Not All Motors Will Run

Hello,

My capstone group & I have been having trouble getting all of our motors to run on our ROV. Currently we can get 3 of the propellers to spin in a very intermittent manner and the other 3 we cannot get to operate at all. I have attached a video of the action which also includes the readings from a DC power supply.

Hi @couching5000,

Bench top power supplies generally have a very low current capacity compared to what thrusters can draw. Here it looks like the current is being limited to ~1 A, beyond which the voltage drops rapidly, which depending on your other electronics may cause

  • your ESCs to deactivate
  • your control computer / electronics to be under-powered and restart

I would recommend using a charged high capacity battery for testing, and/or keeping power usage low (which is generally a good idea anyway when running thrusters in air, to avoid melting the bearings).

Beyond powering issues, have you independently confirmed that each motor and ESC is functional? If some of the output signals (from both your flight controller and your ESCs) are confirmed to be working well you can try changing which ESCs and motors are connected to those :slight_smile: