problem with brushless controllers (quadrocopter)

Other Hardware Motors, Mechanics, Power and CNC
1

Hi there!

I'm building a quadrocopter, you will know what I'm talking about.

Im controlling 4 brushless controllers via an arduino using the servo library. The power comes from a LiPo battery and the controllers are connected parallel. The battery voltage, the controllers and the motors fit each other. The problem: it happened now 2 times that one of the controllers blew up in smoke.
For reasons of not enough room the components are hooked up a bit weird: There's a wire from the + and one from the - of the battery going around the quadrocopter, and every controller is linked into these wires. So there's no central power distribution.

I have two theories:

  1. the controllers are cheap product from Hong Kong and i just had bad luck

  2. because of the strange wiring theres electrical noise in the power wires which caused one of the controllers to blew up

what do you think? Any guesses, ideas? probably I'll try to set up a central power distribution, but I'm not willing to buy another controller every week... :wink:

2

Best thing for you to do is go to a quadcoptor forum and explain your situation there. They probably can tell you very quickly what errors you have made. From your discussion I doubt that the problem is the cheap ESC. Statememts like "the components are hooked up a bit weird" are natures warning signs.