Hello helpful internet people.
While testing the drive of the robot today, suddenly one of the drive ESCs (The old version of the BBB 25A brushless ones) burst into flames. Luckily there do not seem to have been any other casualties.
The speed controller was connected to a Repeat Max V1 motor. I have had to resolder one of the wires to the motor before, however when I checked, all three of them were still intact with solid joints. Before the fire the robot had been driving fine for around 3 minutes, and the ESC burst into flames when the bot was simply driving forwards after spinning around on the spot.
If anybody has any ideas as to what could have caused this and how I can prevent it from happening in the future that would be greatly appreciated.
From what you say I don’t think it would have been a short or improper connection (though not impossible - better look at the soldering on the motor output tab?) as you’d have seen this straight away as soon as you powered it on and you would have had issues with motion.
Coming off a direction change the motor current is spiking which may have proved too much in the moment for the ESC. Repeat stuff is pretty punchy as far as I know so it may have needed a more capable esc or some different tweaks to the firmware settings to handle it.
I have been using this exact setup in the robot since I started working on it over a year ago and have probably spent somewhere between 30-45 mins or so driving around using that exact speed controller and motor setup with no problems. The only difference is that I recently switched from having them directly soldered to having them use the mr30 connectors that you can see in the picture. The speed controllers are still running the firmware that they came with.
In terms of replacement parts, would it be recommended to get another BBB brushless ESC and then tune it / add limits to the transmitter, or is it worth shelling out the extra money for the repeat ESCs?
Sorry to hear this Lily, I’m surprised but I guess the repeats are a little more intense than the 1806 gearmotors those were intended for maybe. Worth checking there wasn’t a short due to wires twisting or something though? - have you got some motor covers for the Maxs?
I’d recommend AM32 ESCs - I’ve ran both the BBB & Repeat ones (single & dual) on max, all have been happy on 4S for me.
Thanks Joe, I ended up getting a few of the Repeat Single AM32 ESCs and they work great. The motors are fully surrounded by cages and I couldn’t see any signs of wires being twisted, so I am guessing that as Harry said it was just too much current for the ESC.
