Phantom 3 Crash, Motor Bent?

[zarfx4]

Hello All,

I got my Phantom 3 about a month ago. Been flying fine. Over the weekend, I was landing the drone, and it touched down. While I was in the process of powering down, wind kicked up, caught the underside of the craft and flipped it over. It flipped top side down into the grass. Of course the props got caught, motors wanted to keep spinning.

I ended up having to pull the battery out to get it to stop.

Once powered off, i noticed
1) One of the motors was smoking (hot smell)
2) Same motor was leaning

I took it inside, let it cool down. And took the mounting screws out. Pulled the Motor up enough to peek under it. I cant tell, but it almost looks like some plastic may be missing.

I put the motor down, and noticed it wont site flat/level in its hole.

I was able to put the mounting screws back in and tighten them in a manner that the motor is straight again (eyeballed it).

Took it outside, powered up. Everything spins, no errors. I did fly it up a bit, and back down, but noticed it was only acceding about 3 m/s (should be around 6 m/s ???right??).

Questions:

1) Is it normal to have to balance the motor in this manner (using the mounting screws)
2) Since the speed seems reduced, would this be due to the motor or something else?


Thanks!!!

 

[Oso]

When you talk about the motors being straight, are you first aware that the motors are slanted slightly by design?

When you tried it later and saw only 3m/s ascending, was that on a fresh battery or the discharged battery from the earlier flight?

When you powering down the first time after landing, were you using left stick down or the CSC?

 

[zarfx4]

Yes aware they are tilted by design....after crash...it was leaning too far
3 m/s was on same batter...~ 30-40%
Landing...left stick down

 

[CaptainDrone798]

Your craft is fine. Motors are built like that.

 

[Oso]

Yes aware they are tilted by design....after crash...it was leaning too far
3 m/s was on same batter...~ 30-40%
Landing...left stick down

Okay then, so you did know they are slanted by design and could see that this one was even more slanted than normal. That's a bit concerning, yes. Now that you've corrected it, are the motor mounts fully tight?

As for the 3m/s, perhaps you were already in the "propulsion limited" state due to the low battery percentage. Maybe try a freshly charged battery to see if returns to normal. That's assuming of course that you are confident with that one motor.

Nice to hear it was left stick down to stop the motors once landed. Some people are still learning that the CSC is known to cause flip overs when powering down.

 

[Trackman1]

Surely he can tell one is different from the others?
Try posting a pic.

 

[CaptainDrone798]

Surely he can tell one is different from the others?
Try posting a pic.

Motors don't bend (especially flipping over on grass), without a sudden force. They're fat & round so I'd expect they would either dent or break off from the plastic.

 

[zarfx4]

Motors don't bend (especially flipping over on grass), without a sudden force. They're fat & round so I'd expect they would either dent or break off from the plastic.

My assumption is that due to the motor getting VERY hot, it may have melted the mount...causing it to lean.

Ill get a pic tonight

 

[henick]

I've done this twice and had no issues. Broken prop and back in the air. Your biggest concern here is to quickly perform a CSC before you blow an etc. You're probably fine if the motor still spins at all. Make sure it's dry and free of debris before storage and you should be fine.

A blown etc is more of an issue on the newer p3p than the older one because they're attached to the system board.

As to the heating, I assume you did not shut down the motors quickly.

 

[Trackman1]

If you have to open it up. Here is a link to a guy taking the lid off.

 

[zarfx4]

Thanks!

I did more testing last night. I got it up in the air, and it seems to working OK.

Tested speed with a new battery, and looks back to normal.

Im going to do some more testing before i "trust" it again, but I think re-aligning the motor and eyeballing how it should be worked. I can notice that when props are spinning, and i have it flying at eye level, one prop looks just a little off, but not bad.

 

[Niall Carney]

I think I'm having a very similar issue. I hit a wall in my garden practising some precise flying... Oh the irony. Anyway; it now appears that on of the arms which holds the motors is slightly twisted. I understand that bending a motor or shaft is unlikely but one of my propellers only clears the main body of the aircraft by 2-3mm where as the rest all clear by c7-8mm. I'm confident I haven't bent a motor shaft as this would result in a propeller wobbling as it rotates which isn't the case.

The flight controller does a very good job of trying to correct for the misalignment and it isn't that noticeable. Only when I fly low and slow does it become apparent. For example, if I'm hovering and want to fly straight forward or back, it will crab slightly until it works out its not doing as directed and corrects for it.

I was fortunate enough to have a few perfectly calm days recently. I took the aircraft up to a safe height (6-7m) and ensured there was no wind and no possibility of ground effect and switched from P mode to A mode. Sure enough the aircraft began to move toward the side of the "twisted" arm [emoji30].

Currently weighing up options:

Either live with it - it does really annoy me though

Replace the shell - looked like quite a complicated job (I'm an engineer, but still looks tricky enough. I'm sure I can)

Buy a phantom 4 - wife says no, even though I explains that had I had the collision avoidance, I'd have been fine. I just got 'the look' and went back to googling how to change the shell...


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