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Tello motor lifespan
- Thread starter ChristoffB
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Guorium
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Im keen to know this too. Most motors die early from crashes
This is not at all what I experienced. With mine, the motors would spin up, and sound fine. They turned easily by hand. Tello took off smooth, however upon flying, movements were mildly erratic. It did not comply 100% to stick movements. Id say the behavior was maybe similar to when there is RF interference. Enough so, that I misdiagnosed it as that for some time. After troubleshooting many flights, I finally entertained and accepted that it must be the motors. Upon the replacement of all four motors, Tello flew rock solid. All prior symptoms were gone.
One online supplier sells replacements for roughly $40/set, and claims their motors are actually slightly stronger than stock, so you can see around 1 minute less flight time. A vendor on Amz. claims to be selling OEM motors for around the same price. I have not verified.
I bought a set of 4 motors for around $14 on Amz. and while they are very smooth, and perfectly functional, they lack the thrust of the stock motors. Really, Id say the reduced amount of power is somewhat proportional to the reduction in price, when comparing to OEM. So my $14 set have about 1/3 to 1/2 the power. Im basing this very unscientifically on how Tello responds to punch out. The key here is that for $14, Im quite happy with the purchase. I will replace them with OEM or better next time, but I dont have a single complaint for $14. Tello flies perfect, just lacks the punch of OEM.
So yeah, you might not get such obvious indicators as claimed here, unless the motors succumb to impact, or environmental damage.
FWIW, new motors can be installed without compromising Tello's clean look, and without soldering directly on the board, unlike what I found in the more prominent motor replacement guides, and videos.
I never had a motor go bad on a Tello without tons of crashes. But I know what happens from the early days of brushed drones.
if brushed motors get old without crash they loose thrust / punch so one motor is weaker than the others. Tello's flight controller will try to compensate and adjust the 3 stronger motors to match the weakest (otherwise Tello would just tumble over the corner with the weakest motor on takeoff).
At some point you will notice that Tello can no longer maintain altitude when going fast forward. Or Tello becomes slow to climb on full throttle with full batteries. If its really bad Tello will start to spin on its own axis after a few seconds, and typically descend at the same time.
That is what happens when brushed motors age gracefully. In rare cases one of the brushes just breaks and the motor completely stops working.
if brushed motors get old without crash they loose thrust / punch so one motor is weaker than the others. Tello's flight controller will try to compensate and adjust the 3 stronger motors to match the weakest (otherwise Tello would just tumble over the corner with the weakest motor on takeoff).
At some point you will notice that Tello can no longer maintain altitude when going fast forward. Or Tello becomes slow to climb on full throttle with full batteries. If its really bad Tello will start to spin on its own axis after a few seconds, and typically descend at the same time.
That is what happens when brushed motors age gracefully. In rare cases one of the brushes just breaks and the motor completely stops working.
Tello can only use brushed motors, so that is what you have.
Here are replacement motors which are a slight upgrade. If they dont ship to your area, let me know, and Ill see if I can help you. Im going to order some for myself in the next day or two.
Here are compatible motors for much cheaper, but with reduced performance. I have a set of these in a Tello right now. If this is what a person can afford, it will get them flying again, but with less thrust/power. Tello flies just as smooth as stock motors, but slower.
This is a great description, and theory of what happens when motors slowly fail as they reach a natural EOL. I'll add that my account above remains the only first hand experience with Tello (correct me if I've overlooked something,) and my symptoms were different enough from you previous brushed drones, and theory of Tello natural motor failure, to warrant this reiteration. The effects were less extreme, to the extent that diagnoses was not straight forward. The Tello was a warranty replacement, with no notable crashes.
The last time I crashed a Tello, it was due to the unforgivable mistake of putting a CCW prop on the front-left motor. Tello did not get too far. Happy that wasn't a hand launch (using standard take off command,) as is now my norm. (I also hand land, typically in stride, using standard land command.)
Youo are right I missed many points of what can show a slowly failing motor. For example Tello may start to "not like" one yaw direction. That is it refuses to yaw into one direction, or is much slower to turn in one direction than the other. Or it may start to yaw into one direction when in fact you don't give any yaw input. Especially it yaws when doing full throttle up. It may also fail to gracefully recover from flips, or crash after flips, and may be more "nervous" in any wind.
Tello may even shut off completely midflight when doing any maneuver due to excessive current draw. You may see unexpected autolandings and battery errors as the battery can't cope with the abnormally high current drawn, etc
And a ton of other symptoms. Tello just behaves a bit stranger than usual, and does not react as expected.
Plenty of symptoms and as you say hard to diagnose.
Guorium
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I read the description of the second motors. You said they are slower than stock motors but nothing in the description says so. Did I miss something?
This, for me, is the most useful information. Though, had I accumulated somewhere near the expected motor hours/lifetime, I might have had partial motor failure closer in my mind as cause for the poor flight behavior. As it was, my warranty replacement Tello wasnt near even half that amount of flight time, so failing motors were not something i initially entertained.
Thank you for the extensive detail in your description. It really sends the point home.
Well, there a loss in the quality of information somewhere. Perhaps the seller over states the specs of the cheaper motors. If you get them, know that youre likely on store for reduced performance as I previously described.
These here claim to be genuine. Amazon.com: RYZE Tello 8520 Coreless Genuine CW CCW Motor for DJI Tello 720P Camera WiFi FPV Mini Drone Quadcopter Repair Accessories (Genuine Motors Set(M1/M2/M3/M4)): Gateway I will get a set these as well, and compare. Looks like I'll have greater purpose for making the motors more modular, if I want to be testing different motors before they actually fail.
OP, Ill be ordering both sets before Monday, fyi.
Guorium
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Ok thanks! Please write something about them when you get the time. Making motors plug-in is certainly good in the long run. I just do not like those plug hanging out. Perhaps I can figure out a way to hide the plugs inside. I also noticed that my tello's stock motors has 4 holes on the casing. Most spares I see online got 2 holes.
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Then we agree. This is exactly what I'm talking about. As I've mentioned in multiple threads, after the first motor replacement I performed (hiding splices in the motor mounts,) I came up with an idea for making them modular, without the unsightly plugs hanging out. I'm ordering a couple sets of motors today. If I'm successful with the clean modular motor mod, I will write it up and share.
Thanks for the tip on the vent holes.
Indeed, my stock Tello has motors with 2 vent holes. Are you able to correlate the difference on a time line? I suspect they just have varying inventory, but it'd be useful to know if they made an informed switch to one or the other. More ventilation is probably better, at the cost of having a greater potential for contaminates.
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