We went over to the machine shop but it looked like no one was there so we decided that we would do everything else that we could do and machine things on Monday.
So we went out and picked up some Screws, Thread Lock, and Bullet connectors.
One key thing to keep in mind while building a device with lots of vibration; thread lock. Thread lock is a very cheap liquid that will help keep all of your screws where they are supposed to be. Plus it never hurts to be safe.
It took Cody a decent amount of time to solder all of the ESC's and their connectors. However we got nearly all of them done, but we ran out of connectors. Soldering the connector onto the 11.1V 5.0A 30C battery really had me concerned as far as safety. Cody managed to get this task done without arking the battery on himself. :)
I spent some time building a small motor mount so that we can test our motors and speed controls without attaching them to the quadcopter, while also allowing us to put a propeller on make sure or copter doesn't fly away.
We had tested the motor first without a propeller. The motor spun quite nicely with and without a small load. We then decided to attach our propeller. Cody disconnected the battery after disconnecting the motor and we heard a loud pop, but no ark was seen. Cody and I being spooked decided to still disconnect the battery with much more caution. Pliers and quick movements used. Once we had decided that the battery was fine and was not the problem we reconnected it to the ESC. The motor did a quick beep, but nothing happened. We tried some different tests, but we determined that the ESC had died.
Something that we expected to be plug and play, problem free, could really put a damper on the project. Always expect everything to fail and you will never be dissatisfied. X)
Tommorow I plan on tearing open the ESC to determine the failure. This will allow us to know if it was a user error or some type of internal failure.