Hot Esc!!!

[spencer737]

Hey guys, I was flying my Blade 400 the other day, went into idle up, flew around and as I was coming in for landing I swithched out of idle up and the motor was cutting in and out and the head speed was LOW! So I looked everthing over and I felt the motor, it kinda warmer than normal and then I went to touch the ESC and burnt my finger! I reset my radio (DX7) and it seems to be going well. I was wondering if anyone else has had this problem.

-Thanks guys!

[topquark41396]

The ESC does have a low-voltage warning mode that will cut the throttle in an attempt to save the battery if the battery falls below 9V. I haven't checked the ESC temp following a flight... and won't be able to for a while (waiting for parts).

According to the manual, the ESC will throttle up and down as an indication for the low voltage.

Check your battery voltage before and after flight, you could have a bad battery, or are flying too long and running the risk of damaging your battery. That, or the ESC is bad. Hard to know for sure without further tests.

[carlo_the_wonder_frog]

If the ESC is going into Low Voltage cutoff, you are doing damage to the battery. You need to time your flights so that that never happens, using a good LiPo charger that tells you how may milliamps you have put back in a battery is the best way to do this. Do not take out more than 80% of a packs total capacity, anymore and you will quickly kill that battery. so 80% of 2200 is 1760. if you are putting more than 1760 mah back into your battery to charge it up to full then you are flying for too long and hurting the battery.

you cannot check the voltage of the battery with a meter, you will get wrong reading everytime. a correct reading ( the one the ESC uses) must be done while the battery is running a load across it ( While its flying around). kind of hard to do to say the least. Even a completely used battery will display 11 volts with no load.

[spencer737]

it was a fully charged TP V2 11.1 2200 pack

[carlo_the_wonder_frog]

Check your ESC settings, possibly somehow it is malfuctioning, either that or your charger isn't working correctly. What charger are you using?

[spencer737]

well not sure maybe that could be it. I was at a fun fly and forgot my charger, someone let me use theirs. so...

[Wolfpackin]

Does anyone know what the normal operating temperature of the E-flite 25A ESC should be?
I'm at altitude, 8,000 FASL, and after 5 min. of begginer hovering my ESC gets fairly hot, at about 125F.
Motor and batteries stay cooler, around 100F.
Any thoughts?

[widower]

I wonder if you have some binding. Maybe the tail belt is too tight. I'm flying indoors (too cold outside) and my battery & esc are warm to the touch. Not hot. And no way am I seeing 100 degF batteries. I'm running both the stock battery and a 2200mAh battery. I'm still hovering (no space) but I've got a good number of hours into it. I've tried to keep things lightly oiled. If I spin the main rotor with my finger (aprox 1 revolution in 1 mississippi), the rotor will continue for one more turn on it's own.

If your rotor doesn't spin easily, the tail belt could be tight or maybe the one way bearing needs oil.

Also, if you have binding on your servos or stiff ball joints, you will also end up with greater current draw from the esc.You should be able to easily wiggle all the connecting rods.

[carlo_the_wonder_frog]

125 is ok for the esc, most esc get hot because of the load on the BEC, but 125 is not bad.

[Wolfpackin]

Thanks, that's good to know.
I have a tough time dealing with lift and heat problems here at 8,000FASL.