(04-Apr-2024, 08:33 AM)angent56 Wrote: I then swapped the motor 3 & 4 wires in the harness and found that the same physcial motor spun even when in a different virtual position. Looks to me like I ended up with 2 faulty motors. I will desolder these motors and test them. If that doesn't yield any results I will order 2 more motors and see if that will solve my issue.

If you just swapped the wire, then it is only confirming the motor pins 3 and 4 on your FC are both working. It still could be the ESC that is defective. You would need to swap the motors on the ESCs as well to confirm if it is an ESC or motor issue.

(05-Apr-2024, 01:56 AM)mstc Wrote: If you just swapped the wire, then it is only confirming the motor pins 3 and 4 on your FC are both working. It still could be the ESC that is defective. You would need to swap the motors on the ESCs as well to confirm if it is an ESC or motor issue.

I thought of this a while after I posted my latest reply, and yes switched the motors on the ESC and the same virtual motor 4 will always run - meaning I have 4 working motors and 1 broken ESC. I will buy a new ESC today but is anyone able to tell me which part is likely blown and what it would take to fix? Just for my own learning.

Thanks

ESC is mainly made up of a MCU, gatedriver, and 3 channels of mosfets. Mosfets are most likely to fail, sometimes you can see physical damage on the chips (burn holes) sometimes not. Without the motor attached, you can also use a multimeter to check the ESC pads if any are shorted to VBAT or GND.

On some rare occasions, the MCU has corrupted firmware and reflashing it might recover the ESC. You can try that connecting to the website esc-configurator.com (do not connect from BF, but plug in USB and lipo). This will read and show you the firmware and you could try reflashing the non-working ESC.

And the ESC2 is now working? (Also you checked the ESC plug has no bent or damaged pins?)

(05-Apr-2024, 01:46 PM)mstc Wrote: ESC is mainly made up of a MCU, gatedriver, and 3 channels of mosfets. Mosfets are most likely to fail, sometimes you can see physical damage on the chips (burn holes) sometimes not. Without the motor attached, you can also use a multimeter to check the ESC pads if any are shorted to VBAT or GND.

On some rare occasions, the MCU has corrupted firmware and reflashing it might recover the ESC. You can try that connecting to the website esc-configurator.com (do not connect from BF, but plug in USB and lipo). This will read and show you the firmware and you could try reflashing the non-working ESC.

And the ESC2 is now working? (Also you checked the ESC plug has no bent or damaged pins?)

Interesting, thanks for the info. No shorts, no physical damage and no bent pins as far as I can tell. If the new ESC works, I might just take the loss on this one. 

Connecting to esc-configurator, only 2 (sometimes 3) ESCs actually come up - so I can only flash to the ones I can see.

I ordered the new ESC last night but I live in a country town in Australia so I don't expect to see it for a few weeks.

Can confirm the ESC was buggered. New ESC working fine.

Glad you sorted it out. If you still have 3 working ESCs on your old board, maybe it would be useful for a tricopter or hexacopter build, or a spare test ESC (just remember to mark/tape the broken one). Or if you're able to do SMD soldering, it can be a nice donor board for spare ESC components.