ESC problem (please help)

[Natebird25]

Hey everyone,
Today I finished building my zmr250 quad and had a "successful" maiden flight (a short one because the pitch was in reversed orientation). Anyways, after i swapped the pitch orientation in librepilot, I plugged my quad up to the battery, and an ESC started blinking red (motor 2). I checked the ESC and nothing looked faulty, but after I armed the quad again and raised the throttle I heard a "pop" sound (Only 3 motors spun).

Out of curiosity, I went ahead and raised the throttle again but the motor no longer spins.

I am using 20A Afro ESCs, Sunnysky 2207 2100kv motors, 3s 2200mAh battery, and 6030 gemfans. I had broken two other ESCs due to careless soldering, but I was super carful for this batch.

My questions is, why did an ESC just break all of a sudden even though I had a successful maiden 30min prior? Or is it even broken? (To clarify, 3 ESCs have a green light when powered, but motor 2 had blined red during second flight, but now has no indication light period.

I'd be glad for any input. Thanks,
-Nathan

 

[jamesb72]

Pop is normally bad news !

ESC could have been damaged in crash if motor was stalled under power. Best check is to swap with another esc to isolate motor from esc.

 

[Natebird25]

Thank you for your input. I had a feeling that the pop would be something bad. I guess this hobby is mostly trial and error to fix the aftermath of crashes.

 

[jamesb72]

One thing to learn is to cut power completely when you crash, ideally you get the hang of cutting power just before you crash, this protects the ESC/motors, I flew RC heli's for many years so have the reflex to hit throttle hold switch to cut motor when I know I'm going to crash, and have had hundreds of miniquad crashes and never damaged an ESC, or motor, 99% of crashes are just props which are cheap and quick to replace.

 

[Natebird25]

One thing to learn is to cut power completely when you crash, ideally you get the hang of cutting power just before you crash, this protects the ESC/motors, I flew RC heli's for many years so have the reflex to hit throttle hold switch to cut motor when I know I'm going to crash, and have had hundreds of miniquad crashes and never damaged an ESC, or motor, 99% of crashes are just props which are cheap and quick to replace.

Awesome, that really helps. Thanks for the advice!

 

[moonpie57108]

If none of the motors will arm and spin now, even after cycling battery power, you may have fried a connection somewhere or the flight controller.

The pop may not have been the esc itself but the flight controller, power board... I would check for loose wires that would have touched, maybe jarred in the impact, make sure your battery doesn't have any swelling that would indicate it was hit with a short.

 

[Vection]

Another possibility to look for would be a motor mounting screw grounding the power leads inside the motor. I fried a Sunnysky 2204 and ESC when I used screws just a little bit too long to mount the motors. The power leads inside the motor go directly under one of the mounting holes, bad engineering design work, all of my motors suffer from that flaw. I haven't had that issue with the motors on my other quads. I only discovered it when looking through the hole while trying to figure out what had gone wrong and discovered a small nick in the insulation made by the mounting screw. Carefully measure the thickness of your motor mounts and the thickness of the base of the motor to determine how long of a screw to use and use blue locktite. Normally you want a thread or 2 of the screw sticking out beyond the hole but with these I'd suggest not doing that unless you can see how much clearance you have inside the motor. Good luck...