First quad build, ESC caught fire while setting up in Librepilot :(

[Cynabal]

Hi guys sorry my first post is a problem, bought a QAV280 off amazon to try and get into quadcopters i have some previous flying and RC experience, thought id have a bash at building a kit, anyway to cut i long story short i thought i had everything wired up right when i was in librepilot it got to the part to test the motors and as soon as i moved the slider there was a pop esc caught fire so i quicly unplugged the battery and opened all the windows.

Not sure what happened maybe i wired it up wrong but I';ve spent a few days studying lots of info on line and thought id had it wired up right. i might have wired the esc to the motor wrong it was really hard to tell which wire was the middle one and they are all black?

This is the quad using a 3s 1500mah battery
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01EF6PUPO/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

some pictures.

http://i.imgur.com/zzEPT4q.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/eUnBUeE.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/jX9MKOd.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/We7fI9J.jpg

Was it my ****** up or was it a faulty ESC?

[Jazzz]

Hi guys sorry my first post is a problem, bought a QAV280 off amazon to try and get into quadcopters i have some previous flying and RC experience, thought id have a bash at building a kit, anyway to cut i long story short i thought i had everything wired up right when i was in librepilot it got to the part to test the motors and as soon as i moved the slider there was a pop esc caught fire so i quicly unplugged the battery and opened all the windows.

Not sure what happened maybe i wired it up wrong but I';ve spent a few days studying lots of info on line and thought id had it wired up right. i might have wired the esc to the motor wrong it was really hard to tell which wire was the middle one and they are all black?

This is the quad using a 3s 1500mah battery
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01EF6PUPO/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

some pictures.

http://i.imgur.com/zzEPT4q.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/eUnBUeE.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/jX9MKOd.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/We7fI9J.jpg

Was it my ****** up or was it a faulty ESC?

Welcome I don';t know who';s fault it was but you can wire
Your esc wires to the motor wires in any order it just determinis the direction of the motor

[Doug]

I would say that your mistake was to not insulate the connectors for the motor and you probably shorted the Output which is what made it Blow

You need to heatshrink over the Bullet connectors or wrap them individualy in Insulating tape at the very least?

HTH

to the Forum by the way

[guest325]

Agree with above, no insulation on your bullet connectors - either shorted with each other on via the CF frame - CF is conductive!

[ched]

The connectors from the motor to the esc need to be insulated. If the brass connectors touch it will short out the esc and draw too much current, blowing the components.
Fortunately you pulled power quickly and probably just damaged an esc. It could have been much worse. If you shorted the battery you would have had a big fire, so you are lucky.

One other thing to note is that carbon fibre is conductive so don';t have any electronics touching it without insulation between them. Also be careful when cable tieing wires to the frame that sharp corners can';t cut into the wire as vibrations can cause shorts.
The CC3D needs firmly mounting (and insulating) to the frame pointing in the correct direction (little arrow pointing forwards).

Well done for the build though you have done well.

[Cynabal]

Omg facepalm moment you guys are right and its so obvious. Cant belive i forgot that, How embarrassing. Time to order a new esc 

[ched]

Don';t worry. You are not the first and wont be the last to make a mistake.

As I say the CC3D needs to be mounted the correct way round to the frame. When you connect it to Librepilot you can check that when you tilt the quad forward the quad picy on the software shows quad moving in same direction. Same goes for roll as well.

One other very important thing test with props OFF!

[shawdreamer]

Omg facepalm moment you guys are right and its so obvious. Cant belive i forgot that, How embarrassing. Time to order a new esc 

nothing to be embarrassed about

nothing wrong with making a stupid mistake.

no one learns from successes

but there are very few people who dont learn from mistakes, especially when there simple ones to make.

[iRobot]

As I say the CC3D needs to be mounted the correct way round to the frame.

One other very important thing test with props OFF!

Welcome 

I would personally rotate it so that the USB port is on one of the sides, easy to change in settings just by clicking in a box, either - 90 or +90 depending on which side.

Painless360 to the rescue 
https://www.youtube.com/shared?ci=ua-ur1WMHnM

[Cynabal]

Thanks for all the tips guys, the quad wasnt quite finished just mocked up, I wanted to test everything was working before I put in the other two carbon decks and standoffs and decide where everything was going to live, thanks for the video about how to switch the cc3d 90 degrees, very useful.

Also someone said it didn';t matter how the ESC was wired to the motor? I thought the central wire had to match up with the central wire on the ESC and it was the outer wires that were switched if you wanted to change rotation, problem with these ESC';s I cant figure out which one is meant to be the middle wire coming out of the ESC?

Also the plugs that connect from the ESC to the cc3d i wasn';t sure if i had them the right way they are odd colour so i just guessed.

[ched]

ESC to motors: 2 motors need to rotate clockwise and 2 anticlockwise (check Librepilot). The direction of rotation is determined by the 3 wires from esc to motor. When testing (WITH PROPS OFF) if the motor rotates the wrong direction swap 2 of the motor to esc wires. The motor should then rotate in the opposite direction.

As for the wires from receiver (rx) to CC3D (FC, Flight Controller) Normally it goes brown or black: 0v, Red or Red: 5v, Orange or White: Signal.
So check the FC and see which is the 0v and which is the signal and plug them in the correct way :)

Good Luck.

PS have a search on here for a smoke stopper. Might be worth making one!

[iRobot]

Also the plugs that connect from the ESC to the cc3d i wasn';t sure if i had them the right way they are odd colour so i just guessed.

Try and get + - s (positive, neutral, signal) wire from ESC to the cc3d the correct way round. On the FC board it is all numbered and identified, it';s quite crucial that you get no. 1 ESC cable to no. 1 on the FC, no. 2, etc etc  ::)

[Cynabal]

Got the replacement ESC today fitted it, loaded up Librepilot get to the part to plug in battery and nothing lol, 2 solid lights on PDB I guess I fried it, the cc3d is working fine luckily. so I guess time to order a new PDB hopefully I don';t find out I';ve broken something else. don';t think I';m ever going to get to fly this thing lol.

[Scubacrazy]

When I did my first build I made myself a "smokestopper".
It';s only a dual filament bulb, with a plug at each end.
By plugging this in between your battery and your quad it will save your electrics by lighting up and limiting the amount of power getting through to your sensitive escs etc,
If it doesn';t light up, then there is no short, and all is well !

Easy to make, costs pennies, and could save a lot of time ( and money! )
Here';s a pic, but if you do a search there is plenty of info online about them.

DSCN0555 by Gary Hickling, on Flickr

[Cynabal]

Yeah I';ve got one sorted now after the first fiasco , ordered a new PDB fingers crossed that';s all that was damaged.

[ched]

If you get a multimeter, about £5 on ebay, you can test voltages and continuity on the PDB and other things.

[Cynabal]

Ok got a new ESC to replace fried one just fitted new PDB but still no joy, also smoke stopper fitted this time, boot up librepilot and at the ESC calibration screen i follow instuctions plug in battery and nothing, the ESCs not beeping. is another ESC dead? whats my next step to find out whats wrong?

[ched]

As I said multimeter. That way you can ensure each esc is getting power. You can also test the continuity between FC and the esc signal wires.

[Cynabal]

Im wondering if i fried the other 3 esc';s also, i juts plugged all the ESC';s into my spektrum AR6200 the new one jingles the rest just beep non stop.

[ched]

What you could do is plug in each esc in turn into channel 3 on your rx (as long as not a ppm or sbus rx) and with the motor connected (NO PROPS) see if you can get the motor to respond to the rx throttle (ch3).
You will need power to each esc and a 5v supply for the rx. That should enable you to see if the power is getting to each esc and a signal from rx is working. If none work then remove the pdb from the equation and directly connect power to an esc - motor and try again. Without a multimeter you will have to test by connecting things one at a time.
Good Luck and let us know how you get on.

[Cynabal]

That worked!! plugged in ESC turned on TX put throttle to full and it beeped different, put throttle back down and it jungled, i guess they lost calibration?

Nice one ched 

[ched]

Great. You need to do that on each esc to ensure they are all calibrated the same. Then you should be getting there.
Good luck and as always let us know how you get on.

[Cynabal]

ok i think i have a bum motor tho, i got to the part where you move the slider till the motor starts to spin and 3 needed 1050 to start and the one that was on the esc i fried needed like 1700

[DarkButterfly]

After reconnecting to the FC, you may have redo the calibration through the FC itself, as I';ve found doing it one by one can cause one or two to be slightly out of sync.

[ched]

As DB said might be worth trying a recalibration through the FC. As for the low motor how does it feel, rough to rotate by hand (NO PROPS) or same as the others? You can work out if its motor at fault or esc by swapping motor to other arm and seeing if its still slow then its motor if faster then esc (not definite but a guide). I would be surprised if you took out a motor due to a short on the esc output. Make sure the motor bolts are not touching the windings inside.

[Cynabal]

After reconnecting to the FC, you may have redo the calibration through the FC itself, as I';ve found doing it one by one can cause one or two to be slightly out of sync.

You mean after the librepilot setup? how do i calibrate through the FC? or does it do it itself when you boot it up?

As for the low motor how does it feel, rough to rotate by hand (NO PROPS) or same as the others?

it feels the same as the rest.

[ched]

Sorry I';m not familiar with librepilot.  Look up librepilot and calibrate esc in Google.  Hope that helps

[DarkButterfly]

! No longer available

[Cynabal]

Yeah I did that part  , everything seems to be ok, will put props on tomorrow and see if i can break it again lol. thanks for the help chaps!

[Cynabal]

1st and 2nd flight, getting used to how little I have to move the sticks lol, first flight I crashed into the wife she was fine lol but not too amused lol. second flight different props (broke one of the cheap ones) seemed to fly much better, will wait for improvement in weather to try outside.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05LUgaNKlFc whoops
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmuQQiacSE8 Better lol