Author Topic: Anyone here understand brushless gimbal motors, transistors, and testing?  (Read 4823 times)

Monkeyleg

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I'm trying to understand how to test gimbal motors for the cameras on the drones I have.  When they crash, the gimbal is almost always damaged. Sometimes one or more of the circuit boards that control each of the three motors on the gimbal get damaged. The only way I know to test those is to substitute a known good board.

Often, one or more of the little three phase motors is damaged. They're a pain to take off, and it's not always the motor itself that's damaged. It can be a slightly bent shaft.

So, I'm wondering if someone here might shed a little light on where to test for what. Here's a couple of photos of the windings of a gimbal motor. There's three transistors. There's a ribbon cable running to this motor that has three leads about 3/16" wide and five leads about 3/32" wide.

Any idea as to what is running to what, or how to test?

Thanks for any replies.




Nick1911

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Well, I have a passing familiarity with brushless motors - mostly dealing with computer fans and the bigger brother, ECM blower motors.  I'm sure some of our other electronics guys will be more helpful - but for starters do you have any more information about these motors?  Part numbers on anything (circuit boards, etc), OEM manufacturer, etc?  This information would give more insight into how these particular motors are built.

Off the top of my head, brushless motors seem pretty durable in design.  With the caveat of not having experience with your particular product, I would expect impact related forces to cause mechanical issues with bent and binding parts more then electrical issues.

Monkeyleg

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Sometimes the parts are bent, but more often than not what's broken can't be seen. The circuit board for each motor has a potentiometer for controlling the amount of motion on the motor. These will often be damaged by the impact of a crash but won't show it. The transistors in the motors also get damaged or blown, but the damage can't be seen. The shafts from the motors get bent, but that can be seen.

The drones are made in China, and I don't think anyone knows who makes the parts. The manufacturer supplies no information about anything technical.