Oh crap

[wbefield]

Yikes!  I've been lucky so far by not making any huge mistakes like that.  However I did get a bad motor one time from Nankin, that fried a couple of servos and esc the first time I tried to spool it up on the bench.  It was a bad feeling, but Nankin stepped up and replaced all of the damage.  Great news that your LHS and Futaba are gonna take care of you.

[Greg Jackson]

Yep, turned in the servos today, he said they should have the new ones in by Wednesday.  Can't believe I'm glad there is rain in the forecast for the nest few days.  Makes me feel like I wouldn't be able to fly anyways if i wasn't down for repairs.   How did your motor spin up on you like that?  Scary.  I've never had that happen, I always have throttle hold on and then plug in the heli.  I wonder if the unplugging of the throttle, then replugging it in made the esc not see throttle hold anymore?  Not sure.  Glad you are ok.

[wbefield]

I spun it up on purpose without blades to test it out and make sure there were no vibs.  The problem was that the motor windings were shorted to the outside of the motor can and when I spooled it up, the power traveled through the motor, motor mount, carbon fiber frame, and into the servos metal cases.  My carbon frames had burn marks where they were touching the motor mounts.  All I know is that I saw puffs of smoke and after getting it unplugged, two servos were completely burned up  and the gears were stripped. Definitely a "Oh Crap" momnet

[BrianE]

I hope you guys understand if I don't hang out near your pits if we are ever at the same event  .

In all seriousness - thankfully no one got hurt and these machines can be fixed.  Thank you both for sharing your experiences so we can all learn from them - you might have saved someone from getting hurt or damaging some property. 

[Greg Jackson]

That's what I'm hoping, all of my threads are about helping others in the future.  WB, please tell me that didn't just happen recently?

[wbefield]

It was back in July when I got my new 6HV kit. It was a Manufacturer defect, nothing I did wrong.  I actually have one of the Compass 540kv motors in my E5-s, Because they were out of stock on motors, so they sent me a used one so I could get it in the air, and when they came back in stock, they sent me a brand new one also.  Awesome customer service.  Lesson learned, I test all my motors before I fire them up for the first time.

[Rodney Kirstine]

How did your motor spin up on you like that?  Scary.  I've never had that happen, I always have throttle hold on and then plug in the heli.  I wonder if the unplugging of the throttle, then replugging it in made the esc not see throttle hold anymore?  Not sure.  Glad you are ok.

Yeah, the throttle hold was on.  I'm pretty sure mine spun up because the throttle wire lost contact with the receiver and the ESC was already armed.  Once it started spooling up, the throttle hold and flight mode switches made no difference.  I now have all of my connectors secured with shoe goo so that can't happen again.  I definitely won't be dinking around with the wiring with the ESC/motor connected to power, either.

[flyalan]

I have all of mine set up so that the ESC won't arm until I take it out of throttle hold the first time.  I can plug in a battery and it won't arm until I take it out of throttle hold at low collective/throttle.

Cheers
Alan

[RichL]

I have all of mine set up so that the ESC won't arm until I take it out of throttle hold the first time.  I can plug in a battery and it won't arm until I take it out of throttle hold at low collective/throttle.

Cheers
Alan

+1

Rich

[hardsy]

I have all of mine set up so that the ESC won't arm until I take it out of throttle hold the first time.  I can plug in a battery and it won't arm until I take it out of throttle hold at low collective/throttle.

Cheers
Alan

+1 here also.

[RichH]

I have all of mine set up so that the ESC won't arm until I take it out of throttle hold the first time.  I can plug in a battery and it won't arm until I take it out of throttle hold at low collective/throttle.

Cheers
Alan

How do you do that?  Set your hold at some value between 0 and 50%?

[flyalan]

Depends on your radio and ESC. On a castle using my Futaba radios this equates to 24% for throttle hold.
You need to find a point above zero throttle that doesn't cause the motor to spool up.
This is actually the same procedure you would use when setting up the Castle autorotation bailout feature.

Cheers
Alan


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[RichH]

Got it.  Thanks.  I don't want to use the bail out since it requires I remember two levels of throttle hold.  I have CC and V-Bar and I just power the heli up in Normal with zero throttle and have Hold engaged.  Flip to Idle, turn off hold, and I'm flying.  I also have my fail safe properly set up.  My ESC won't spool up without a throttle signal.  Which is what you do whenever you program the ESC.

[flyalan]

Just to be clear. You can use this setup and not use the bailout feature. Just be sure that the bailout is not selected using castle link.

Cheers
Alan


Alan Butler
Team Synergy

[Greg Jackson]

I wasn't sure how bailout worked, guess I will unselect that feature.