I am not really the drone flyer here; that's my 10-year-old son. But I promised him I'd seek advice from you experts. He has a Syma X5C, which I can tell you has been a huge hit and has flown very well, about a dozen times (for a total of perhaps four hours in the air -- a wild guess) since he received it as a gift from his exceedingly generous dad. He flew it in a field a few weeks ago and it was fine. It then sat on a shelf for a few weeks. Last week we had a nice, windless day and went to run it and one of the four rotors, she no turn. The engines all seem to whine, the light is on. I am able to spin the rotor around with my finger -- it is not stuck. There is no sound of debris inside or anything. It simply does not turn. We see no loose wires. Not sure what else to do. Anyone have a clue how we can save this from being another remote-control debacle, or boondoggle, or other SAT word? Thanks!
I should add: it was purchased for gifting in July of 2015, so is less than a year in our possession, and also that we live in Germany, not the States, and so have a different access to, well, whatever access might be needed to.
Hopefully this is not too late. I just noticed this post and I too am a new member. In case others need to solve this issue, I found the problem in my Syma X5C. There could be one of 2 problems: 1. The pinion gear on the motor could have come off. Turn the quad over and look at the problem rotor. You will see a large gear with holes that is connected to the prop. A tiny pinion gear is connected to the motor shaft. Sometimes the pinion will come off if you hit something. Turn on the quad and slowly spin up the throttle. If the motor spins but the prop does not, that is your problem. You can buy spare pinions on Amazon and replace them. Buy some Loctite at the same time a put a tiny spot of it on each of the gears to prevent the problem in the future. Take care not to get any Loctite in the gear teeth. 2. The motor could be burned out. I observed that one of the props started a fraction of a second after the others. It seemed to stick slightly. Eventually that motor burned out out and stopped spinning. If the pinion is in place and the motor does not spin, that is probably the problem. You can also buy replacement motors on Amazon. They come in clockwise and counter clockwise varieties. Just buy a pair or four motors. The wires colors will indicate the direction of spin. Replace the motor with the same color of wire. You will need a small soldering iron and rosin core solder to replace the motor. You can find a number of videos on YouTube that show you how to do a complete tear-down of the X5.
This is common. Buy eight extra motors. They are only a couple bucks each on Amazon,.... and even less on Banggood.com if you can wait a couple weeks for shipping. Split the body open by taking out a zillion tiny screws, unsolder the broken motor, solder in the new motor, reassemble, and you are flying again. Be very gentle with the screws because the holes strip easily. I have replaced motors seven times so far on my x5c-1. -- I can do it in about 20 minutes now!! -- The drones really work well for the money, but the motors are crap. -- If you lighten up the drone by taking off the camera, the prop guards, and the landing gear, the motors last longer because lifting a lighter load puts less strain on them so they don't heat up as much.
I had the same happen with my X8C. Swap out the motors - they're cheap from Amazon and you can get higher quality than just the stock motor replacements. I swapped all 4 of mine and my Syma is running great. Now if the weather would cooperate - 15mph westerly winds aren't helping today.
Thanks so much HackBerry! My 11 year old was having the same problem. Have been googling online off and on for like a week but all suggestions pointed to bad motor. I luckily stumbled upon your post though and checked the tiny pinion thing and sure enough you were right! It had slid back and off of the larger gear. Reattached it and it was up and running again in less than a couple of minutes! Joined this site right now just so I could thank u. .....Thank youuuu!
Ok, so the gear did not come off and I replaced the motor and the gears. #1 motor still does not startup to spin at the same rate and I can stop with my finger, what I cant determine is where has the loss of power transfer from the motor to the propeller occured?
