esky lama problems already

[scootercp2]

Well I decided I would buy an esky lama v3 to go along with my cp2 so that I could fly something indoors, apparently that was wishful thinking. I got about 1 min of flight out of the thing before it started spinning i trimmed it all the way out and still couldn't stop it. It then started losing power so i thought maybe the battery didn't take a full charge. After charging it again the thing wouldn't even take off and then it went into full physcho mode where the top blade stopped but the bottom spooled to max. The only way I could stop it was by unplugging the battery. After careful inspection I noticed the connector for the front motor where it plugs into the 4in1 was melted. So was the 4in1 to the point that pieces had fallen off because the solder melted. This is the biggest load of crap i've ever seen. I've been waiting for a week, i felt like a little kid on christmas morning. At least I got to fly it for a minute.

[scootercp2]

check out the burn hole on the 4in1 and the melted connector

[scootercp2]

4in1 circuit board is toast

[swatson144]

Bummer!!! that sucks.

Did you contact the vendor? I would imagine that a reputable vendor would replace it.

I hate Xn1s. Every time I think about getting a coaxial I stop and remind myself that they have 4n1s

The chip that fried is a FET. the one that fell off was likely a schotky diode for noise filtering. I don't have a board to look at so the later is only a guess from working on the cp2 boards.

It's pretty rare the fet fried with out a shorted motor or something stalling it. It's not rare that they die WOT.

Another strange thing is that "greenwired" ceramic disk cap. I haven't seen any like it on an Esky product. Kinda makes me think that it was a later mod (if it is on others) or maybe a unit failed and was repaired. Still kinda weird just hangin out there. If one of those leads shorted on one of the other components...who knows. That's just plain shoddy and wankera-ish.

Good luck,

Steve

[scootercp2]

steve,

you're right it does suck, up until today i've never heard of this happening unless you crashed and knocked something loose. I ran across one other person posting on another board that had the exact same thing happen. He also purchased it from the same website. Which was www.hobby-estore.com I wrote them an email and other than a fax they have no other way of contacting them. the other guy said that they replaced the 4in1 but it took forever because they shipped directly from china, he also said after installing it still acted up he then realized one of the motors was screwed up and maybe that caused the 4in1 to fry. i can't tell that anything is wrong with my motors. Its really goin to piss me off if I have to look at a heli that can't fly for the next 2 weeks.

by the way i resoldered the piece that fell off but it didn;t help anything.

[swatson144]

Replacing the SD won't help you have a FFET (Fried Field Effect Transistor). The melted plug seems to indicate a defective motor, or severe drive train problem. I'd check that out carefully before plugging in another 4n1. It'd likely be best to know if there was a mechanical problem that caused it before talking with the vendor. Who knows maybe it sucked up a piece if thread or something that gummed the works. I once had a shopping bag blow by and cost me a bunch of money, that was just pure bad luck. Something I got a lot of.

Steve

[scootercp2]

Well they emailed me back saying that they would replace the 4in1, nothing else was said about the motors or how long it would take or anything else.

[swatson144]

Cool good to know they support the product. I'd see if I could figure out a safe way to hook the pack (or another sim pack that don't owe you any money) up directly to each motor and test them out in the mean time.

Steve

[scootercp2]

Would it be worth it to do the fuse mod like i've seen for the cp2 on this one.

[swatson144]

I can't imagine why it wouldn't be worth it the two 4n1s are about the same price. Youd probably need to try like 3 amp and hammer the throttle to see if they blow. Once you know the minimum size you can get lot smaller fuses than automotive assuming someone you trust hasn't done the trial and error 1st.

A short, bad motor, or stalled rotor could blow the 4n1.

Steve

[Ozzyeureka]

See if you can find some one with a model train controller, or a variable power supply and see if you can spin both motors up with out the 4 in 1 in the circuit at all. As these are brushed motors it will not hurt if you hook the motors up back to front for this simple test. Use a stable voltage, say 4 volts and listen to the motors, they should sound about the same .
You can also use a prop tacho ( a magazine here in Australia published a circuit for one a few years ago if you are into that sort of thing- do a search on Silicon Chip magazine, Australia) o check the rpms are teh same for same voltage as well.
But either that diode was shorted in the first place or I agree thatyou probably have a short CCT motor.
I wonder if that 'R' on the chip in the photo was for 'reject' from the production line???

Ron.

[scootercp2]

yeah now that you mention it i do remember one of the motors sounding weird almost like it had a high pitch. I actually thought that it sounded cool, my buddy has a vortex 37 and he even sad that thing sounds wild. I'll have to look into that.

They should have just written reject on the entire box so i didn't waste the time opening the piece of junk. haha