HELP!! I just did a test arming of my motors and I powered up one of them to the supposed 75% throttle, and a literal flame shot out of the bottom of that motor. It seemed to have been contained and nothing else caught on fire (I immediately stopped the motor and unplugged everything). What do I do?! I am honestly scared to plug it in again and I have no idea what kind of damage that could have done to the rest of the drone.
Help! Motor Caught on Fire!
- Thread starter OliverS
- Start date
I didn't think about that but that would make a lot of sense, the mounting screws are less than 1.5 mm away from the coils. Do you think that motor is out of commission, and if it is, would it be safe to test it (once the screws are trimmed), or would that put my AIO FC at risk of damage?
Yes, and it was one of my first experiences soldering. The fire occurred, appearingly from inside of the motor windings and I only soldered the motors to the ESC pads on the flight controller and did not get my soldering iron anywhere near the motor itself. Is there a good way to tell if the soldered joints on the FC ESC pads are good? Also, could this incident have harmed my AIO FC, and how do I test that without risking further harm? The photo attached is a sample of my soldering.
This is a 2450Kv brushless motor on a 4s drone that has been soldered directly to an AIO FC. When I powered it on it was kinda twitching and then I punched the throttle to 75% and it burst into flames. It doesn't look burned and it spins completely freely (the same as the other ones), and right after it caught fire and I powered off that motor, it continued to twitch before I unplugged the LiPo battery. If it is the screws shorting it out, will using screws that are flush with the top of the mounting plate fix that? The photo below with the long screws is what one of the other motors looks like as it was configured the same as the motor that combusted, and the other is how the motors are mounted currently. Will the new setup fix the short problem if it is, in fact, the mounting screws? Thank you so much for trying to help me through this issue.
Tench745
Master member
The long screws are very close to the windings. It is entirely possible one nicked the insulation on the motor winding and caused it to short.
Switch to the shorter screws on all motors just to be on the safe side.
As for the one that fried, it is possible that is shorted without damaging itself too badly but I wouldn't count on it. Chances are that it's cooked. If you want to test it, get a cheap, single ESC so you're not risking frying the 4-in-one. If insulation on the windings is damaged, you will likely need to coat it with something to keep it from just shorting out again in the future. I don't know how to do that though. Hopefully people who know more about motors will chime in.
Switch to the shorter screws on all motors just to be on the safe side.
As for the one that fried, it is possible that is shorted without damaging itself too badly but I wouldn't count on it. Chances are that it's cooked. If you want to test it, get a cheap, single ESC so you're not risking frying the 4-in-one. If insulation on the windings is damaged, you will likely need to coat it with something to keep it from just shorting out again in the future. I don't know how to do that though. Hopefully people who know more about motors will chime in.
