Castle Talon 35 sometimes motor not spooling up after initialisation?

[Peteski]

After about 180 totally faultless flights, my OXY 3 has twice now refused to spool up after initialisation. I had full control over the servos, but no spool up at all when releasing TH. The first time it happened was last week on about the 3rd pack. I tried switching TH on/off a few times but the motor made no attempt to spool up. So I power cycled it and it then it spooled up normally and flew fine for the rest of the session i.e. another couple of packs. I put it down to some sort of glitch in the ESC arming procedure. But then it did it again on Friday. Exactly the same, full servo control on initialisation, but no motor power when attempting to spool up. A power cycle fixed it again. Any ideas what could be causing this? I've checked the wiring and connectors back to the motor and battery and visually it all looks fine. I tried to re-create the fault on the bench today but if spooled up every time with all my packs. If I can't find anything wrong I'm tempted to change the esc as I fear it's only a matter of time before it decides to shut down in flight. What is the typical life expectancy of a Talon 35?

[holtneil]

Hi mate have you e-mailed castle there after sales is top they may have an idea of what it is or you may get a new one from them

[10x]

Hello Pete
Did the Talon arm up with the tones when you had the problem, If not just try lowering your throttle travel down a couple of points.

[tomatwalden]

Hello Pete
Did the Talon arm up with the tones when you had the problem, If not just try lowering your throttle travel down a couple of points.

+1 The castle won't arm until it sees a ZERO throttle value. It could be that your TX gimbal has moved a bit and that it's not always giving true zero at bottom stick. Probably worth doing the TX/ESC calibration again - and as "10x" mentions - go a couple of notches up from where you get the beeps.

[Peteski]

+1 The castle won't arm until it sees a ZERO throttle value. It could be that your TX gimbal has moved a bit and that it's not always giving true zero at bottom stick. Probably worth doing the TX/ESC calibration again - and as "10x" mentions - go a couple of notches up from where you get the beeps.

It's actually arming off TH "zero throttle" rather than the gimbal (I'm running flat throttle curves for the governor) so I don't think the value could drift. I'm fairly sure (but not 100%) that I was getting the Castle arming beep when it did this. I'll be sure to pay more attention next time it happens!

[Peteski]

Hello Pete
Did the Talon arm up with the tones when you had the problem, If not just try lowering your throttle travel down a couple of points.

This is a good question. As my reply to Tom above, I think I did get the arming tones, but not 100% sure.

[Peteski]

Hi mate have you e-mailed castle there after sales is top they may have an idea of what it is or you may get a new one from them

Good idea, I hadn't thought of that, doh! I'll fire them a quick email and see if they can help.

[Nick_C]

I take it you have checked the connectors to the motor,my 180 kept failing and it was a loose wire in the bullet to the motor.

[Peteski]

I take it you have checked the connectors to the motor,my 180 kept failing and it was a loose wire in the bullet to the motor.

Yes, I checked the bullets. They were all nice and tight, I pulled them apart on the bench and re-connected just to be sure. So I don't think there's a problem there unless it's a problem with my soldering (quite feasible!). If say one motor wire was dodgy, would it not attempt to spool anyway or make some kind of noise? This was just dead as a dodo until I power cycled it and then it was completely fine. I must have had at least 12 fault free flights since this issue first arose, so I'm thinking it's more of a startup/arming glitch. Once it does power up, the motor doesn't miss a beat (or at least not yet!)

[jchbarnes]

I had this intermittent problem with a Talon 90. As per the previous posts this is most likely due to it not arming even if you're using throttle hold. If you lower the throttle travel a few points, I bet it won't happen again.

[holtneil]

Hi mate as your running governor mode I would re-set up the fixed end points then reset up the fixed rpm , if this is not 100% right you can get strange thing going on

[Peteski]

Well after another 20 or so faultless flights it did it again today on my second pack. This time I paid more attention and the Castle arming beeps were there as normal - one beep every 15 sec or so - and the sat/FBL were fully functioning (lit solid orange as normal) with full servo control. But no motor power whatsoever when releasing TH. I tried quite a few times, even spun the head by hand to see if that made any difference, but it was as dead as a Dodo. Disconnected the battery, re-connected and it then armed and spooled up as normal, flew without issue, landed and then re-spooled it a few times to check. No problem. Ran my last 2 packs with no further issues. After it did this last time I had thoroughly checked all the wiring and connections and found nothing amiss. The batteries are also in good condition with no dodgy cells etc and very low IR readings.

I don't think it can be the throttle end points, as I'm using totally flat governed throttle curves and zero throttle is set via the TH switch rather than the collective stick pot, so that value can't drift can it? I can also confirm now that I am definitely getting the arming beeps when this happens. As suggested earlier I will contact Castle now (should have done this earlier) and see what they say about it. Something is clearly not right as it didn't do this at all for the first 180 flights and now it's happened 3 times in about 20 flights. I'm not going to push my luck any further, so it's grounded now until I get to the bottom of it.

[jchbarnes]

That is weird if it had definitely armed and then wouldn't spool up. I agree if you hear the arming beeps then it is not the throttle endpoints. From what you've said it only ever happens when you first plug the battery in rather than mid-pack so I would think you can keep flying it until you hear back from castle...

[Peteski]

Yes, it seems to be some sort of glitch during initial power up after connecting a fresh battery. When it does spool up it never misses a beat. If it had done this from the start every now and again I would have simply put it down to some quirk in the firmware, but as it worked flawlessly for 180 straight flights I'm inclined to think something has gone wrong and worried that it might do something much worse in time. I've emailed Castle support and waiting for their response.

[Granpappy]

I wonder if it's a problem with the motor. When the esc arms it should send a signal to the motor and get a response back for starting position of coils etc.

I would check the motor attachment bolts to make sure that the ends are not touching the wires in the motor. After many flights a bolt end could wear away the enamel on a wire and cause an intermittent earthing issue.

If that is okay, then I would re flow the solder on the 3 motor connecting bullets on the motor and the esc.

Hope you solve it.