solo pod inop

dongfanglong · Aug 11, 2016

Ok I have a new solo. After a few test flights I wanted to do a test of how long it would take to drain the battery but made the mistake of taking off too close to my building. A gust of wind hit as it was passing a stone pillar and it pushed it right into it (yes i know noob mistake on my part). 2 of the blades where destroyed ( 03 and 04 ) but I replaced them. However pod 04 wont spin any more. It lights up but no other activity. I removed it to check to see if anything looked obviously broken but looks exactly like the others. Does anyone have any ideas how to fix this or if it can be fixed. I'd rather not buy a new one if I can help it.

Thanks in advance for your time.

aidanlou · Aug 12, 2016

Do you have access to an oscilloscope and voltmeter? Does the motor still spin freely?

fpvsteve · Aug 12, 2016

Buy a new motor pod. Likely you fried the ESC. 50something bucks and you are up in the air again.

dongfanglong · Aug 12, 2016

aidanlou said:
Do you have access to an oscilloscope and voltmeter? Does the motor still spin freely?

sadly i do not have those tools at hand. It does spin freely. As I said there is no observable damage to the thing beyond the broken blades and a scratch on one of the legs. I can buy a new one but I see no reason to shell out $50+ if I don't have to.

aidanlou · Aug 12, 2016

Then the ESC could be the problem. Bad things can happen when motors are stressed like that.

PdxSteve · Aug 12, 2016

As mentioned the ESC is most likely fried due to a lot of power being applied but the motor not being able to spin since the props were hitting something. Kind of like driving down the road with the emergency brake on. Best to replace it even if you manage to get it working as it's now unreliable. I suspect if you take it out and look at the circuit board closely you'll see some arc/burn marks due to the short.

dongfanglong · Aug 12, 2016

PdxSteve said:
As mentioned the ESC is most likely fried due to a lot of power being applied but the motor not being able to spin since the props were hitting something. Kind of like driving down the road with the emergency brake on. Best to replace it even if you manage to get it working as it's now unreliable. I suspect if you take it out and look at the circuit board closely you'll see some arc/burn marks due to the short.

I'll order one. I was trying not to do to the fact i live on a army base and this place has a habit of losing things in the mail or just taking weeks after the tracker says its delivered (2 weeks was the longest one for me). As for the card I did take it out and even compared it to one of the working ones and could find nothing shorted out. As I said before I could find no observable damage or difference. Also the blades snapped right off on impact with the pillar so it was spinning not locked in place. I tried to find a drone shop around here but none of them sell parts sadly.

Thanks for trying to help.