VOXL Mini 4-in-1 ESC Missing Capacitor
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Hi! After not using my Starling2 for about a week, I noticed that I'm unable to power on the drone. After some troubleshooting, I've narrowed down the problem to a capacitor that seems to have knocked off sometime between my previous successful flight and now (pictures as attached). While I'm waiting for a new ESC to be ordered, can anything be done to it that will allow me to at least do bench testing? Or is the ESC absolutely toasted? The LEDs on the ESCs do not turn on and neither do the motors beep. But it still outputs 1.2V instead of the 5V at the main regulator output
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@sssagara , I am sorry this happened to you, it seems the capacitor was knocked off because it came in contact with the frame during testing. I will check with the team regarding recommendations for avoiding this in the future.
This is a general purpose 0.1uF ceramic capacitor (0402 size, rated for 25V). Unfortunately without this capacitor, the main 5V regulator will not function properly, so the ESC will not power on.
If you are comfortable installing a new capacitor yourself, go for it. If you are not comfortable doing that, I would recommend contacting our RMA team (www.modalai.com/rma) and ship it back to get it fixed.
Alex
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@Alex-Kushleyev Hi Alex! Thanks for your reply! I managed to get a hold of a replacement capacitor and it works now! I used a piece of kapton tape to cover the base of the board to prevent any components from getting snagged in the future. Maybe future iterations of the ESC can include something as a simple covering for it
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Hi @sssagara,
Great to hear that it worked! I checked with our team and we suspect that the capacitor was not damaged due to a crash, but potentially a finger nail clipped it off during battery removal. Please take a note and see if that was a possibility. We will certainly work on addressing it in the future.
Alex
