Every other motor on my octocopter is incredibly hot to the touch, while the others aren’t hot at all. Has anyone else ever encountered this problem? I would have assumed it was based off weight distribution, but considering it’s every other motor and not just on one half, I’m unsure of what is causing the issue.
Sounds like half of the motors are spinning faster trying to keep the heading (ie there is yawing moment on the vehicle). Please check your motor mounts and arms for any twist. You can also check the dataflash logs by plotting RCOut 1-8. Most likely the ‘hot’ motors will have a higher RCOut value as well, indicating that they are spinning faster trying to correct for a yaw imbalance.
Brian, thanks for the response! In your experience, what would cause the yawing movement? Could this be from over aggressively tuned PIDs? I’ll re-level my motor mounts and hopefully that helps as well.
Andrew, you are welcome. The yawing moment is almost always caused by a mechanical issue, ie your motors or arms are not perfectly level. If the motors are pointing at a small angle it will cause the copter to want to spin. Even a 2 degree tilt (which will be very difficult to see with the naked eye) will cause a large yawing moment on the vehicle. I use a 2 axis level, and adjust each motor so that it sits level relative to the body of the vehicle.
Hope this helps!