Keep losing a propeller

J

Jason Church

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Ok, my very first vision plus that I bought 6 months ago due to me not calibrating the compass properly and continuing to do so eventually did a backflip and landed on its landing gear HARD and bounced back up in the air and continued flying. I immediately brought it to where I was to inspect the damage only to find none to the camera or Phantom. At the time not knowing any better and taking it home and performing an IMU calibration immediately I took to the skys for some more fun. I got about 30 feet away 40 feet off the ground and noticed it was flying at an odd angle so I began to turn it around to head back to where I was and the rear left prop let loose causing the Phantom to tumble to the ground bending an arm and breaking the camera ribbon. Was quoted $1300 to have it fixed so I packed it up and put it in the closet and bought a brand new one the next week cause it was only $200 more figuring I would eventually fix it at a later date.
I bought a new shell last week and pulled the old Phantom from the closet minus the camera and swapped the internal electronics to the new shell, updated to V3.08, did an advanced calibration twice, all the compass numbers were in the correct parameters went to the local soccer field got sats right away, marked a home point, did a successful compass calibration, everything looked good and took to the air. it hovered totally solid keeping it's spot (there was no wind anyway) without any issues, I tested the controls forward, backwards, Left right, no issues at all responded great to my controls. Did a figure 8 in GPS about 10 feet from the ground, quad flew really nice. Switched to ATTI and went to do another figure 8 giving er some pretty good power on the throttle and when it did the first half of the figure 8 coming out of it the same propeller as before went flying off leaving the Phantom to tumble to the ground once again.
Luckly there was not any damage to the new shell and all the props were damage free as well as my head due to my quick cat like reflexes lol as it cartwheeled just missing me.

now, what do you think caused this, obviously the motor that the propeller spun off of stopped for enough time for the momentum of the propeller to allow it to spin off, but all the motors spin freely like they were brand new, no noise or FOD in them. Could the ESC been damaged from the original crash? all the lights blink in order and in time with each other.

Should I replace that ESC and motor or should I replace all 4 motors and ESC's? Or do you think it's something else?

Your help is much appreciated.

Jason
 
Check to see if the prop in question has a proper thread and there's nothing stuck in there to prevent it from locking onto the bolt properly. Some props have a little plastic barb inside them that stops them from going down the bolt all the way. You won't need all that much for the prop to come flying off then.

Apart from this, I've no idea why or how a prop would come undone mid-flight. Do you (hand-)tighten your props at all or just spin them on? Perhaps use the prop tightener going forward.
 
No that's not the problem, they were the same props from my other phantom and they work just fine on my last 50 flights with them.

Thanks for your input though. :)
 
I have feel prey to this problem. In my case it was a bad motor. But that is not to say it could also be the ESC to that motor in your case.

In my case I had a short in wiring near the heat shrink as it enters the bottom of the motor. When short occurred in flight the motor would stutter. And the self tightening prop becomes a patent pending "Self Removing Prop" ;)

This is caused by inertia. The prop is turning fast and the motor shaft slows down to fast, and off it spins.

I bought a new motor and ESC. I first soldered on the new motor. Problem fixed...I guess I now own a spare ESC.
 
I have a feeling that your totally right Damon, guess I just wanted to hear it from someone who has had the same problem.

Thanks for your input, much appreciated.

Will treat this as problem solved till I test it with a new motor and ESC.
 
Ok, will do.

I know to make sure that if I order a new motor to buy the right one (CCW/CW) but is an ESC an ESC? there isn't one for each type of motor as well is there?
 
The motors are universal, they are not CCW or CW. If you need to switch the rotation of the motor, all you need do is switch any 2 of the 3 connecting wires to the ESC. I'd recommend testing the motor on another arm, if it spins then you know you'll need an ESC. If it doesn't spin, then you need a motor. It's a pretty easy test, as long as you're comfortable with some minor soldering. Oh yeah, the ESC's are also universal.
 
On P1's, ESC's come in red & green flavors. On P2's, there's v1 & v2 ESCs, but they're all pretty much V2's now.
There's the new type of motors, which you don't want, since it won't match the others.
The v1 ESC's won't work with the new type, but that's not an issue for you.

A motor just working for a test doesn't mean it won't have the same problem if there's an intermittent loose connection inside.
 
I would check one more thing. Compare the thread depths on each motor and see if the one you are having an issue with might have very shallow threads due to a manufacturing defect - which would allow a prop to come flying off without enough thread bite. Slim chance, but you never know.
 
tmc6663 said:
The motors are universal, they are not CCW or CW. If you need to switch the rotation of the motor, all you need do is switch any 2 of the 3 connecting wires to the ESC. I'd recommend testing the motor on another arm, if it spins then you know you'll need an ESC. If it doesn't spin, then you need a motor. It's a pretty easy test, as long as you're comfortable with some minor soldering. Oh yeah, the ESC's are also universal.
Click to expand...
Motors are most definitely not universal. They can be wired wrong to make them spin the wrong direction. But they need to spin in their designed direction because of the CW or CCW threads on the motor's shaft.
 
As an aside, unless I'm wrong, I think a prop coming off a flying Phantom = instant hurtling to the ground. But I don't think this needs to be the case. Once you lose power from an arm, you can have a pre-set program kick in that throttles all remaining motors to the max and rotates the whole copter around fast. Rotating the copter will negate the no-power arm to some extent. The copter will still come down in a hurry, but rather than a full-on crash, it's more of a controlled crash. At least it buys you a bit of time, so you have a fighting chance to nudge the copter over to a spot you choose.

I wonder if DJI can add this as an upgrade going forward.
 
+1 I would definitely support that programming. Because "yes, it falls like a tumbling rock" when a motor fails.
 
singapore_phantom said:
As an aside, unless I'm wrong, I think a prop coming off a flying Phantom = instant hurtling to the ground. But I don't think this needs to be the case. Once you lose power from an arm, you can have a pre-set program kick in that throttles all remaining motors to the max and rotates the whole copter around fast. Rotating the copter will negate the no-power arm to some extent. The copter will still come down in a hurry, but rather than a full-on crash, it's more of a controlled crash. At least it buys you a bit of time, so you have a fighting chance to nudge the copter over to a spot you choose.

I wonder if DJI can add this as an upgrade going forward.
Click to expand...

This totally must be done!!! Especially for the pricey Inspire 1. I just looked around for practical examples, and here is a cool video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsHryqnvyYA
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsHryqnvyYA[/youtube]
 
In fact I even think this should be a feature enforced by law. Think about it. Nothing is made so good that it can not fail. Certainly not the Phantom. One day you gonna have a failure. You can just hope that it is going to be in a convenient time and place. Like, that you will spot motor stuttering already on the ground.
But what if you don't?
What if it fails and then drops from the sky on someone and even causes death! And all that was need is that DJI firmware developers had put some code in that could prevent that! DJI should really feel a moral obligation to implement this! Look at the above video. The quad can basically safely land.
 
tmc6663 said:
The motors are universal, they are not CCW or CW. If you need to switch the rotation of the motor, all you need do is switch any 2 of the 3 connecting wires to the ESC. I'd recommend testing the motor on another arm, if it spins then you know you'll need an ESC. If it doesn't spin, then you need a motor. It's a pretty easy test, as long as you're comfortable with some minor soldering. Oh yeah, the ESC's are also universal.
Click to expand...

Well that's true about changing rotation direction but there are two different motors due to the shaft thread directions.
 
All of you have been a great help thank you very much everyone, will do the test's and figure out what I need to order.

Thanks again.
 

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