I crashed my Rooster 5" & destroyed the camera lens - a rock managed to fit between the titanium frames. Anyway, I decided to cram a Runcam Split 3 Micro into this tight frame plus a Matek loud beeper. The only way to get the Runcam board into the stack was by making a custom low-profile adapter plate. This worked out well giving plenty of space for the battery strap. The beeper fit nicely onto the backside of the camera. As pointed out somewhere you do need a small cap on the darn thing between B- and ground.

So anyway during the rebuild there were plenty of screws everywhere including some very small 2 mm ones that hold the camera. Between the new camera screws and the old ones I had plenty of leftovers hanging around.

After a couple of test flights things appeared good so I turned the recorder and started to gets serious when all of a sudden my FPV screen freezes. So I was lucky & just throttled down making a good landing in the blind.

So what the hell. There are some people complaining about this happening with Runcam so I checked everything out and things appear solid. So back to some test flights and while flying LOS weird things start happening - oscillations & motor noise. Now one of the motor is seriously binding & destroying itself.

So long story short, one of those 2 mm camera screws got sucked into the motor because you know those magnets in there are pretty damn strong. You can see that both the windings and magnets were pretty mangled up. So I'm theorizing I had some pretty serious current spikes going on that caused the the FPV feed to freeze up.

After I get a new motor installed I'll be able to test my theory but in the mean time watch out for metal things getting into your motor's - especially when they're off the arms!

Nice custom plate.

I'm surprised the motor spun at all with that screw in there.

Nice work on the bracket. You don't see many people making machined parts these days. Out of interest, was that made using an industrial CNC machine or a hobby grade one?

Interesting layout you got going there rdsi55. I’m currently rebuilding my rooster too but it’s based around a 4in1 esc. May I ask how did you fashion the xt60 Mount?

Yeah, I can't believe that motor worked & even kept working after it was all mangled up.

Besides electronics I'm into machining and drones are the perfect hobby - it's like porn but don't tell the wife... So I have a Tormach 1100 which is a hobby grade type machine. It gets the job done & also has a 24K spindle which makes it easier to machine these smaller parts.

The XT connector is just floating there and does not protrude as much now because of how I rerouted it. I'm not happy with it & while waiting for a new motor I'm going attach a panel mount type connector to the plate above the camera. Since I have the Runcam in there I won't be attaching a GoPro type camera anyhow.

Maybe not so obvious is that with my custom plate I can better adjust the compression on the FC grommets without having to worry about any nuts backing off. I keep the nuts slightly loose underneath the FC grommets and adjust the screws to give a slight compression of the grommets. Then I tighten up the nuts using a small open end wrench. Now the FC is not going anywhere and grommets will hopefully work better - hard to quantify but it make me feel better.

I got my motor replaced and everything checks out now. After running 6 batts no Runcam freeze-ups. I also installed a panel mount XT-60. Its not attached to anything but you can push down as hard as necessary and then hold the ears to pull out.

Well confidence in my RunCam Split 3 just went back down to zero.  I decided to make a few recordings & the dam thing froze up again. The picture below should show me taking a picture of my quad but it's still showing where it froze in-flight.  Once again I made a decent landing in the blind.  This time the quad is running perfect so my previous theory just went out the window.

I'm using a SanDisk Ultra SD card.  I've tried wiggling it around inserting & removing while powered-up without issue.  Iv'e also wiggled all the wires including the camera to DVR board again while powered-up - no freezing.

So I'm at a loss?

It sounds like the vendor is willing to help so we'll see how that goes.

Maybe it is best to get a replacement.

I now use the stainless steel trays with large magnets attached underneath when I am working on anything from the car to electronics, they are cheap to buy and save me from losing any parts. Also easy to check all the parts have gone back on, providing you look of course.

I have also bought some very small but powerful magnets that can hold a screwdriver by the tip, they could also be used to hold screws on your work surface, I did that today whilst working on my new to me lipo charger, a quick fix for a noisy fan.

After some back & forth with RunCam through the vendor I think the issue has been resolved. I didn't want to believe it but the SD card looks like it was the culprit. I was using a SanDisk Ultra & thought no-way but I finally replaced it with another one (same make/model) & problem disappeared.

I could not really find a problem with the card but for some strange reason the write speed was much lower than the replacement one?

Anyway, I'm switching over to the SanDisk Extreme which does have the U3 marking on it just to make sure.

So I've decided to build another Rooster just to have a backup when one is being repaired - less the RunCam Split...

It's possible you may have been using a fake SanDisk card. It's probably the make that has the most counterfeits floating around. Whenever I take delivery of a new card (which I now always buy from a reputable vendor, never eBay), I always run the H2testw utility on it to confirm it's authenticity. It's saved me a few times in the past when I've ended up with fake cards. The SD Insight app for Android is another useful utility that I use. You can see the use of both utilities demonstrated in another of my posts HERE.