To everybody saying, "Just use a multimeter." Multimeter are great and I show in this video how to use one to detect faults. But multimeter cannot protect against all faults. What if you have a battery plugged in and you are testing the FC with a multimeter and you accidentally short circuit two pads with the multimeter probe. Smoke stopper will save you. What if you have an ESC that is damaged so it's going to smoke the motor as soon as you plug in? Smoke stopper will save you. So please, please stop with this macho "I don't need a smoke stopper" BS. If you don't want to use one more power to you. It absolutely has a place though.
My smoke stopper tripped while testing In The motors tab at 75% throttle. I removed the smoke stopper and smoked the motor in the back. Any tips to get me flying again? I have a 4 in 1 hglrc zeus35
SpeedyBee stack did this. It sends an initial 12v instead of 9v. That must be causing the stopper to fuzz. Power interrupted BECAUSE of the stopper. Fires up and functions correctly with stopper removed.
I always check continuity first…. Most chargers have power output modes you can set voltage and current and will trip if either exceeds the limit. Great alternative to a smoke stopper.
Quads with low internal resistance (Whoops & 1S Quads) can appear as electrical shorts. While really large quads with high start-up currents will trip a Smoke-Stopper. Trick is to know a enough about electronics so you know what to expect for the "scale" of quad your working on.
Thanks Josh I bought the smoke stopper after you made the first video about it. I built my first quad and it's tripping every time. I will go check a few of the things you mentioned in this video.
The first time I came across this, I was attempting to test motor spin direction on a smoke stopper. Took about a half hour to figure out my dumb mistake.
A good alternative if you don't want to purchase a smoke stopper is to use a Lab bench power supply, you can regulate the voltage and current you want to feed to the drone and it's very useful for other electronic projects. You can find a simple one for quite cheap.
I've been building and flying since 2015 and I've never had a smoke stopper. I'm just careful, take my time and inspect all joints with a magnifying glass/reading glasses to make sure there are no shorts or blobs. In all that time I've only fried one esc on an early zmr250 build because I had the esc sandwiched between the plates and left a wire exposed that touched the carbon fiber. I feel like that's a pretty good track record.
I built my lightbulb smoke stoppers by just joining a couple together in series. Have not had any issues with this approach. Basically in series the lightbulb style smoke stopper will work fine. For me this worked well as I started on 4S and then when I moved to 6S primarily I just built a second one. The nice thing about this approach is that it also works with 4S and probably lower cell counts. The big thing for me is it is very large and clear no wondering if the settings are right … just remember 4S one light bulb 6S two lightbulbs 💡
Josh, this same thing had me going, because I hooked up my Roma, to set it up in BF.. What I didn't know is that either BF or the default settings of the FC starts to make the motors sing around 6:20 or so.. it must be a lost beeper locator. it freaked me out because it was fine until it happen at the same time when setting up a friend's Roma.,, That's when I noticed the time similarities..
The little iflight chargers have a constant current power source, also perfekt as smoke stopper Also you can test a 6s copter with as little as 8 volts. If there is an issue, you will find it anyway….
The GodFather! Nice one Joshua! Btw, I just did a continuity test on my quadcopter. There is a continuity. You said it's not good if I'm not mistaken. However, I've been flying this quad whole time. Oh caps!
you can press and hold the on/off button on the vivfly shortsaver 2 until the yellow light turns off and begins to bink and then press the button again to adjust the current sensitivity to low/medium/high and then press and hold it again to exit.
I'm confused. Light bulb is in series with the battery and the ESC batt terminals. If there are no shorts in the quad wiring, then the ESC, FC, etc take most of the voltage because altogether they are a bigger load than the bulb and the voltage across the bulb terminals would be too low to make it light up. if there is a short in the components then the voltage drop across the ESC terminals is low to none thus providing almost all the battery voltage across the bulb terminals and making the bulb light up. My point is that the important parameter in choosing a light bulb is the voltage rating, not the wattage.
If there is a short it creates an infinite current flow in your flight stack which then makes the light bulb your current limiter. And the light bulb will light up from the current flowing at is rated wattage.
never used a smoke stopper, never had a problem, double and triple check everything. although I do close eyes and pray when I plug in. might get one after the first burn out.
I just use a lower cell battery to check the same quad. If the quad runs on 4s I power it up the first time using a 3s. If it's 6s I still use the 3s to power it up. And that tells me if it's the motors and vtx that are causing the smoke stopper to trip or if there is actually something wrong.
For the light-bulb and the short-circuit, there may be 3A flowing, but also there is a very low voltage across the short circuit - that means low power dissipation (I * V). Most of the voltage is now across the bulb (it has to go somewhere...).
Yeaaa it also doesn't always stop the smoke!! I was given a bad ESC from the factory and one of the FETs on it was a little off. I didn't notice until I saw the magic smoke, while using a smoke stopper. I guess It was still pulling under an amp : (
👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍 YES! Love the intro brotherman!!! 🙌10 !!! Darn skippy I use the ViFly smoke stopper on any of my new or rebuilt builds. OR the bulb technique. Something is better than nothing as David says.
Soo helpful and soo glad I already realized smoke stoppers are kinda bs lol only 2 I ever had smoked were both connected to smoke stoppers when it happened. At least if using one now people can use this knowledge to help determine if a fault or normal.
I got similar situation with Walksnail MOONLIGT. When I conected my drone with Moonlight VTX smoke stopper bulb flashed bright. When I disconected VTX the bulb stays off during powering up my drone. Moonlight kit consumes 1.4A of current and that amount of additional current makes the bulb flash. Before I figured it out I thought that my VTX is broken or wires are shorted. But my Digital Multimeter didn't show any shorted circuits
Yea I had a quad that would trip when esc played music 🎶 its 1A setting was really like 0.8A and would trip. I have that vifly it is so great.. love the power button.. Also have the small single ones
I don't trust a smoke stopper. On quads that have a lot of draw they can trip on start up, making one think there is a problem. I now only use a multi meter. Just a basic one, not one of the crazy complicated ones. I do a continuity test on the XT60 and on each board. It has not failed me yet.
Hi Joshua, I have a problem with my drone. I have a 5 inch quad, it is a lumenier QAV-S jhonny fpv edition, with Iflight 2208 1800kV motors, with 5×4.8×3 props. Every time I fly it, the motors get very hot. Also, when I do flips, it oscillates a little bit and it tries to do a strange mini powerloop. I'm flying with the stock PIDs, stock filters and with rpm filtering. How can I solve this problem? I need help please
I was about to tear apart an esc because of throttle trip! I didn’t even give it a thought it tripping out when I throttle up the motors 😂 I guess a 2 amp fuse smoke stopper wouldn’t like throttle current, it’s an heli s esc so i switched wires to reverse a couple of motors instead of messing around with heli s suite and thought I screwed it up! All motors now spin correct and smoke stopper doesn’t trip just being plugged in so il go with that.
Im using multimeter, its say all its normal . Luckily I'm using TBS smoke stopper, once lipo on everything is not turn on, its says somethinf wrong. And then i see my + - in vista to bec its wrong polarity yes, tbs smoke stopper safe me a couple times.
My vifly sometimes lie to me. 6s gives false positive. I change to 4s and it doesn't complain. I think less voltage batteries are better for testing with smoke stopper.
The only way that intro could have been better is if it were filmed in a windowless room with nothing on the walls and containing just a table and a chair, in a typical movie interrogation situation with Joshua screaming at the smoke stopper demanding why it wouldn't do as it said it would ;-)
Joshua, can you PLEAAASEEEE tell how to add a buzzer and a GPS to the Rekon 3 Nano Long Range? I just bought one, and I do not want to loose it in a bushes. THANKS
My friend build his first quad and he had a problem. He checked with multimeter for shorts and then he just plugged in battery, everything worked and he jumped straight into configuring quad in betaflight. But when he tried to spin motors ESC smoked after few seconds. Motors did run for a 2-3 sec and then ESC blow up. ESC is dead and FC is broken also. FC works from USB but not from VBAT or any other pad. What may be the cause?
I’ve been lucky so far, after building the Tyro 119 along with your guide then later a GepRC MK4 without issue… My question: Will a continuity test with multimeter be sufficient when testing for faults? Or would a smoke stopper be recommended over that?
I show the use of a continuity test in this video; it's a very useful approach. But the smoke stopper is additional insurance and is certainly helpful.
Hey Joshua, did you ever tried a 24v light bulb from cars/trucks? It shouldn't be easy to find one, but... Anyway, stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊
To everybody saying, "Just use a multimeter." Multimeter are great and I show in this video how to use one to detect faults. But multimeter cannot protect against all faults. What if you have a battery plugged in and you are testing the FC with a multimeter and you accidentally short circuit two pads with the multimeter probe. Smoke stopper will save you. What if you have an ESC that is damaged so it's going to smoke the motor as soon as you plug in? Smoke stopper will save you. So please, please stop with this macho "I don't need a smoke stopper" BS. If you don't want to use one more power to you. It absolutely has a place though.
That already happened to me! Fried a FC with the Multimeter!
🥺
yep. fried my fc-esc-vtx on that plugged lipo while doing the multimeter. lol
why are u guys probing a fc when power is connected tho, that’s just dumb
Your not supposed to use a multimeter while power is on anyway. Only if your checking amperage and that is a protected circuit in the multimeter
Joshua Bardwell is... _The QuadFather_
_"lipos are a dish best served un-puffed."_
WHY DID IT LIE TO ME. I TRUSTED IT.
I'm Henry Rollins and your going to learn YOUR A LIAR smoke stopper
The music killed me lmfao
I don't fly FPV yet, but I know not to fly it with a smoke stopper lol, thanks to you JB 👊💯 a mean its common sense
At least its lying in the safe way lol.
My smoke stopper tripped while testing In The motors tab at 75% throttle. I removed the smoke stopper and smoked the motor in the back. Any tips to get me flying again? I have a 4 in 1 hglrc zeus35
How in the hell did you stay serious without laughing in that first minute is beyond me 🤣🤣
images.app.goo.gl/yQYrgY61uxYLEUf68
I highly doubt this was a first take.
@@JoshuaBardwell 👏👏👏bravo encore!
@@JoshuaBardwell GENIUS!
@@JoshuaBardwell bravo 👏 Sir Bravo 🎉
Joshua Bardwell - I am going to give you a lesson you cannot refuse !!
Lmao re-FUSE
@@andrewut7ya511 I wanted to do the pun without the stress on the fuse 😁😁. You made it more obvious.
3:00 BUBBY'S BATTERY
Part one was published May 22, 2019.
That's how you know Josh cares.
i was literally just using this vifly smoke stopper and wondering why it was tripping, even on kwads that i knew were good to go...makes sense thanks!
SpeedyBee stack did this.
It sends an initial 12v instead of 9v. That must be causing the stopper to fuzz. Power interrupted BECAUSE of the stopper. Fires up and functions correctly with stopper removed.
I use a desktop power supply.
Start with voltage at 0 and slowly ramp up while watching the current draw.
The only way to go for me!
Wow Bro some of your intros put a smile on my face when I've had a bad day
That intro was PRACTICED!
I always check continuity first…. Most chargers have power output modes you can set voltage and current and will trip if either exceeds the limit. Great alternative to a smoke stopper.
Quads with low internal resistance (Whoops & 1S Quads) can appear as electrical shorts. While really large quads with high start-up currents will trip a Smoke-Stopper. Trick is to know a enough about electronics so you know what to expect for the "scale" of quad your working on.
Lol, 3:24 when he casually takes out that 9" quad :D made me smile more than intro :D
Thanks Josh I bought the smoke stopper after you made the first video about it. I built my first quad and it's tripping every time. I will go check a few of the things you mentioned in this video.
The first time I came across this, I was attempting to test motor spin direction on a smoke stopper. Took about a half hour to figure out my dumb mistake.
A good alternative if you don't want to purchase a smoke stopper is to use a Lab bench power supply, you can regulate the voltage and current you want to feed to the drone and it's very useful for other electronic projects. You can find a simple one for quite cheap.
I’m not going to tell JB what’s what cuz he’s the GOAT but maybe the technical term he was searching for was “internal resistance” 🤓 Great Video🙂❤️
nice color grade and post, and that's just the start. Thanks for the excellent info.
Thank you too!
Omg! Joshua, did you really plug the Lipo to a 9“ on the bench with props on?
Kids, don’t try that at home!
😱
No props on the bench!
Ambitious indeed
The smoke stopper would have prevented the props from spinning too fast, as he explains at 09:21
Oh calm your tits. The drone was upside down. It's fine.
@@Trial4life Yes, that is right! But at 4:11 he removed the smoke stopper!
Quality of the intro straight outta hollywood
I've been building and flying since 2015 and I've never had a smoke stopper. I'm just careful, take my time and inspect all joints with a magnifying glass/reading glasses to make sure there are no shorts or blobs. In all that time I've only fried one esc on an early zmr250 build because I had the esc sandwiched between the plates and left a wire exposed that touched the carbon fiber. I feel like that's a pretty good track record.
And probably you avoided sh..ty components
I built my lightbulb smoke stoppers by just joining a couple together in series. Have not had any issues with this approach. Basically in series the lightbulb style smoke stopper will work fine. For me this worked well as I started on 4S and then when I moved to 6S primarily I just built a second one. The nice thing about this approach is that it also works with 4S and probably lower cell counts. The big thing for me is it is very large and clear no wondering if the settings are right … just remember 4S one light bulb 6S two lightbulbs 💡
ENTERTAINMENT GOAT!!! Amazing skit in the beginning lol
Josh, this same thing had me going, because I hooked up my Roma, to set it up in BF.. What I didn't know is that either BF or the default settings of the FC starts to make the motors sing around 6:20 or so.. it must be a lost beeper locator. it freaked me out because it was fine until it happen at the same time when setting up a friend's Roma.,, That's when I noticed the time similarities..
The little iflight chargers have a constant current power source, also perfekt as smoke stopper
Also you can test a 6s copter with as little as 8 volts. If there is an issue, you will find it anyway….
Wow! You have a career as an "Actor" Awesome! FPV is a Bonus!
HOW DARE YOU STEAL A PINK POWER PACK!!!!!-YRZ
I believe the whole concept is to minimise the damage, upto a point when it's still repairable- like better than blowing up a trace on the PCB.
The GodFather! Nice one Joshua! Btw, I just did a continuity test on my quadcopter. There is a continuity. You said it's not good if I'm not mistaken. However, I've been flying this quad whole time. Oh caps!
you can press and hold the on/off button on the vivfly shortsaver 2 until the yellow light turns off and begins to bink and then press the button again to adjust the current sensitivity to low/medium/high and then press and hold it again to exit.
The best intro ever! Top work dude!
Anyone else notice ViFly misspelled blue?
Green, no problem.
Red, easy.
Yellow, nailed it.
Blue, “BULE”.
I'm confused. Light bulb is in series with the battery and the ESC batt terminals. If there are no shorts in the quad wiring, then the ESC, FC, etc take most of the voltage because altogether they are a bigger load than the bulb and the voltage across the bulb terminals would be too low to make it light up. if there is a short in the components then the voltage drop across the ESC terminals is low to none thus providing almost all the battery voltage across the bulb terminals and making the bulb light up. My point is that the important parameter in choosing a light bulb is the voltage rating, not the wattage.
If there is a short it creates an infinite current flow in your flight stack which then makes the light bulb your current limiter. And the light bulb will light up from the current flowing at is rated wattage.
never used a smoke stopper, never had a problem, double and triple check everything. although I do close eyes and pray when I plug in. might get one after the first burn out.
Total badass.. you gonna learn something today.. 😅 love the bot shirt 💪
I run my bench from an ATX psu, it shuts down super fast if there is a short / current spike, no need for any other device.
2021 was a tough year for all of us but you were pretty harsh on that 3157 bulb Josh
LOL! You will soon get proposals from Hollywood and a nomination to the Oscar's
THE INTRO. Amazing.
I just use a lower cell battery to check the same quad.
If the quad runs on 4s I power it up the first time using a 3s. If it's 6s I still use the 3s to power it up.
And that tells me if it's the motors and vtx that are causing the smoke stopper to trip or if there is actually something wrong.
For the light-bulb and the short-circuit, there may be 3A flowing, but also there is a very low voltage across the short circuit - that means low power dissipation (I * V). Most of the voltage is now across the bulb (it has to go somewhere...).
Yeaaa it also doesn't always stop the smoke!! I was given a bad ESC from the factory and one of the FETs on it was a little off. I didn't notice until I saw the magic smoke, while using a smoke stopper. I guess It was still pulling under an amp : (
👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍 YES! Love the intro brotherman!!! 🙌10 !!! Darn skippy I use the ViFly smoke stopper on any of my new or rebuilt builds. OR the bulb technique. Something is better than nothing as David says.
The best intro ever 😂
I have built about 30 quads without a smoke stopper....but I build super slow and use a magnifying glass to check for issues. Lucky I guess :D
lol that's the best intro :) I just bought my vifly today :D but I want to make your ultra smoke stopper box with switches ^. ^ Thanks for sharing
Long time video but ... Best intro ever ! 😁
You deserve an Oscar for this intro 🤣🤣🤣
That was very informative. Excellent video. Thanks Joshua. 👍
Keep up the great content I can’t wait to meet you this weekend brother!
YES! Excellent video pal
Soo helpful and soo glad I already realized smoke stoppers are kinda bs lol only 2 I ever had smoked were both connected to smoke stoppers when it happened. At least if using one now people can use this knowledge to help determine if a fault or normal.
Good to know thanks. Awesome shirt BTW!!
I got similar situation with Walksnail MOONLIGT. When I conected my drone with Moonlight VTX smoke stopper bulb flashed bright. When I disconected VTX the bulb stays off during powering up my drone. Moonlight kit consumes 1.4A of current and that amount of additional current makes the bulb flash. Before I figured it out I thought that my VTX is broken or wires are shorted. But my Digital Multimeter didn't show any shorted circuits
My ViFly Shortsaver v1 is useless. Trips on the 2A setting just powering up a 4S 5" build with a Vista and large low-ESR cap.
Yea I had a quad that would trip when esc played music 🎶 its 1A setting was really like 0.8A and would trip. I have that vifly it is so great.. love the power button..
Also have the small single ones
I’mJoshua Bardwell and your going to unlearn something today!
That intro is so Breaking Bad 🤣
It's amazing haha
'who got to you?' loved the intro lol :D
love the background music ....
I don't trust a smoke stopper. On quads that have a lot of draw they can trip on start up, making one think there is a problem. I now only use a multi meter. Just a basic one, not one of the crazy complicated ones. I do a continuity test on the XT60 and on each board. It has not failed me yet.
Jb using cnhl packs?? Bubby’s pink power?!
The music in the beginning, went into stealth mode for some Zombie killing lol
Hi Joshua, I have a problem with my drone.
I have a 5 inch quad, it is a lumenier QAV-S jhonny fpv edition, with Iflight 2208 1800kV motors, with 5×4.8×3 props. Every time I fly it, the motors get very hot. Also, when I do flips, it oscillates a little bit and it tries to do a strange mini powerloop. I'm flying with the stock PIDs, stock filters and with rpm filtering. How can I solve this problem? I need help please
Is there any advantage to using a smokestopper compared to a multimeter? TIA
Smoke stopper can protect against transient failure modes. Such as if you short circuit the ESC with a screwdriver after plugging in.
I was about to tear apart an esc because of throttle trip! I didn’t even give it a thought it tripping out when I throttle up the motors 😂 I guess a 2 amp fuse smoke stopper wouldn’t like throttle current, it’s an heli s esc so i switched wires to reverse a couple of motors instead of messing around with heli s suite and thought I screwed it up! All motors now spin correct and smoke stopper doesn’t trip just being plugged in so il go with that.
This video probably saved me hours of headache😂
Thank you just the video I was looking for
I just love that intro😂
Im using multimeter, its say all its normal .
Luckily I'm using TBS smoke stopper, once lipo on everything is not turn on, its says somethinf wrong. And then i see my + - in vista to bec its wrong polarity yes, tbs smoke stopper safe me a couple times.
My vifly sometimes lie to me. 6s gives false positive. I change to 4s and it doesn't complain. I think less voltage batteries are better for testing with smoke stopper.
Great video! Loved the Intro
With 2x the lightbulb smoke stopper, it should work fine with 6S batteries, or?
If they are in series yes.
Voltage drop and current all come in to play. I prefer a multimeter and knowing how to appropriately use it.
The only way that intro could have been better is if it were filmed in a windowless room with nothing on the walls and containing just a table and a chair, in a typical movie interrogation situation with Joshua screaming at the smoke stopper demanding why it wouldn't do as it said it would ;-)
Heh, try this with KISS 4in1 ESC and 2208 motors, the bulb pulses to the ESC boot voice :D Confused me pretty bad for a few seconds..
I just couldn't stop thinking about macgruber lmao.....
I'm watching this video right now with a smoke stopper in my hand and sweating profusely.
Mine has done that too...I use the vifly2
Now we ready to getter the ones FPV hollywood movie from Joshua Bardwell
I love my lab powersupply. It can limit the current 👍
Man, wish I had this video last week, had this exact problem for a bit lol
Joshua, can you PLEAAASEEEE tell how to add a buzzer and a GPS to the Rekon 3 Nano Long Range? I just bought one, and I do not want to loose it in a bushes. THANKS
damn, that intro is really what ive been thinking the whole week
Love this intro!
JB has a set of skills...
This information would be nice to know before I fried my tx16s by plugging it in for .5 secs backwards
Best start :D
My friend build his first quad and he had a problem. He checked with multimeter for shorts and then he just plugged in battery, everything worked and he jumped straight into configuring quad in betaflight. But when he tried to spin motors ESC smoked after few seconds. Motors did run for a 2-3 sec and then ESC blow up. ESC is dead and FC is broken also. FC works from USB but not from VBAT or any other pad. What may be the cause?
I’ve been lucky so far, after building the Tyro 119 along with your guide then later a GepRC MK4 without issue… My question: Will a continuity test with multimeter be sufficient when testing for faults? Or would a smoke stopper be recommended over that?
I show the use of a continuity test in this video; it's a very useful approach. But the smoke stopper is additional insurance and is certainly helpful.
So scary! I will never be the same
Drone Corleone! Don Bardwell!
@1:00 I was convinced you're gonna pull a gun and shoot the bulb right there. :)))
Most epic JB intro ever! :-D
Hey Joshua, did you ever tried a 24v light bulb from cars/trucks? It shouldn't be easy to find one, but...
Anyway, stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊
Im so glad i never built or bought a smoke stopper - just use a multimeter
@joshua then how to test the esc before burning the motor? Can you test the motor spinning direction with the smoke stopper?
coolest t-shirt ever!
Best intro 👍👍