Have I killed a second ESC?

[Pete B]

I think you'll find it's the motor that beeps, John - it's a pretty non-directional sound that's hard to attribute with all the components close together.

I'm afraid I'm a tad confused by your explanation, Nigel, so it might be worth taking things step by step. You mention 'I had the additional battery connected to the receiver so I could bind it to the Tx'.

Nothing is going to happen in the ESC until it receives a valid signal from the Rx, so before you do anything with the ESC, use your Rx battery pack to bind your Tx to the Rx.

I don't know the Fuby bind procedure so follow the instructions. You can test to see whether it has bound by connecting a servo to the throttle channel and see if it responds to stick inputs. Alternatively, if your Tx has a monitor screen you should be able to see the relevant movement there.

Can you confirm that, with the ESC safely out of the way, your Tx is controlling the throttle channel? If so, move on to the next step.

Remove the Rx battery pack and put in on the far side of your bench, or in a drawer....

Connect the motor to the ESC with the three bullets. Connect the ESC to the Rx throttle channel, making sure you've re-attached the red centre wire (you did remove it as suggested in earlier posts, didn't you?) and the plug is inserted correctly. The ESC will have a JR type plug so it can be fitted the wrong way round, so make sure it is installed correctly.

Now switch on the Tx and then plug your main battery pack to the ESC. With the HW (or Plush) 60A ESC on 4S you should get a three-tone beep followed by 4 single beeps, then a single confirmatory beep.

If this is not the case, let us know what happens. Apologies for taking this down to a basic level - and to those who've already advised similar above - but we need to understand exactly what is happening at every step.

We'll get there!

Pete

[Nigel Day]

Thanks again.

I'd reconnected everything and there's no light on the receiver. I can only get the receiver to light up using the direct battery that's supplied for use with no BEC/UBEC. And I've checked the orientation of the plug against servo plugs.

So I'm pretty sure that the ESC IS now dead and that, most likely, my wiring is to blame. When I removed the outer heatshrink from the deadman plug though (the most likely culprit I thought) It looks fine. Each wire is firmly attached, no strands showing and each wire nicely isolated with heatshrink.

I'll get a new ESC and use the connection/testing process detailed by Marti(a)n earlier.

Thanks once more for all the help.

Nigel

[Nigel Day]

Sorry Pete, our posts crossed.

I'll go through your suggestions later and report back.

[John F]

Posted by Pete B - Moderator on 14/07/2014 10:40:31:

I think you'll find it's the motor that beeps, John - it's a pretty non-directional sound that's hard to attribute with all the components close together.

I have just sparked mine up and tried to listen and still can't distinguish unless I take out the motor and separate them properly. Must be me old furry ears!

[DH 82A]

If there is no light on the Futaba receiver, when the Transmitter is on, then ,either the receiver is not bound to the transmitter, or the receiver is not getting power from the Rx battery. Read the Futaba manual and make sure the receiver is bound, before doing anything else.

[Peter Beeney]

Nigel,

I think I’d tend to be a bit suspicious about the fact that things are heating up on their own accord. Normally this happens if the battery is connected to the motor but the motor cannot turn for some reason. But it’s also possible, although an outside chance perhaps, there is a short on something else.

Also your remark about the receiver not working until the battery is connected would definitely cause me to check the power output from the BEC on the throttle lead as a first priority. If that is not present nothing is ever going to function.

PB

[Nigel Day]

It's bound fine DH 82A, the lights all work fine, red and green, using the receiver battery and no ESC involved. It's only when the ESC is involved that no lights show and no activity is seen.

Thanks Peter. Yes, that would fit with the ESC being dead.

[Peter Beeney]

Nigel,

If possible you have to fix this before going anywhere else, but I’d quite tempted to suggest this might only be a dodgy connection somewhere on the lead itself; for a couple of reasons.

Having investigated a few problems like this, I’d say that broken connections are perhaps by far and away the most popular reason anyway why things suddenly cease to work: but the second reason is a little more in depth.

The BEC is simply a chip on the ESC and it’s a voltage regulator; it changes the 3S 11.1V down to a steady 5 volts. This supplies some other chips nearby with 5 volts and also an auxiliary feed, neg and pos, is taken off and goes to the receiver and servos; the signal wire is returned to a different connection on the PCB.

So here’s the thing. If the BEC had in fact just stopped working for whatever reason when all the connections were made and you connected the receiver battery this supply would simply go back up the wires and ‘back feed’ the supply to the chips on the ESC. Everything would now work normally. To all intents and purposes you, the ESC or the battery would never know the difference. However, the one thing that would definitely prevent that happening is an open circuit in the connection cable…

Voltage regulators are quite robust workers, they have inbuilt protection circuits which cause them to shut down, but then they reset and start again. Also the IC’s on the board are quite tolerant nowadays, I’ve back fed 7 volts onto an ESC for 24 hours continuous more than once in the past without any recriminations.

Solving it, though, might not physically be that easy. Ideally a multimeter and some jumper wires, little bits of wire with croc clips each end are the very least of requirements for any form of fault finding. I’d have thought invaluable if you intend to do any serious electrical flying.

Good Luck!

PB

Edited By Peter Beeney on 14/07/2014 13:48:48

Edited By Peter Beeney on 14/07/2014 14:07:28

[Simon Chaddock]

Nigel

This is about the simplest way I know of testing an ESC.

Battery, servo tester, any small motor and with 'chock block' connectors. No radio required.

If the motor starts to run (I hold it in my fingers!) when the servo tester is moved from minimum then the ESC is ok.

And it is the motor that actually makes the noise!

[Nigel Day]

Thanks Simon. Seems like a useful test 'harness'.

Nigel

[Nigel Day]

Just a quick update to let everyone know that I've not given up yet AND that I WILL be back with the final outcome, whatever that might be.

I've just ordered a few connectors, a small test battery and a servo tester - amongst other things. When they arrive I'll be able to connect the various bits up and complete the testing.

Another ESC is on the way just in case too.

Even if the existing one works, I can use the new one in another model I'm certain.

Nigel

[Martian]

That's spirit Nigel ,never give up

[Nigel Day]

Thanks all, especially Pete B, Peter & Marti(an).

I finally got around to doing the testing today - with the aid of another battery, motor, ESC and interconnecting plugs. The interconnecting plugs are a set of XT60s and HK shielded bullet connectors linked by 'chock block' connectors so that I can link various batteries, ESCs and motors, with and without bare wires.

With the suspect ESC, receiver and battery connected the red light comes on on the receiver - result!

When I connect the original motor I get beeps.

When I hook up the programming unit and no motor, the setting lights appear.

So the suspect ESC is OK after all.

I then thought I might as well try the ESC that got fried when I connected up the wiring wrongly (plus to neg etc  . Even that appeared to work for a while. The light came on the receiver first time. When I connected the motor to see if I got beeps, the light appeared for a while and then went off. Checking again without the motor attached, no light. I now suspect that one or other of the connectors on the ESC are dodgy -my soldering probably.

The next step is to remove the XT60 from it and connect it to the battery via test wires & shielded bullet connectors. If that works, I only need to add a shielded bullet connector. If not I guess I'll need to check the connections to the motor one by one.

At least I now have at least two working ESCs, motors and batteries. I also have a test system for checking both new and suspect motors, ESCs, batteries, receivers and servos (thanks Simon).

Thanks once again to everyone who provided advice, patience and encouragements.

Nigel

[Martian]

your welcome Nigel it's all working out

[Peter Beeney]

Nigel,

This does indeed sound like a good effort and maybe a best possible result. Quite often these problems are connections, sometimes easy to spot but they can also be a bit elusive, too. Fortunately there isn’t that many cables associated with ESC’s. One way of testing is using a pin as probe through the wire insulation, looking for a voltage with a voltmeter, or a continuity as an ohmmeter. It can happen that something like a bullet connector’s soldered joint to the wire can go open circuit, even after some time, this can cause a bit of head scratching, I’ve seen this on at least a couple of occasions. It’s also possible to check smaller wires in the same way with a fine needle, those tiny crimped connectors do play up on the very odd occasion, but by the same token they do tend to take a quite a bit of punishment.

I’m sure there’s been many a good unit confined to the bin when it’s only a millimetre of missing conductor that prevents it from ticking..

Good Luck!

PB

[Nigel Day]

Thanks Peter.