Meet Tiny. The FlyingGiants Traveling Plane!

[Troy P]

Question: Did anyone else notice Tiny's 'Grinding' on start up? As in it's not in a good timing mode on the esc or something? It's not a real smooth start up. I have a CC-25 myself so I'll look up the directions but the rough start could cause motor cut-out issues... leading to a really banged up Tiny.

[MrKiwi]

YES! That's why the motor quit while I was flying!

[Boulder]

It was doing that when I got it, I changed the firmware to an older version and it flew fine for me. Not sure which version I used, I didn't think to write it down, sorry. I do remember it was one of the older versions, not one of the new Beta ones.

It still made a little noise, but it didn't effect the performance. The firmware version may need to be checked again.

The motor was cutting out on Pro1, that's why I checked the firmware, before it left me, if flew for several minutes with no cutoff.

[F3AFlyer7]

Make sure the cutoff is set for soft cutoff and not hard cutoff. That usually solves 90% of motor cutting issues. You can try a lower timing advance and it should get rid of some of the grinding, but it wont do anything to affect the motor cut issues.

[Troy P]

I'm going to be playing around with it more tonight once I get the pack charged up. On the first throttle up it was just a rough start but it ran. If I closed the throttle and fired it up again it would kick backwards and make a lot of noise to the point I was afraid it was going to fry. I did a search on RCGroups for a Himax/CC25 combo and others have had similar issues. Some said check the solder connections and others had programming suggestions. I'll go through my CC25 manual and check those settings out. The common symptoms from the other examples found were issues at lower throttle and would cause a motor shut down. I'd hate to have Tiny go splat on me or anyone else down the line so the least I can do is try to get it smoother.

The good news is I got a lot of the loose carbon adhered with the Gorilla Glue stick (great stuff BTW) and did a general airframe once-over.

[Boulder]

Troy,

Do you have the Castle Link programmer? I don't think anyone except me has changed the firmware, I might not have gone back far enough to an earlier version.

Scott,

I'm real sure I set it for soft cutoff, that's the way I set all of mine up. I may not have gone low enough on the timing advance, I honestly don't remember the settings...I know...I should have written them down...

[F3AFlyer7]

The solder job on the connectors could very well be it also. That's the other 10 percent. Make sure there's no intermittent connections, and if the wires aren't soldered directly to each other (bullet connectors) then do that as well.

A good way to keep the motor spinning is to increase your throttle trim a little to prevent the ESC from going back into start up mode and keeping it in the run mode.

[Troy P]

I don't have the castle link but my flying buddy may have one. I'll try the regular settings first as well as check the solder connections and go from there. If I have issues I'll go to Castle for 'advanced' help. I don't want to clog up this thread too much with technical stuff. I'll just try to resolve from here and anything beyond we can discuss in PM's.

[Boulder]

Hey Troy,

If you need me to, I can send you my CastleLink, as long as you promise to send it back

You would need to download the software from Castle and the link hooks up to any USB port on your 'puter.

Let me know.

[electric-2000]

Troy,
I have a CC programmer down here, it'd be a good excuse to come fly at Sea World. let me know and I'll stick it in my flying box.

Mike

[Pro1Foam]

Well guys I have bad news. Troy P just contacted me and he said that the magic smoke and flames were released from the ESC. A replacement is in the works but not secured. If you can help out please let troy know. We are thinking that the motor may have shorted causeing the problem so we are looking for both motor and esc.

Thanks
Pro1

[Troy P]

No alarm. I just got off the phone with Lucien from Scorpion Motors (www.innov8tivedesigns.com) and we are meeting up tomorrow morning to get some replacement equipment for Tiny. He is being really generous and Tiny will be set up good. We may shed some grams in AUW and have a nice matched motor/esc combo. I will see about getting the esc to Josh or Castle for repair for future 'incidents' but the save from Scorpion will certainly expedite the immediate need and I will be able to get Tiny back up in the air and off by Monday to Josh.

Since I didn't even get 10 seconds of motor run before the esc smoked, I did not get a chance to figure out if it is a short in the motor or just a bad FET on the board. It basically did a rough start, ran full power for a short moment, motor quit, I chopped the throttle, I looked to see if the LED was blinking on the esc, and that's when an orange flame shot off the esc. I scrambled to unplug the battery (saved fortunately) and the FET melted off the board and fell to the floor. No damage to Tiny. Damage to me was a small blister from the molten FET. I'll take some pics but nothing out of the ordinary. I sat there and just thought, "Oh great, this has to happen on my watch." I've been flying electrics for 16 years and many things have let the magic smoke out but that was usually because I was pulling 100+amps.