RC Model Repairs.... Sounds like a great channel name or perhaps a playlist. Exactly the problem we have here, lots of cheap RC kit to buy, but when it breaks, it's not worth sending to get repaired if you don't have the skills, or experience, so they make a great testbed to learn on before moving on to your Mum's TV 😀
Reversed the balance cable on the MLVSS volt sensor, it took out the X8R receiver, led controller. This video helped me to repair my X8R, and I already had some type 16 regulators ‘16 2L’ , the same negative trace burned out, so ran a jumper as well. Advise everyone not to buy the MLVSS, get the FLVS voltage sensor instead as it will protect your electronics, the MLVSS will fry everything if you make a mistake connecting the balance cable.
Absolutely do more ‘rc fix it’ videos Bruce. In our throw away society we need to encourage members of our hobby to get stuck in and have a go. The equipment needed is cheap and it adds a new skill, so it’s win win. Thousands of tons of ‘fixable’ stuff is thrown away every year in our area alone. If you can rescue stuff from the rubbish dump it’s also a good source of free components to practice on .
Hi, Its been great to listen to you explain how to fix this problem. I, like your friend John made the same mistake and blew the device. Your video enabled me to send my receiver off to someone who knew what they were doing and I got it fixed for a couple of quid. Many thanks.
Thank you. Same story as all the blown ones. Some sort of high current dual path down the ground wire cooks the reg and torches the PCB track as a result of using the smart battery telemetry board. I've fixed mine now. I wouldn't have bothered had I not seen your video. I fixed the ground trace after replacing the reg by soldering a wire off the negative no1 servo channel to the attachment pad on the reg which is on the ground plane. I never post, but I have to in this instance. Thankyou, thankyou, THANKYOU.
nice to see old school repair of stuff in this throw away world , I get bagged all the time for it , but if it can be fixed I'll fix it , like you said Bruce it's a challenge to the grey matter , and rewarding when you see it working again , not to mention saving 40 odd bucks , good work mate !
Thanks Bruce....in this world of, "buy, break and replace..." this video is a breath of fresh air!!! Keep them coming as I am sure the process of diagnosis is as fun for you as it is for us....cheers:-)
Same story here Bruce.. by connecting a voltage sensor to a 5S battery i blown up 2 RX's.. thanks to you im gonna try to repair my RX. Thanks for this vid
There's this saying in Brazil, "remende seu pano, que dura outro ano". Mend your stuff, use for one more year. In Portuguese, it rimes. Great video. Keep'em coming, I'll keep watching.
It is a simple repair to the trace open. Simply find a piece of copper wire that is just as thick as the trace width and solder it across the open of that trace. You will need yo clean off more of the trace to get more bare copper before doing the soldering repair of the trace. This type of repair is common in working on two way radios. Then, it is just a matter of replacing the blown voltage regulator. I also would recommend following that lead an confirm the continuity from the negative battery pin to the negative lead of the voltage regulator. There still may be other potential trace problems not seen at this point.
Thanks Bruce you inspired me to have another go at fixing my two dead X8R's. As in your video there was a break somewhere in the negative track of one of them, I linked out the servo negative rail to the regulator negative tab and bingo it came back to life! Not so lucky with second X8R though. Keep up the good work!
It makes me happy to see this! We used to have to get our stuff repaired as it was so expensive to replace, and I remember one particularly temperamental ESC that I swear I had to get one particular transistor replaced half a dozen times on. I'd actually go as far as to say that experience was one of the several key factors that lead me to being an electronics designer now. So definitely do more videos like this, hopefully it'll inspire more to look into how things work and how they can be repaired!
A great trip down memory lane, I haven't seen such a neat break since my training as an computer engineer 30+ years ago when our instructors created faults on the equipment with their knifes.
Thank you SIR !! Let's hope you inspire someone younger with this video .. I recently changed antennas to S6R - newer thicker ones - and accidentally scratched a small protective inductor (I guess?) .. With all the problems you have - your hands look more calmly on video - congratulations!
The more information on repairing PCB's the better. I have a drone but the controller lost a cap due to a modification I made so the LCD doesn't work. All I need is a picture of the board and I can get it working again.
Excellent video, Bruce! Very interesting! Thank you for walking us through as you trouble shoot! I learned a lot! Would love to see how you fixed the broken trace. Keep them coming!
Nice straight forward repair ( once you found that brocken track ). I repaired TV audio video equipment for a lot of years so this sort of thing is very familiar to me but the kids today probably won't have a clue... Unfortunately my hands are pretty unsteady these days and my neck hurts so I don't do so much now.
Enjoy all of your video's. Keep them coming. I too take to the electronic repair challenge, need a microscope. Managed to fix a couple of F3 boards where the diode has failed on 5 volt rail. Plus I am a old Geezer.
Great vid. Thank you. Idea for next video. Frsky Neuron esc. During set up I powered the receiver with a bec, this let the manic smoke out of the esc. I know I am not the only one to do this. It still works, but clearly isn’t quite right. I can see the component the smoke came out of. Thinking of trying to fix. Never used hot air gun ,or whatever you used, to desolder though. You skipped over this bit in your video. A video on this would be helpful. Keep up the good work
I often think of how many perfectly fine electronics get thrown away in this hobby because most people now days don't want to bother and don't want to learn. It's sad 95% of the time it's a 10 cent regulator to fix.
@@peterzingler6221 I don't have a hot air gun or a reflow oven, I use an iron not even a great iron either hell sometimes I even use a fat chisel tip if I'm too lazy to change it and the parts are not micro. It's not as hard as you might think, granted I have repaired some tiny aio camera and micro 1s vtx's with sot-23 regulators and on one occasion a 0402 cap that got lifted when replacing one of said regulators ( wouldn't recommend that for anyone with bad vision and lay off the caffeine beforehand, you might not seem shaky until you're trying to hold something in place the size of a grain of sand) Granted I've been soldering for 15 years or so but, most people wouldn't be doing 0402 components on micro boards. Replacing a regulator or running a jumper like Bruce is doing are things anyone who's been in the hobby a couple years or better should be capable of. If Louis Rossmann can do component level repair so can you. The only tool that I would say is needed ontop of an iron is some tweezers but even then you can hold it in place with a toothpick or something I rarely "hold" anything with tweezers instead just putting a little pressure on top to hold in place. Whew that was fricken long haha.
But... everything's so TINY and COMPACT and INTEGRATED. Where's the fun in that? I remember when exploring the innards of an Rx needed climbing gear and a stepladder and a mining helmet that had a really bright light on it so you could find your way amongst all the weird knobbly components...
do you remember the early pc's? you KNEW you got your moneys worth just in copper and solder alone when you're pc had a sound card that was the good part of a foot long circuit board :)
Right Bruce, I have a few things for you to fix…. if only you weren’t over 10,000 miles away… :-( :-) Very interesting video and something I think we should all be doing more of, rather than chucking plastic and obviously gear that could have a fair few more miles left in it. Good on ya Bruce
I had an x8r get damaged in the same place by the same method a while back. the voltage regulator (and all else) was still working though, so just had to run a wire. I now buy the voltage sensors with the screen as they are isolated (also necessary for eg 12s usage) and will not blow up radios/servo wires in this way
Good work! Tell John to put a short JST-XH flylead on the voltage sensor - you can then tuck the sensor away somewhere, and it's impossible to connect it up the wrong way round.
i just fried an x8r the same way. ele servo went full direction and let out the blue smoke, got so hot the wire melted the rubber grommet where the wires enter the servo ! :o
Yes please Bruce. If you are going to take the time to repair electronics for friends, please do record your experiences for our edification. Just yell when you run out of things to repair ;-)
