P2V+ ESC replacement

[MrSlippery]

Hey guys. I was gifted a V2 Phantom 2 some time ago and had a strange fly away issue the other day when I went to fly it for the second time. No biggy, probably because I didn't allow proper GPS booting.

So recovered the drone with minimal damage, just a bent body arm and one of the ESC's managed to get crushed by the arm bending. So the one ESC needs to be replaced. I replaced the body already

Is it possible to replace just one ESC at a time or must you replace all 4 at once? Are all DJI P2V+ ESC's compatible with each other? Does any of that matter?

Any other things I should know about replacing the ESC? Soldering is no problem for me, I'm talking more electronic or obscure model specific knowledge

Thanks in advance!

Slippery

 

[jason]

Just order one to replace the damaged ESC module.

 

[MrSlippery]

Well that is just the problem... I am talking to DJI and they are saying that is not possible.

What tech support said is that I must match the color on the capacitor for all ESC's. Mine is white, making it a V4.0 firmware, or second iteration of the esc firmware. I Cannot find a white one for the life of me. Apparently there are tons of blue/red, yellow and black out there, but no white... not sure why.

Honestly it sounds like ********. Excuse my french. They named them all the same thing and this "Fact" doesnt seem to be well known on any forums. Can anyone confirm this?


As per DJI's information...

Black capacitors are the earliest (Ver 3.8). White Capacitors are the second version (Ver 4.00). Red and Blue are third version (Ver 4.04) and Yellow Capacitors are fourth version (Ver 4.06).

 

[CityZen]

The hardware is the same for all Phantom 2 ESCs (all are "v2"). However, there appear to be several different versions of the firmware on them, and only DJI can update that.

Now, it's supposed to be the case that P2's with 2212 motors can use any version of the ESC firmware. However, I think you'd do best to have matching firmware on your ESCs. The latest P2's with 2312 motors are supposed to use the latest firmware only (although it's not quite clear to me which "latest" that is).

Prior to the 2312 motors coming out, nobody worried about what version you had. How much does it really matter for those with 2212 motors, I don't really know.

 

[MrSlippery]

Interesting note that no one used to care. I have talked to several "authorized" dealers about this and for the 2212's having different colors on the cap's is news" to them... Plus many of them are actually still selling the "black" style ones. Guess they didn't get the memo? How long must they have had those parts...

I dunno, I have called 20 places looking for white ones though and they must have been a very limited run because NO one has them. Its either black or yellow's, with a few red/blues mixed in there.

I've been interacting with DJI support for the last week and I ultimately tonight in my utter disappointment I wrote a nice letter and asked if they would be willing to try and remedy the situation by looking around the shop for some white cap ESC's or to trade me 3 old ESC's for 3 new ones because the lack of cross compatibility on a part like that is a total joke... You can still buy 20 dollar car parts for vehicles from the 1970's for Christ's sake...

 

[justin00]

I have 4x older ESC that can be used with 2212's. They came with my vision+ (non v3) that I got in September last year.
I have upgraded to 2312 motors and ESC 2.1 which is why I have the 4 older ESC available.

Anyways If you are in Australia I can give you one of the older ESC if its what you need ?
Don't really want to send internationally, so can only help if you are in Aus to.

 

[MrSlippery]

Thanks bud. I appreciate the thought. I'm in Caribbean currently so that would be more trouble than its worth. I made an appeal to DJI to please swap me or help me in some way because this is ridiculous. We will see how interested in being reasonable they are because it seems like a reasonable request given all of the ESC stuff they have run through...

 

[edonovanl]

Since this thread is about ESCs, I've a question...are the LEDs part of the ESC? I've yet to pull an ESC off so don't know. Seems like that circuit would be part of the main controller or NAZA...

 

[CityZen]

The LEDs are part of the ESC. On a P1, they turn on when the motors do. On a P2 they are controlled by a separate signal from the main board.

 

[edonovanl]

That sucks because I was looking at the E310 Tuned Propulsion system for my V3...guess it won't work

 

[jack perez]

MrSlippery, I think you can replace a single rotor as well, the drone can stabilize itself using the inbuilt gyro. Although it is highly recommended to replace all 4 of them but you can made do with one if you don’t use it for professional jobs. The gyro can stabilize the thrust coming from a single rotor but there might be some issues when the drone is taking off since the control loops aren’t booted up very well by then.

electronic assembly manufacturing

 

[MrSlippery]

Just wanted to follow up on this. DJI eventually decided to sell me the older style white cap ESC. At first they were saying I had to send in unit. Then they were saying they could not sell ESC's. I had to go back and forth for nearly a week but they finally did agreed to just sell me the ESC and send it to me. Still more trouble than I would have liked to go through for a product this expensive. Had i been working as the tech support guy that solution would have been offered and done in the first email. Parts should be arriving soon and then the phantom flies again. Thanks for the info on the prop changes. Currently it seems like my props are an all or non situation Everybody survives or nobody does