Changing the rotation of motors

[Fatcat971]

Hi. I have been building my first drone for a while but had to stop for a few weeks. Had most of the work done but my charger had a fault. Put the thing away after setting up all hardware and had the cc3d working so that the motors all turned in the right direction. Dug it out to try with new freshly charged batteries using new charger ready to get off the ground. However now my motors turn the wrong way on one side. No idea why. Not changed the system physically at all. I have flashed the flight controller and everything is working fine apart from the motors on one side turning the wrong way. Is there an easy way to reverse them? That is without having to cut and re-solder the speed controllers?

[Digit]

There are two ways to reverse the direction of a brushless motor, one is to swap any two of the three wires and the other is to program the ESC.
The simplest is to swap the wires

[quadfather]

I';m pretty sure OpenPilot GCS lets you swap motor directions.  I';ll confirm when I get back from work.

[Revs]

AFAIK there';s no way a FC can change the direction of the motors. Either ESC programming or swapping wires as said.

[bazzerh]

Open pilot gives you the option of reversing all 4 motors but you can';t change just 2. Last time I used openpilot it worked like that anyway.

[Revs]

Open pilot gives you the option of reversing all 4 motors but you can';t change just 2. Last time I used openpilot it worked like that anyway.

I can';t imagine how that command would get to the ESC though, and what ESCs can be reversed by a command through the signal wire?

I';m not saying it';s not true, but I';ve not seen this before and would like to know There must be an extra wire or something..

[NorcoT]

I can';t imagine how that command would get to the ESC though, and what ESCs can be reversed by a command through the signal wire?

I';m not saying it';s not true, but I';ve not seen this before and would like to know There must be an extra wire or something..

BLHeli on supported ESCs can configure motor direction through the signal wire of the ESC if the bootloader is installed on it. Generally you hook it up to the computer using USB dongle of some sort (or an Arduino) and then the BLHelisuite can configure the ESC. Anything from motor direction, refresh rate, damped light etc can be configured.

I';ve never heard of it being done from the FC however so I need to look into that one..

[Stalker]

BLHeli on supported ESCs can configure motor direction through the signal wire of the ESC if the bootloader is installed on it. Generally you hook it up to the computer using USB dongle of some sort (or an Arduino) and then the BLHelisuite can configure the ESC. Anything from motor direction, refresh rate, damped light etc can be configured.

I';ve never heard of it being done from the FC however so I need to look into that one..

Boris B';s Betaflight allows you to configure via plugging into the FC. You still use BLHeli suite to configure, and it currently only works with ESC';s with BLHeli bootloader on them. It';s great for me as my pins are soldered underneath, low profile style. Previously, ESC adjustments meant a partial strip down to get to the servo plugs, but now I can plug straight into the SPR FC and adjust that way.


Edit: Here';s a link to the thread that explains how it';s done. There';s a video in the first post. http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2464844

[quadfather]

Open pilot gives you the option of reversing all 4 motors but you can';t change just 2. Last time I used openpilot it worked like that anyway.

Confirmed, you can only change rotation for all props.



So you';ll either have to swap two of the three wires or in the ESC firmware, if you';re using SimonK or BLHeli.

[davethepitch]

I guess Blheli can save you a load of time swapping wires especially after they have been soldered.

[xxpitt]

Need to have bootloader on already or you can';t flash via the servo wire

[Jazzz]

It takes two mins to resolder the motor wires you could have it done before your PC boots up ...

[Fatcat971]

Thanks for all the posts. I must have just not checked closely enough. I do however remember being surprised that all the rotors were turning in the right direction as soon as I had soldered the wires in place first time. I was expecting to have to fiddle on and swap them around. Must have just not checked them closely enough but seems a bit strange. I am not normally that thick. 

Anyway swapped the wires around and all is good. Now just got the problem of crashing it into everything