DIY RC Airplanes from Scratch: The Brooklyn Aerodrome Bible for Hacking the Skies by Baldwin Breck

Author:Baldwin, Breck
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education
Published: 2013-06-12T04:00:00+00:00

Servos Operate But Motor Does Not

This is a fairly common problem that has several possible causes:

1. The cutoff voltage has been reached for the ESC, and the motor power has been cut to protect the batteries from overdischarge. Verify by trying a different freshly charged battery pack. If that solves the problem, then nothing is broken—go charge your batteries and fly.

2. Did you have zero throttle and the throttle trim set all the way down on the transmitter (which was on) when you powered up the airplane? Most ESCs lock out the throttle if the plane is powered up with nonzero throttle. Speed control might be chirping like crazy because of the dangerous situation (the motor otherwise would start turning). Test by powering up the airplane with zero throttle from the transmitter.

3. Some ESCs require that the throttle be armed. For example, Jeti ESCs require the throttle to be at zero, then go to full throttle until a series of beeps is heard, and then go back to zero to arm the motor. Read your manual—cheaper speed controls rarely have this feature.

4. Verify that your ESC is on the correct channel (usually channel 3) for how the radio is set up.

5. Verify that the throttle is sending a signal to the throttle channel by putting a servo on that channel and the ESC to any other available channel. If the “throttle” servo moves in accordance with the throttle stick, then you know that the radio is working properly with the receiver. If not, then investigate channel assignments and/or programming in your radio.

If the problem persists, then either the motor or the ESC is broken. If the flight battery has been connected backwards to the ESC, then most likely the circuits have been destroyed, and the ESC has to be replaced. Sometimes the ESC survives, however.

1. Inspect the motor for damage, as described in the motor section, and replace if necessary.

2. If the motor still does not turn, then swap out the ESC with a replacement.

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