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I got burned my ESC twice, this makes me think this is not a coincidence, but I'm doing something wrong. Would be glad if someone would be able to point it out.

I have a simple drone, with the following specs:

  • FC - F3 Deluxe 10DOF
  • ESC - Eachine Wizard X220
  • Motors - Racerstar 2205 2300KV
  • Battery - 3S

Originally I used FS-iA6B receiver and everything was good. Util I saw positive feedback about FS X6B recevier. I swithed to X6B but wrongly connected the wires, and after I attached the battery my back right ESC smoked.

I use PPM to communicate among receiver and FC, so there are 3 wires: plus, ground and data. There were no suitable cables to connect X6B to FC that came with them, so I soldered wires and made an error. The error was that I swapped the plus and ground wires. Still, this is pretty strange, even if receiver is connected wrongly and tells nuts to FC, this shouldn't get ESC to go crazy and burn itself.

I bought a new ESC of same model, fixed the wiring issue and went to flight. The first battery was perfect. But when I connected the second one - same back right ESC (this time a brand new one) smoked again and burned.

I'm interested to know if someone had similar experience of same ESC being burned twice, and what should be done to fix this. Is this some sort of incompatibility of the parts I'm using?

I'd like to avoid switching back to FS-iA6B, since X6B mounts much nicer in stack above FC and PDB.

Thanks in advance.

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    $\begingroup$ Hi! We'd need some more information to help you out here, like what the cell count of your battery is, and what the initial wiring error looked like and what you did to fix it. Something like a description of how you initially had your quad wired and what you did to fix it. $\endgroup$
    – ifconfig ♦
    Commented Aug 5, 2020 at 22:32
  • $\begingroup$ @ifconfig, the battery is 3S, and the error was that I swapped plus and ground wires. I added this to the question. Please tell me what additional info might be helpful. Maybe a photo of the build and of the smoked ESC will be of aid? $\endgroup$
    – jutky
    Commented Aug 6, 2020 at 6:55
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    $\begingroup$ A smoke stopper would have helped the first time - drones.stackexchange.com/questions/860/… $\endgroup$
    – Robin Bennett
    Commented Aug 6, 2020 at 10:03
  • $\begingroup$ Are you sure you have the rest of the wiring done correctly this time? You're right that miss-wiring the receiver shouldn't have any effect on an esc going up in smoke. $\endgroup$
    – ifconfig ♦
    Commented Aug 6, 2020 at 16:56
  • $\begingroup$ @ifconfig I think everything is right, I made about 30 flights with old receiver, and receiver is the single electronic thing I've changed. I also changed the frame (the old one was almost broken) but I don't think this should cause problems. $\endgroup$
    – jutky
    Commented Aug 7, 2020 at 7:22

1 Answer 1

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In my opinion, the communication protocol between your receiver and the FC cannot damage the ESC. If you ever reverse powered the FC it is possible that something broke on the FC that ripples through to the ESC but I don't think that is likely.

A big reason for burning ESCs is overvoltage. When the motors are used (even for the beeping noises at startup), they can generate extremely high voltage spikes. The best way to deal with this is to put a big capacitor on the battery voltage rail. The battery is not fast enough to eat up these spikes but a capacitor is.

So check if the capacitor is still properly connected, preferably as close to the ESCs as possible.

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  • $\begingroup$ Thanks for your input. I had no such capacitor, received it only last week and planned to mount it on the build. So, your reasoning describes the case precisely. After I'll mount the capacitor and will replace the burned ESC, I'll make some more flights and will report if this solves the problem. $\endgroup$
    – jutky
    Commented Aug 26, 2020 at 5:48
  • $\begingroup$ The cap will only smooth out the voltage and provide a bubble of safe voltage. Generally this is done to improve video feeds because ESC's are noisy. I have never had a voltage problem on ESC or RX that needed a cap (might be better, but those devices are very tolerant). A cap is the same as a battery except it charges and discharges very quickly. Caps also can't store electricity for long, like a battery can. But when on the rail correctly it will buffer sensitive electronics when the voltage spikes and sags. My 2" drops voltage to 8.5v on 3s on the first punch for example, a cap is key. $\endgroup$
    – FunHog.me
    Commented Aug 26, 2020 at 16:57

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