see, a lot of people here want to help and see you get success, but you also see the limits of being able to help remotely over a forum. In some ways, it's great because it's so easy to share photos, videos and instructions, but if you want speed and the always useful extra pair of eyes and hands on experience, you can't beat having an experienced person look over your model and make all the suggestions at once for getting it up in the air.

In fact, if you haven't flown a multirotor yet, and based on the first video -- where you were turning on the aircraft first, before the transmitter, I suspect that to be the case (but apologies if that's a huge assumption on my part) -- I think a multirotor of this size may not be necessarily the best first flight for you.

If you live near and RC clubs, I highly suggest looking into them. I'm part of one called the Charles River Radio Controllers (CRRC) and member flight instructors go out of their way to help new pilots for free. They let them fly on their own models (and don't care if a new pilot crashes), spend hours on the weekend at the field showing them the ropes, etc. All for free and without obligation to join the club. I highly recommend you seek someone with more experience out. They'll check over your airframe, make suggestions for you to correct if they deem it not ready yet, offer advice, and then,, they will buddy box you when you are ready to fly so that your chances of success is higher.
 
Well, now you know the problem, so there's that at least.
Ok, thanks I will work on that today.

Uhm.... I would seriously consider re-insulating those motor to ESC connections. Are they bullets you have soldered to them or did you solder the wires together and wrap electrical tape around them?.
The wires are soldered and then wrapped in electrical tape.

Oh, gosh! I assumed that was heat shrink that hadn't been shrunk yet.
Yes I did in fact Heat Shrink it. I used a heat gun.

If it's all soldered and that is electrical tape there is one other option - Self fusing silicone repair tape.
Ok thanks I will check it out.
 
Ok, thanks that's awesome I will pick some up for my final product of the quad.

- Anyways I managed to get all but one motor to work. The last motor is either not spinning what so ever, or Barley spinning. Keep in mind this is at Full Throttle. I have Done Every Thing I could think of to make it work. I first switched one of the working motors (Without moving the ESC's), To check if the ESC's were working But the Motor still did not work and the working motor continued to work. I then did that with all of the motors without any luck. I then started moving the leads around and trying different combinations (a total of 9 combinations) still did not work.

I think the motor is dead but if any of you have any suggestions I am open.

Thanks For all the help Guys.
 

joshuabardwell

Senior Member
Mentor
The motor/ESC swap seems like it pretty definitively pegs it to the motor. And if you swapped it multiple times, it's unlikely that it was a bad connection. Bad luck.
 

RichB

Senior Member
Swap the ESC signal wires on the board, see if it follows a board output.

-or-

Try picking it up while throttled up*, see if tipping or rotating it causes the "dead" motor to start spinning.



* = I assume that you are testing with props off.
 

makattack

Winter is coming
Moderator
Mentor
Yeah, I would think it's a bad motor if he didn't change the ESC's connections to the flight controller, but swapped motors and it started working on that same ESC that was originally driving the stopped/bad motor.

A good test would be to take just the ESC, the motor, and either a receiver or servo tester, so see if it can run -- but that would be a somewhat redudant test as he's already pretty much done that by swapping motors around and the bad motor behavior followed the suspect motor as he moved it around.

I would contact Paul and start the process to get a new replacement motor, and also consider changing how you have the wires insulated where the motors are connected to the ESC's -- either by using the silicon tape as suggested by jhitesma, or using liquid tape instead of electrical tape. I think I saw you mentioning that you did "shrink the electrical tape" with a heat gun, but most electrical tape I know of isn't designed to shrink. The heat gun might melt it a bit and cause the adhesive to get tackier, but it's a very temporary solution at best and as soon as dirt, water, temperature changes get into that tape, you'll have flapping pieces of tape unrolling out. Especially since it looks like the solder connections are in the prop wash.

You mentioned wanting to use bullets. If you're going to be getting a new motor, you might take the time to setup those ESC/motors with bullets as well, as that is a lot of soldering to do, until the new motor arrives. It will at least make it easier for you to get the motor directions correct if you haven't done that yet.
 
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Regarding the bullets, I Found the at Home Depot. Will this work?
WP_20141231_001.jpg

Oh and you want to look at 22-16 column-
WP_20141231_002.jpg
 

makattack

Winter is coming
Moderator
Mentor
They look a little big for motor wires, but does the package day what Guage they are? Do you have a crimper of the appropriate size and know how to use it? If you get the right sized bullets, they should work. Most rc bullets are 3.5 or 2.5 mm for motor connections and ate usually the soldered type.
 

jhitesma

Some guy in the desert
Mentor
The big issues with hardware store bullets are:

1) They generally aren't made for many connect/disconnect cycles and can get loose fast.

2) They generally don't seat super well even when brand new

3) They're generally crimps instead of solder - though you can usually solder them.

4) they're bigger and bulkier and heavier ;)
 
The big issues with hardware store bullets are:

1) They generally aren't made for many connect/disconnect cycles and can get loose fast.

2) They generally don't seat super well even when brand new

3) They're generally crimps instead of solder - though you can usually solder them.

4) they're bigger and bulkier and heavier ;)

These Bullets are about 3mm bigger the the average RC bullet. They are 6.35mm in length.