Jazz 55 ESC Woes....

[LITHIUMSTATIC]

Well...... I was all setup for flight #6.

78F outside, sunny, calm winds, perfect.

I put my canopy on for it's first agrassive flight. So far I've only hovered for 2 minutes with it atached and have done all my test flights without it. I took off and after 3 minutes..... NO POWER!!! My nerves were :wow2: I was about 100ft up and brought it in for a nice auto. Pulled the canopy off and felt of everything. Battery lukewarm. Motor I'd call it around 150F. The ESC.... Damn! The light was blinking in a series of 3, overheated.

Shawn told me to mod it with a heatsink. That's on my list of things to do before spring and figured it would be ok until then as the weather here is starting to cool off. Well... I thought wrong.

It gets anywhere from 100F to 110F here in the summer so I need some serious cooling mods done. How about heatsinks thermal epoxied on both sides of the ESC and mounting a small computer fan directly on top? Or do you think just a good heatsink is enough?

[BruceW]

Wow, one more thing for me to put on my checklist! I plan on getting the Jazz 55 also so I guess a mod is in the works. Are you sure you just didn't get a bum ESC? Your running 10S right? I figured that shouldn't be anywhere near enough current for a thermal shutdown on 10S.

Did it work fine after it cooled down?

[LITHIUMSTATIC]

I seriously doubt it's a bum ESC. The Jazz 55 is at it's limit for this heli. The next size up is the power Jazz but it's a heavy SOB. They are making an in between model that will be out next spring/summer.

I really wasn't suprised as most folks mod them with heatsinks asap.

[BobbySmith]

Jeremy somehting is not right that esc shoudlnt thermal that easy we are seeing 6 minutes of hard 3d wiht the Actro 24-4's no thermal issues no heat sink
What motor you got?

Bobby

[Flybar-less]

Jeremy,
If you're running a 1912 I imagine you need a bigger controller. I have moved up from a CC 85HV to a CC 110HV. I also have a Power Jazz sitting here as back up.
The 600 is absolutely ballistic on a 1912H/1Y 13T, it does things I have never seen a heli do, power to weight ratio wise.

P.S. CC says the NEU 15 and 19 series motors are the most efficient they have tested. The 1912H/1Y can produce up to 6HP instantainiously.

[NTM]

Here's a couple pics of how I did my jazz up with a heatsink.
I split the boards and used a pair of cc85hv heatsinks (the only good use for my cc85hv esc's, lol !), and it's been good on my v-bar 6003d with a 1915-1y, which draws more current than the 1912-1y.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v325/NTM95/IMG_0924.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v325/NTM95/IMG_0926.jpg

[Ticidytoc]

I need to get my hands on one of those CC heat sinks.

As for Jeremy's problem, I have pushed mine much harder than that wih no thermals, and only recently added a heat sink to it.

-Matt

[Klinger]

I'm also running the 1915-1Y and have a simple heatsink mounted only to the outside fet board. I have occassionaly had and overcurrent shutdown but not an overtemp one yet. The ESC has never got real hot to date and the ambient here lately has been around 28-30 degrees C.

NTM, i'm surprised you even trust the CC heatsinks :lol:

[LITHIUMSTATIC]

You know what it may be..... I may be running my headspeed to low. I don't have a tach and am going by feel. I'm running 70% gov. I think I will up it to 85% and make sure my pinion isn't pushing to hard against the main gear. I seriously doubt it is, has just a tiny smudge of backlash if you could even cal it that. Been using silicone spray on the pinion too. Without the canopy everything seamed great! Everything without the canopy is running lukewarm. I'll play with it tomorrow.

Hope it's not a bad ESC.

[LITHIUMSTATIC]

:(:guzzle:(:guzzle:(:guzzle:(:guzzle:(:guzzle:(:gu zzle:(:guzzle:(:guzzle

[Flybar-less]

NTM,Klinger,
I have a spare 1915. Which pinion do you use?

[OICU812]

You know what it may be..... I may be running my headspeed to low. I don't have a tach and am going by feel. I'm running 70% gov. I think I will up it to 85% and make sure my pinion isn't pushing to hard against the main gear. I seriously doubt it is, has just a tiny smudge of backlash if you could even cal it that. Been using silicone spray on the pinion too. Without the canopy everything seamed great! Everything without the canopy is running lukewarm. I'll play with it tomorrow.

Hope it's not a bad ESC.

Jeremy, I need to ask. Did you intially program your esc to mode 1, then to mode 4 for heli governor with a linear curve? The on first spool up let it find the headspeed so it may adjust timing accordingly?

Before trying again, reset the esc to mode 1 making sure to use your normal mode "linear curve" 0-100, then do your mode 4, let it beep the 4 out than disconnect. Start in idle 1 or 2 which ever and let it balance out first time than it will know the timing of the motor needed.

Now another thing to know, there is no negative affect on the Kontronik ESC till you go below 57%, this is fact and motormike from RCG who is the Kontronik tech can assure you of this and I know this as well as I tested this limit myself sometime ago. :oops:

Kontroniks are not like CC esc in regards to % making it do wonky things.

[Klinger]

NTM,Klinger,
I have a spare 1915. Which pinion do you use?

I've found the 14T to be fairly serious but you could go crazy on a 15 :wink:

[NTM]

14 tooth for now, 2150rpm on 620mm blades, but it wants a 15 tooth pinion. It's not holding head speed when the pack voltage drops below 35 volts under load. And that's with flightpower 10s 25c 4350mah packs.
On my logo 14, the head speed was showing less than 20 rpm fluctuation with a 15 tooth pinion but it was really sucking back the amps.

Jeremy the jazz will be okay at 75% for heat. Are your endpoints set properly so it's actually 75% ?
If you're running too much head speed though, you might be overunning the jazz's switching limits.
That or your average amp draw is too high from binding somewhere (tight pinion etc.).

[Mercuriell]

I've been running my Z50-800 with peaks up to 106A on the 55-10-32 and top temp so far has been 55°C in ambient ~28°C - to say I'm impressed is an understatement and I have just ordered my 2nd one. Even the big name items don't always deliver the goods though.

[LITHIUMSTATIC]

Jeremy, I need to ask. Did you intially program your esc to mode 1, then to mode 4 for heli governor with a linear curve? The on first spool up let it find the headspeed so it may adjust timing accordingly?No I did not.... did it like a CC.:( I didn't know. The manual they sent with it sucks. :arggg:

Before trying again, reset the esc to mode 1 making sure to use your normal mode "linear curve" 0-100, then do your mode 4, let it beep the 4 out than disconnect. Start in idle 1 or 2 which ever and let it balance out first time than it will know the timing of the motor needed.
Thanks Shawn..... I will do it today.

Now another thing to know, there is no negative affect on the Kontronik ESC till you go below 57%, this is fact and motormike from RCG who is the Kontronik tech can assure you of this and I know this as well as I tested this limit myself sometime ago. I initialized it last night to see if it still works. Seams fine.:) Will know more later today.

[LITHIUMSTATIC]

Hummm....... ok put it in mode #1. Set throttle curve to linear. Ok ready to do it. I sat the heli on the driveway and went full throttle like the manual says.

The heli did a VERY abrupt 360 then I heard a very loud pop sound. Next I heard the sound of a free wheeling motor. :shock: then :oops: now I'm completely :(

[BruceW]

Oh crap! I feel for you.

You know this is the type of thing where its bad to have a motor plugged in while your doing ESC configuration but unfortunately you need the motor plugged in for the ESC to register and to send the beep signal.

I think I'm going to start designing a little visual monitor board that can plug into the ESC phase wires and carry out the beep sequence and display the duty cycle. This might be a hit and something useful for bench work so you don't need to use your motor for ESC programming work.

[Foamy Love]

I think I'm going to start designing a little visual monitor board that can plug into the ESC phase wires and carry out the beep sequence and display the duty cycle. This might be a hit and something useful for bench work so you don't need to use your motor for ESC programming work.


I'd buy one!

[th3tick]

Oh crap! I feel for you.

You know this is the type of thing where its bad to have a motor plugged in while your doing ESC configuration but unfortunately you need the motor plugged in for the ESC to register and to send the beep signal.

I think I'm going to start designing a little visual monitor board that can plug into the ESC phase wires and carry out the beep sequence and display the duty cycle. This might be a hit and something useful for bench work so you don't need to use your motor for ESC programming work.

Isn't the point here that the ESC sees the motor's behavior?

John

[LITHIUMSTATIC]

Well..... I don't know how to program this ESC. So fare I've overheated it and then I popped the pinion loose from the motor shaft during an attempted mode #1 spool up...... :arggg::arggg::arggg::arggg::arggg:

Anyone have detailed instructions telling me how to do this before I really Fock something up?

[BruceW]

Isn't the point here that the ESC sees the motor's behavior?

John

Your right that the ESC needs to learn from the motor for the governor tuning but for general programming to test the throttle range and beep out settable modes, it would be nice to do without the motor attached. A big motor plugged to the ESC on the bench scares me.

I've written PWM motor control code on HC908 before so I think something could be developed to simulate the expected signal back to the ESC although simulating a high current load would be difficult. Not sure of which chip to use yet. A little programmable box that lets you set motor KV and shows virtual RPM would be cool.

Bruce

[BruceW]

Well..... I don't know how to program this ESC. So fare I've overheated it and then I popped the pinion loose from the motor shaft during an attempted mode #1 spool up...... :arggg::arggg::arggg::arggg::arggg:

Anyone have detailed instructions telling me how to do this before I really Fock something up?

I'll be watching the response since I know nothing about the Jazz programming...yet.

Does it look like you only broke loose the pinion? That would be one piece of good news.

[LITHIUMSTATIC]

It does. I think everything else is ok. I just ground a flat spot on the motor shaft so next time it better be right or something is going to break.

Detailed Instructions anyone???

[th3tick]

Anyone have detailed instructions telling me how to do this before I really Fock something up?

Please?

I've not done this spool-up step myself, and thought I'd ended up with setups that work great, and have governed headspeeds right where I'd expect them...

John