esc failure/crash/smoke/fire
- Thread starter airmikeyy
- Start date
Sorry 
- didn't realise it was your own video - I wouldn't have been quite so abrupt
Not sure I agree with you, though - parts will die if you are over-stressing them, over-heating them or vibrating the nuts off them - otherwise they should survive just fine. The capacitors on an ESC are one possible exception - they are there almost as a "sacrificial" part - their job is to protect the ESC itself by soaking up the voltage ripples. So they will have a finite life even when run within spec. My guess is that your problem will have been the caps - they don't just die quietly, they have a tendency to get hot and explode - does it look like that's where your fire started?
As crude as it seems to be as a "packaging" for ESCs, the heat-shrink sleeves performs two important tasks. Firstly it "clamps" the soldered wires (and the capacitors) so that vibration can't work its malice on the soldered joints. Secondly it conveniently leaves the ends of the capacitors visible so you can see if/when the top starts to swell - a sure sign that it's approaching the end of its life and should be replaced pronto.
- didn't realise it was your own video - I wouldn't have been quite so abrupt Not sure I agree with you, though - parts will die if you are over-stressing them, over-heating them or vibrating the nuts off them - otherwise they should survive just fine. The capacitors on an ESC are one possible exception - they are there almost as a "sacrificial" part - their job is to protect the ESC itself by soaking up the voltage ripples. So they will have a finite life even when run within spec. My guess is that your problem will have been the caps - they don't just die quietly, they have a tendency to get hot and explode
- does it look like that's where your fire started?As crude as it seems to be as a "packaging" for ESCs, the heat-shrink sleeves performs two important tasks. Firstly it "clamps" the soldered wires (and the capacitors) so that vibration can't work its malice on the soldered joints. Secondly it conveniently leaves the ends of the capacitors visible so you can see if/when the top starts to swell - a sure sign that it's approaching the end of its life and should be replaced pronto.
i just found this comment in another thread, wonder if i had the same issue, hmmm, "I believe the problem was that I was over zealous with the cable ties. I wanted everything to stay where it should be and so placed a very small cable tie over the ECS, probably this pushed the circuit board onto the heat sink on the back of the ecs, causing it to short circuit."
DucktileMedia
Drone Enthusiast
I dont hear anything different before it comes down. Are you sure you didnt just crash into the ground? Seemed like a smooth decent but again, no weird motor out, broken prop, poof kinda sounds at all. Did I miss something? Why not clip down your video next time to the actual event? Also, I have a hard time believing that was 1080p, looked more like 480p.
I almost did clip the video, sorry. I probably shouldn't export the video to xvid mp4.
DucktileMedia
Drone Enthusiast
yeah use h.264 at 720p with no more than 5kb/s bit rate. More than enough for youtube. But 1080 here was clearly worse than most 480's. A lot of video editors have a youtube or vimeo hd export option.
That doesn't sound valid - the heat sink (usually a plate of plain aluminium, about 2mm thick) is glued to the (non-conducting) tops of the FETs (similar to the heat sink on top of a PC processor). The pressure from a "small cable tie" couldn't cause a short.
What is the condition of the capacitors on your burned ESC? Are they still "whole"? Are the tops blown out? Does it look like that's where the fire started?