dji phantom motor failure
- Thread starter mdj89
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I haven't had that happen with either of my Phantoms. I haven't heard of anyone else complaining about it. Did you have one die?
And, Welcome to the forum!
And, Welcome to the forum!
Oh no.....I own a syma x5c and ive had it for less then a month an the motor went out on it...I want to upgrade to pros and was wondering how reliable are the dji phantoms...
Seems to be an inordinate number of ESC failures in Phantoms with the new versions with the 2312 motors. Rare for a motor to fail. The ESC is by far the weaker link.
The 'old' version 1 ESC/motor combination is extremely reliable, do a search on the net, youtube, how many videos are there with motors or ESC's burning up? I'm sure everybody posts a video on youtube when that happens. Millions of these motors/ESC's have been sold and used (and not only in Phantoms).
At least until DJI came out with the 2312, suddenly there's a lot of talk about unreliability.
At least until DJI came out with the 2312, suddenly there's a lot of talk about unreliability.
The Phantom has brushless outrunner motors which are VERY reliable. With the exception of some routine maintenance on the bearings the motors will pretty much last for ever.
The syma by comparison has pathetic brushed motors that will last a mater of hours before they need replacing.
You will not have this problem with any model of Phantom.
The syma by comparison has pathetic brushed motors that will last a mater of hours before they need replacing.
You will not have this problem with any model of Phantom.
lake_flyer said:
Maybe it is because they upgraded to more powerful motors and ESC, but failed to upgrade the wiring to them, by using a lower AWG = bigger wire. At least one person posted pictures of wire damage leading to all ESCs and motors. I agree with him,that the wire size is too small for the increased amperage.
PhantomFanatic said:
Appears to be far more likely that the problem is that the IC driver firmware on the older ESCs is inadequate to manage the higher current draw of the 2312 motors. DJI tried to fix it with ESC firmware version 2.0, then when that didn't work as well as they wanted, they upgraded the firmware again to version 2.1, the current version. Unfortunately, even though they knew it wasn't working well, they left all those no-version and 2.0 version ESC's on dealer shelves. Now we're apparently getting crashes from fried ESC's causing their motors to stop in mid-air.
Unlikely that the much-ballyhooed "thin wires" is contributing to that problem. I suspect the wiring damage that showed up here occurred after the FETs on the ESC fried, not before.
MacCool said:
+1
if it were down the power rating of the wiring, you might expect the wiring to short within the motor itself, since the wires to the ESC are the same single core which is wound for each phase on the motor. The reason the wires are getting hot at the ESC end is (imv) simply down to the fact that the MOSFETs are getting very hot (they are meant to run hot by the way), but it probably does not help that many of the motor wires soldered to the ESCs are done so with the wiring directly above (or touching) the MOSFETs.
Hughie said:
Yeah, that too. Seems like an odd engineering decision, and not an unpredictable problem. I've had several other upscale electric-powered R/C toys....this is the first one I've seen that doesn't have at least a heat sink on the FETs of the ESC. Managing the heat that an ESC generates is a pretty fundamental engineering problem, and even more critical in an R/C device that goes many feet into the air.
Any momentary stalling of a 3-phase motor is going to drive the temps up pretty high. The higher the current draw, the narrower the margin for error that that heat will exceed either the capability of the MOSFET matrix, or the insulation of the wiring that (unwisely) is laying over the top of it. It's possible, I suppose, to decrease that problem by managing the way that ESC handles the current switching (decreasing the possibility of a stall/short), which is apparently what DJI has been trying to do with the three different ESC firmware versions they've tried on the v2.0 Phantoms 2s and v3.0 Phantom 2 Vision Plus's. Unfortunately, they and their distributors, are still selling Phantoms with the older, and dangerously incompatible, ESC firmware versions. Buying a Phantom is pretty much a crap shoot right now, and will remain so until all those older Phantoms are out of the retail chain.
Example...here's an ESC commonly used in a 2-4 cell LiPo-powered R/C off-road truck. Our Phantoms are 6-cell LiPos.
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I would go for the v3. Do tell the seller though you will not settle to get an old stock v3 delivered. Let the seller garantee that your v3 bird has ecs's with v2.1 fw inside as well as a vented eigi unit . If your seller is not willing to give you a writen garantee in that respect, don't weast/risk your money there.mdj89 said:
Just an advise.
The only use that ima be using it for is just to glide it around I have 15 acers of land in the country and I just want to see how the area that I live in looks like from 250 to 300 feet up. Other then that just a toy to fly around with especially at night with the cool led lights.
You are comparing apples to oranges. While the Syma is great and a lot of fun its more of just a toy (even though they warn its not). Its a fun little rig to mess around with and if you lose it you aren't too upset. Its also great for learning to fly in case you need to take over your phantom manually. They are completely different animals. Its like comparing a Power Wheels to a Harley Davidson. The DJIs are much more well built and light years ahead of the Syma as far as technology is concerned. The Syma is also gear driven, and the Phantoms motors are not. Those plastic gears can strip very easily.
I was thinking about getting the phantom 2 v2 becouse since the motors are smaller in case something happens it wont blow out the esc so fast with the leaser current running through plus I dont need anything with a bigger motor. I think the v2 would be good enough for me and its still light years away from the syma x5.
ya with them new bigger motors Im waiting intill they have the esc problem fixed before I even think about upgrading to them
Seems the firmware fix is not what they should be doing to try and make the escs that are not designed or spec'ed for the higher amp draw dont seem to good of an idea. when they should instead design an esc that has better hardware on it to handle the higher amps and some room to spare
Seems the firmware fix is not what they should be doing to try and make the escs that are not designed or spec'ed for the higher amp draw dont seem to good of an idea. when they should instead design an esc that has better hardware on it to handle the higher amps and some room to spare
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00H7HH6Q ... ref=plSrch
Hey guys is that the original phantom 2 that I want?
Hey guys is that the original phantom 2 that I want?
There have been suggestions that low rpm could overheat the ESC due to less cooling. Abrupt breaking of forward flight by reversing has also been attributed to ESC failure.
Narrator said:
I dont understand the rpm link, but "braking" in mid air as a possible cause of failure is discussed in recommendation 4.
http://forum.dji.com/forum.php?mod=view ... es&lang=en
There is also anecdotal data reported by a phantom pilot on this forum where a probable ESC failure causing a crash was immediately preceded by arresting a high speed run in ATTI by switching to GPS.
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