flyingtomg

My Feedback: (10)

I have an E3D that I've been flying for about a month now. It uses the Endoplasma motor.
The first flight this morning went great; no problems. The second flight however (with a different battery) went fine for about a minute and then I lost almost all power. I landed immediately, and by the time I stopped on the runnway, the motor wouldn't turn at all.
Thinking maybe it was the second battery, I charged up the first battery (fully), and tried again. The motor won't turn at all! The control surfaces work just fine, but the speed controller (a Jeti), won't even beep like it does when the motor is ready to go.
Is the motor burned out? Does the speed controller have a problem?

Any ideas would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

Omega blood

Might be one or both. If it has a gear box make sure it turns freely. IF so connect your motor direct to a battery. If your motor still dosen't run obviously the motors bad. If the motor is bad it might have taken out your esc.

flyingtomg

My Feedback: (10)

OK, I removed the motor from the plane and hooked it up directly to a battery. It doesn't turn. That leaves me with two questions:

- How do I know if the ESC is damaged as well?
- What did do to fry the motor? the plane hasn't crashed. I haven't flown it really hard (some mild aerobatics). I'm not even sure the motor has ever been up to full throttle.

One clue to maybe help: Inside the cowling there is a lot of black dust. At the places where the motor has vent holes, the sides of the cowling are black.

BoomZilla

The black dust is normal on a new motor, it is from the carbon brushes breaking in. My guess would be a problem with the brushes. Check that the copper braid did not get caught up on the guide. Most likely as the brush wore in, the spring didn't keep it pressed against the comutator.

jacs

It seems that you have burned your engine. Same thing happend to me. The engine was like a frying pan and 4 of the 5 windings where burned. Just bought a new engine and that was much better.

Matt Kirsch

My Feedback: (21)

You'll know the ESC has burned out when you attach a new motor and it doesn't work.

Are you breaking in your motor properly before installing it? When new, the brushes are square, and the commutator on the motor is round. Very little brush is making contact with the commutator, and a lot of sparking takes place. This is very inefficient, and can lead to premature motor failure even if you don't push the motor hard. You should run the motor on 2 to 4 "D" alkaline cells, checking the brushes periodically, until they appear shiny and rounded across the entire contact surface.

flyingtomg

My Feedback: (10)

I did break the motor in with 2 D batteries (for about an hour). The motor ran fine for a few weekends and then just quit.

The ESC seems fine.

Is it possible that I had the motor timed wrong so it arc'd its way to oblivion?

BoomZilla

You said you connected directly to a battery. Did it draw any current (was there a big spark on the connector). If there was no spark, it is probably a broken wire or a bent brush spring. This should be easy to fix. If there was a spark, then probably one of the field coils shorted out (I've had this happen). Usually only one goes, so if you rotate the shaft by hand, it will start up, but draw way too much current and have no power. (note, if starts in a rotation where the bad coil is active, it will put the ESC into shutdown) If this is the case, look into a new motor.

jacs

Like I said prewiusly the engine that I had sometime started with low effect and sometime it didn't start needed to manually start it by hand. So I bought a new one and it work so i dissasembeld the old engine and found that from the colletor there where 5 windings and 4 of them where off. But hey it's just my thoughts.

Regards
Jonas Arvidsson

flyingtomg

My Feedback: (10)

I have ordered a new motor and should have it installed soon. I plan to open-up the old motor and see if I can see what went wrong. Hopefully I can prevent it from happening again.

Thanks everyone for your answers/advice.

gwright

did you remove/reinstall the brushes? Sometimes the brush shunt (that wire that's screwed to the endbell and attaches the brush) will hang on the brushhood and not allow the brush to make contact with the commutator and the motor won't run. I generally "tweak" the brushsprings with a pliers to apply more force. The brushes don't "bounce" as much on the commutator, and brushlife is actually better, even though there's more force on them now pushing them against the commutator. If the brush isn't making contact with the comm (shunt hung, or not enough spring pressure) the power will drop off, then the motor stops, and you can't get it to start. un-hanging the shunt wire and bending the springs for more pressure normally cures that.