Not Enough Power

[Pauly]

I recently bought a St Model Acrobat (3d) at a fly in awhile back. I did fly it and went out a ways like with any model I have and it had a signal failure and yes it went down. No damage other then dirt in cowl and all up front. I cleaned it out and all seemed to be good, but now I don't have enough power to even get off the ground. My question is, would the motor be bad cause the may be dirt in it or would the ESC be bad? This is a 4s 2200 plane. I have used 2200 and 2500. One the first flight it took off with no problem. I did put another receiver in and all control surfaces work flawless.

[rifleman_btx]

Do you have a spare esc you can try in it? The only other thing I can think of is if dirt fouled up the bearings in the motor

[fhhuber]

Possible that there is an ESC issue and its likely you have one you could swap in to test.

Its also possible there's dirt in the motor bearings.

I'd be more inclined to think ESC, since you may have had an ESC shut-down causing the loss of control.

[Pauly]

The ESC didn't shut down. I lost total control of it in flight. Nothing would work when it went down. All control surfaces work now flawless. When I throttling up it goes up pretty quick on response just the power isn't there. No I don't have a spare ESC. I guess that's one spare thing I need to stock in the box. It may be the bearings in the motor.

[rifleman_btx]

If you have some good penetrating oil to spray it with hit it with some and spin it up for about a minute. Then spray alittle more and let it sit overnight. If that doesn't help. I'd replace the esc.

[Pauly]

It wouldn't hurt the inside of the motor with the penetrating oil? I do have some electronic cleaner spray.

[rifleman_btx]

Thatll do too just use that. I always use corrosion X in all my stuff especially stuff I pack to the beach. It is great stuff in my opinion. Keeps everything pretty much as water proof as anything I've ever witnessed. Works beautifully on my seawind.

[fhhuber]

Not a great idea to spray the motor with oil. that is essentially a dirt magnet that makes the dirt into oil-mud.

Try an electronics cleaner spray that evaporates completely.
We used to use Freon. That's illegal now.

[Pauly]

Thanks my friend! I try that tomorrow and see what got. There was quiet a bit of dirt. I'm really surprised there was little damage. If it wasn't for the wide 3d type wings it probably wouldn't of landed as well as it did. The field was pretty muddy.

[Pauly]

Not a great idea to spray the motor with oil. that is essentially a dirt magnet that makes the dirt into oil-mud.

Try an electronics cleaner spray that evaporates completely.
We used to use Freon. That's illegal now.

LOL Yeah, Freon would be expensive now. I've got some electronic cleaner. I should of thought and done that in the beginning. I think the one I got is CRC not 100% sure.

[fhhuber]

If it wasn't an ESC failure that caused loss of RX power... then you also need to find out why you lost control.

There are 3 ways an ESC typically responds to overheating:

#1: It burns out. (if there is no thermal protection)

#2: Thermal protection shuts down the motor side only

#3: Thermal protection shuts it down completely, motor side and BEC.

Better ESCs will use #2,since killing throttle should reduce ability to load the servos via high G aerobatics, so the BEC side SHOULD see less load and cool down. This is usually a longer motor shut-down than LVC and might take a few tries of lowering throttle before you can get power back.
It means... land now (like LVC does) and you have a problem that needs fixing, not just a battery that needs recharge.

Some do use #3 and there are still some with no thermal protection.

[Pauly]

One of the guys at the club said he thought it was a park flyer receiver. It was very small compared to a full range receiver that I use. I fly with Tactic. However, it would bind to my Spektrum DX6I. I put a Tactic in now.

[Pauly]

Thank you for the info Fhubber!