help me please!!!

fly4life

Junior Member
i charged my battery for an 1 and 30 minutes and plug it in the motor doesnt run and the servos barelly move.................i try useing a different esc bec and the same thing happens........on the volt meter it show 5 volts when it is suppose to be 11.10 volts. the battery gets drained rite away after pluging it in?is it a bad lipo? its a 1600mah battery with a 2200kv motor and a 30a esc another thing is when i plugged it in the second i gave throttle the motor didnt spin and the esc smoked?
 

earthsciteach

Moderator
Moderator
Smoke is never a good sign! A LiPo battery reading 5 volts is not good, either. You should never draw an 11.1 v battery much below 10.4 volts. Most controllers won't recognize a battery that has been discharged below a certain point. Either the battery is shot, or you discharged it too much. If it is over-discharged, there may be a way to recover it for a period of time.

What type of charger are you using? Does it have various settings?
 

fly4life

Junior Member
what do you mean by discharge it to much and the charger is a trickle charger it has .5 a 1 a and 2a to charge on and 2s or 3s i charged it on a 1a charge on 3s for 1 hour it didnt charge it much and the other charger has alligator clamps i clamped them to the battery and charged it that way and got it to about 10.4v
 

earthsciteach

Moderator
Moderator
LiPos are sort of fragile. Drawing the charge down too low can kill the battery. LiPos aren't like typical rechargeable batteries that you can use until they run out of charge.

If you charged the battery to 10.4 v, you should be able to fully charge it to 12.6 v, unless it is immediately losing that charge.
 

fly4life

Junior Member
it worked fine and i used it to test the elctronics on my plane and i got to a point where the battery no longer gave power to run the motor and the servos barelly move does that mean i kill the battery and can i still use the esc even though it smoke
 

lobstermash

Propaganda machine
Mentor
It sounds to me like either the battery is dead or the charger is faulty (likely the former). Is it a new battery?
 

earthsciteach

Moderator
Moderator
Sounds like you need a new battery. Don't know about the ESC. I could have gotten hot and melted the shrink wrap, causing smoke. If so, it may still work. It shouldn't hurt to plug in a new battery to test it.
 

Ak Flyer

Fly the wings off
Mentor
Most lipo chargers won't even start charging a lipo unless they are at a minimum voltage. I have over drawn a couple batteries and had to jump start them with another battery to get them back above the threshold where the charger would work.
 

FlyingMonkey

Bought Another Trailer
Staff member
Admin
Which charger do you have? Can you post a picture?

Also, what are you using to read the battery?
 

fly4life

Junior Member
for the battery i used a volt meter and the charger is a prophet lipo charger y would the esc smoke or get to hot though!
 

FlyingMonkey

Bought Another Trailer
Staff member
Admin
You might want to invest in a balance charger. They will display your battery information, and if you have a balance lead on your battery (they all come with them now) then you can see what the voltage of each cells, as well.

As to reading your batteries, I'd suggest buying a meter made for rc. There's one called the Watts Up meter. I have this one, and it's great. It allows you to read your battery voltage, it will also show amp draw and wattage, if you hook it between the esc and the battery.

Why would the ESC smoke? If the motor was stuck for some reason, and you tried applying power. If one of the three connectors for a brushless motor was disconnected or broken, and the motor did the stuttering thing, that would do it. If you got water inside the motor, or the ESC. If you had too large of a propeller on the motor, and you ran it up to speed, that's another way it could happen.
 

fly4life

Junior Member
when i gave throttle the motor didnt even move at all and the esc right away smoke then later i charged the battery and i ran the motor again and it skipped alot very badly..............???????what is this???????????????
 

lobstermash

Propaganda machine
Mentor
The ESC has shorted out. The motor's only getting signals along two of the three wires. Throw the ESC away. Also, check the motor windings to make sure these haven't been damaged.
 

FlyingMonkey

Bought Another Trailer
Staff member
Admin
fly4life, where are you from? Maybe there's someone on here that lives close to you that could meet you at a field and give you some help in person?
 

jetpackninja

More combat please...
Mentor
Firstly- from your description: yes it sounds like the lipo is probably damaged. Hard to say for sure since we don't know what method you are using to check it.

Secondly- If you saw smoke right away from the esc, it's very likely that something is hooked up wrong or that the esc was defective from the getgo.

I think you are at the point in troubleshooting where you need to be able to start with "known good" components. Can be hard to do if you are new to the hobby. The more specific info you can provide the better.

If you look closely at your motor, there are three wires that connect to your esc.
Follow those wires to inside the motor. The wire are wound around the stator.
These are your motor "windings" look for any discoloration or burnt or broken areas.
Check the motor leads, make sure they aren't broken (the three wires that come from your motor) make sure all soldered connections are good.
 

earthsciteach

Moderator
Moderator
Fly4life, can you post pictures of the motor, esc and battery? Not sure if it will provide us with any info, but, as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words!