I got new simonk ESCs and after I control the motor with it the motor starts to smoke up and then it stops. I didn't face this problem before. Is the problem with the motor or the ESC?
Does "smoke up" mean smoke comes out of the motor? If so then it's probably dead now.
You have given no details of the ESC or motor or what you are powering them with or how you are controlling them. Was the motor stalled?
But if it all used to work and everything is the still same apart from the ESC then maybe the problem is with the ESC or more likely with the way it's set up.
Steve
I used 1400kv motors and 30a simonk ESCs. After the ESC burnt one of the motors i tested another motor with more ESCs. It worked fine until i plugged it in with the supposedly broken ESC and this one also got burnt up so I guess the problem lied with the ESC.
But can this problem also arise because of how my circuit is? I mean, I have a GND coming from arduino uno to a prototype board and to the same place on the prototype board a bunch of GND wires are connected which go into the GND of the ESCs, so it is like a parallel connection. I don’t think so that should be a problem, am I wrong to thing this?
Hi,
Can you please post a picture of your project, so we can see your component layout?
You should not be running any ESC current at all through a protoboard, they are not reated for such high currents.
Thanks.. Tom... 
I have this temporary circuit to test if all the components are working fine.
In the right side i have a gnd connected to arduino and then to that place i have more wires connected that will be used to connect the gnd of ESCs and a few more components. In the left of the board i have similar thing going on, there i will have a 5v coming from one of the ESCs and through that i will be powering the arduino and the other components.
This setup is similar to a normal breadboard (where 1 wire connects the entire rail).
Btw the ESCs are powered via a 11.1v 2200mah lipo battery
The ESCs look fine. What is your motor?
The ESC (perhaps this one pictured) have a BEC (a.k.a. it have 5V output).
The two thick wires should connect to the battery. The thin three wires go to arduino.
In the three thin wires that go to Arduino, there should be a black, a red, and a yellow.
Black is GND, red is 5V, yellow is signal (pwm).
The three black wires (perhaps labeled as A B C) are motor out. connect to the three poles on the motor.
What probably happened is that you tied 5V out to your battery (which fried the ESC).
Hi,
Redo those solder joints with MORE heat for a start.
Are you running ESC current through those jumper wires?
How much current do your motors consume?
Do you have a DMM?
A wider view would be good, where are the ESC's and battery, can you show those in your next picture.
Please draw and post a picture of your circuit diagram.
Thanks... Tom...
the solder joints are fine -- they don't look well, but they will do.
They are signal, after all. And Arduino Uno is low-power.
They can easily do 3A. Arduino Uno (and other stuff) ask for 100mA.
I cannot tell anything he did from the pictures. But, it looks like he connected signal wires to 5V
Without a propeller (hopefully he remembered to remove then before starting to mess with the electronics) each motor draw a little bit less than about 0.5A at highest rev without load.
Worst case, they won't draw more than 10A each.
I used to run drones before, too. I got a set of T-motor 2213 Air-Gear. 920 KV, 20A ESC. Also on a 550 frame.
The ESCs are not fried up, the motors are.
As shown in the above picture the connections are not wrong.
The motors are 1400kv A2212/13 and the ESCs are 30a based on the simonk framework. Btw the motors smoked up during the ESC calibration, it didn't happen suddenly. The motors rotated fine for about 10-15 seconds before they smoked up and stopped working.
What kind of motor do you have? Post links if you can find them (or post pictures)
Yes, you wired them correctly.
If the motor fried, then it's the motor's fault. The ESC is only responsible to supply current to them (and the maximum current is capped by the motor's resistance).
However, if the motor do not spin very smoothly (like if one of the three poles are opposite), then they might fry.
ESCs that I used
So the problem doesn't seem to be the circuitry? It could be the motor's resistance or the ESC?
Where can I find good quality ESCs and BLDC motors that will be compatible with each other and won't blow up?
You did have the props installed? These motors require active cooling and should not be operated without airflow.
I would be testing each motor+prop+ESC in isolation with a servo tester before integration of the project, ideally checking the thrust curve is matched to the others.
No, I didn't have the props installed and there was no airflow to the motor at all. But can the motors be that fragile? Or can it also be that the ESC was providing more current to the motors than mentioned in its specs sheet?
RC BLDC motors have very high power densities compared to other electric motors and rely heavily on cooling (airflow for RC planes or water cooling for RC boats) to avoid overheating. A V12 500 HP petrol engine is just as fragile to a lack of cooling.
Do you have an ohmmeter? If so I would measure the motor windings (every combination of 2 wires). If the motor "smoked" and stopped I would guess the windings are damaged.
Does the motor rotor spin if turned by hand? Perhaps they are susceptible to over speed. I've not played with a small BLDC motors in quite a while so this is a guess.
While I agree with @MarkT on the cooling I would not expect 10 to 15 seconds to cause catastrophic damage (if indeed it was not loaded).
WIth no load, those motor should be able to spin indefinitely.
Measure the resistance (on good motors) between any two poles. They should be the same.
Then tell us.
No. Unlike brushed DC motors that can overspeed, BLDCs run on three-phase AC (that's why those motors have three leads coming out) via the ESC (DC-AC converter) and therefore will not overspeed.
Either way, it should not smoke.
Let me tell you a story.
Me and my friend want to build air-worthy drones. So we started off and purchased components.
Our first drone is a 450mm chassis running on the same motors (and ESCs) that you found.
We connected them to the CC3D copter control and fed with a excellent 3S battery)
We run the motors on flat desktop without propeller, and set throttle to 30%. The motor speeds are not exact (even though the copter control says it sends identical signals to each ESC)
Those ESCs and motors are horrible. I have seen people that managed to make those work, but not us.
He still think it's the copter control's fault, so he insisted on installing props and take it out to fly. The drone crashed without lifting off (tilted the instance it get air time, flipped and crashed)
Then we started another drone (which is another story).
A year later I came back to the same CC3D. But this time, I used the T-Motor 2213/920KV set like this one)
It flew really nice (with a larger 550 frame), even with only a cheap CC3D. Very stable.
They will cost you a pretty penny, but boy, those are some real good motors.
They are also 3S-4S ones, so they can take up to 14.4V without frying. However they are 920KVs (so they spin slower) and so they require larger propellers and a larger frame.
However I found some nice ESCs from Hobbywing.
These EMAX RS2205 2300KV are also good, but they might be a bit too small for your frame.
Source your own motors. Do NOT get those gold-silver ones. Look for ones around 1200KV and those with built-in screw posts,
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