Troubleshooting - Motor Doesn't Spin or Spinning Reversed

Spinning Reversed

If the motors spinning reversed, you could change the spinning direction in the BLHeli Configuration (Chrome APP). As shown below. Do not forget to power the board via battery, so that the BLHeli Configuration could contact with the ESC.

Doesn't Spin

When you are building the 1S brushless drone, the motors would not spin up properly. This is a common issue for many pilots. Here is the description of some pilots about this issue.

Pilot #1:

While the quad does run just fine, fairly regularly on startup the front right motor doesn't spin, and I can hear the motor restart ( goes through the start-up noise) and then If I manually turn the motor once or twice, the motor starts right up after that and doesn't heat up at more than any of the other motors.

Pilot #2:

I have the new brushless FC. I can power up, and get the motor tones, but if I arm and spin up the motors they just twitch a bit, they never spin up properly.

We think this is normal that the motors could not spin up immediately when throttle up. It is caused by the limited current on a 1S BLHeli ESC. So when you manually turn the motor to another position, it could start to spinning. Also, there are some advanced settings that could reduce this issue asap.

Step 1

In the BLHeli Configuration, increase the Startup Power to 0.75 or 1.00. The default value is 0.5.

Startup power:
Startup power can be set to relative values from 0.031 to 1.5. This is the maximum power that is allowed during startup. Actual applied power depends on throttle input and can be lower, but the minimum level is a quarter of the maximum level.
Startup power also affects bidirectional operation, as the parameter is used to limit the power applied during direction reversal. For low RPMs, the maximum power to the motor is limited, in order to facilitate detection of low BEMF voltages. The maximum power allowed can be set via the startup power parameter. A lower startup power parameter will give lower maximum power for low RPMs (this is implemented from rev16.1).

--- from "Operation manual for BLHeli_S SiLabs Rev16.x" manual.

Step 2

If step 1 has not solved the problem. Please check whether the motor is stuck or damaged.

The 0603 or 0703 motors would be damaged after crashes and could not be spin up totally. It usually have the several issue.

1) Stuck and harder to turn by hand;

2) The ring at the bottom of the motor is missing;

3) Motor bells fly off;

In general, if the motor is not badly damaged, it's not hard to fix it. You can remediate it by using the following methods. Please contact us to get vulnerable parts of the motor in free. (email: info@betafpv.com )

Here is a video by Cyril for the motor repair details.

For the upgraded version motors (0603 or 0703), the bottom ring and shaft are welding together via laser. It solved the issue that the motor bell flying out completely.

Step 3

If the motor is not stuck or damage, please connect the non-spinning motor with another ESC port.

For example: If motor 1 is not spin, please follow the below method

• Connect motor 1 with ESC 2.
• Connect Betaflight and plug battery
• Click the Motor tab and choose "I understand the risks"

• Push the throttle of ESC2 about 1000-1200, 

          If motor 1 is spinning, we are afraid the ESC1 is defective.

          If motor 1 is not spin, we are afraid the motor is defective.