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Why are the ESCs/Motors Soldered On
2506 6 2015-4-1
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jmtw000
lvl.4

United States
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Yesterday I attempted a Ground Station flight. Instead of heading straight up to the waypoint above it, my phantom decided to make a kamikaze run along the ground directly into a wooden fence about 20 feet in front of it. Yeah I know, I should have given it more room. I won't be doing that again. Anyhow, as soon as I saw it wasn't going straight up I did a CSC, but the 1 second that takes to do was too long and it hit the fence stopping one propeller and burning out the ESC. Fortunately I have some spare ESCs and my Phantom is flying again. But, while I was replacing it I was thinking, "Why are these things soldered on and not just attached with cables that can be easily disconnected?" I knew which ESC had burned out because of the smell. But what if I couldn't tell which one it was? I would have to unsolder all of them and solder them on again one by one until the MC won't turn to determine which one is bad. Why can't the ESCs be connected by easily unplugged cables? Is there a technical reason for this?
2015-4-1
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Northofthe49th
Captain

Canada
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jmt,
curious about the description of the Phantom bee lining it to the fence,
i have to presume as you indicated you had your first way point set as your take off location that once the Phantom lifted off the ground it assumed it had already reached way point 1 and started towards waypoint 2 (direction of fence!)..
Just a suggestion, get the Phantom up to the altitude you want it to fly the points in then engage..or leave yourself a lot of open room for it to manage the change in height free of obstacles..but i would think the earlier would be the better solution.
As for doing a CSC in flight (that is a pain for sure and it is not instant as you now know), i suppose it is a resort though you would be better if flying in NAZA-M to go S1 down to pos. 3 for failsafe/RTH (if you have it configured as such) or just shut off the RC in any mode as it would instantly go into failsafe/RTH,
2015-4-1
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nrgwise
First Officer

United States
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I am a bit confused by the explanation as well, but as North said, get to altitude first OR set your first way point like ten feet in front of you and at the altitude you want the rest of the flight at.  This way the quad immediately goes up to altitude in a very short distance.
2015-4-1
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jmtw000
lvl.4

United States
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I've flown many waypoint missions before, so this wasn't my first rodeo. I usually start them after I'm in the air. But, I wanted to try it from takeoff this time. I figured 20' was enough margin for error, but I was wrong about that I guess. The first waypoint was directly above the home point at 200' in altitude. I figured it would ascend straight up to that waypoint (as I've seen it do many times before on similar missions) and then go on to the others. Instead, the Phantom only barely lifted off the ground (maybe 6" if that) while at the same time heading directly for the fence at full speed. I had 6 satellites locked in at the time. I'm blaming GPS accuracy (maybe, see below) for this one. I think the Phantom just wasn't where it thought it was.

Tweety:

The faulty ESC was not evident in motor behavior as the Phantom wouldn't even power up. It would simply click and the lights on all the ESCs would quickly flash red once and it would shut off. The only way I could tell which ESC was blown was because it smelled like burnt electronics.

Northofthe49th:

Actually, waypoint #2 was in the opposite direction of the fence! It could have been that the ESC was failing at takeoff and that's actually what caused it to head for the fence instead of straight up to waypoint #1. I don't think failsafe would have saved me in this situation, especially if it was a failing ESC causing the behavior and not the result of the behavior. It happened so fast. I did a CSC as soon as I saw it was heading for the fence and not up to the first waypoint and it was still too slow to stop the props from spinning before it hit the fence. I doubt I could have switched off the remote or initiated failsafe with the S1 switch any faster than I did a CSC. If it were higher and not flying the mission as planned, I would have flipped the S2 switch down and back up and taken control as I've done in the past when things went wrong. But, seeing how fast it was heading for the fence and how close to the ground it was I thought a CSC would be the best bet for stopping it before it did any damage. Also, when flying a Ground Station mission, shutting off the remote will have absolutely no effect. In Phantom mode, I don't use NAZA mode so I'm not sure what happens there, if you shut off the remote during a Ground Station mission the Phantom will just go on it's merry way flying the mission...or crashing into fences
2015-4-2
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acenothing
Second Officer
Flight distance : 112185 ft
United States
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Why are they soldered?  Simple.  Cost to manufacture.  It is cheaper and quicker to solder these connection then a multi-step process of soldering on connectors.  To you the end user it might be better for you if they put on connectors so you could do maintenance but that does not seem to be true for anything else on the system.

For example, why did the hard wire the 5.8 ghz antenna?  Would it not been better to put on a sma connector so the user could replace defective or damaged antenna?

In the end I think most of the people that own these actually enjoy tinkering with them more than they like flying them so in this case, DJI did them a favor.
2015-4-2
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grangerfx
First Officer
Flight distance : 817713 ft
United States
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The ESCs are soldered for the same reason that this drone will never ship:PlexiDrone
Plug-in connections are hard to maintain when there is heavy constant vibration. Mix in smart devices like ESCs and main boards and even a very short disconnection will cause the drone to fall out of the sky. One of the most amazing features of the DJI Phantom 2 drones is that the battery plugs in without having to attach a loose cable.
BTW, yesterday I spent $10 at Home Depot on a hot glue gun and glue sticks and glued down the motor wires to my ESC to prevent them from getting damaged due to vibration (I was careful not to cover the electronics). I had never used a hot glue gun before so I did a test first on a bit of plastic and a wire. It all went fine and is a big relief knowing the wires won't be damaged. If I ever do have to replace an ESC, the glue is nice and soft and should be easy to remove.
2015-4-2
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Swerve
lvl.4

United Kingdom
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grangerfx@gmail Posted at 2015-4-3 05:53
The ESCs are soldered for the same reason that this drone will never shiplexiDrone
Plug-in connect ...

I have also wondered why they used solder. Your explanation has cleared that up great. Thanks!
2015-4-2
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