Tello Motor Repair done right!

How to change a Tello Ryze Drone motor

Other instructions on the web

See my full length repair video here.

Before attempting the repair, I checked the web for tutorials. But found most of them pretty terrible, usually causing permanent damage or ugliness to that nice drone.

All except one from DroneZone, which I only found after having finished the repair :-(

That is what a decent job looks like

Tools required

While not really a tool, you need a replacement motor. There are several sources on the web, but they come with small weirdnesses like gears or plugs. Like so often, I got mine from Banggood. They come in two wire lengths (71mm or 87mm), but as a wire can never be too long, I went for the 87mm, although I needed to replace a front motor, where the leads are shorter.

• Pack of two Tello Motors (one CW/CCW motor each) for under 10USD

These motors are properly keyed, so you can't confuse the clockwise and counterclockwise motors.

Other than that, good quality precision screwdrivers are a must. Poor screwsrivers ruin the screws. I currently use both a Wowstick, and traditional hand tools, depending on the job at hand.

• As hand tools, I use this ATuMan-X-mini screwdriver set
• Otherwise I have the cheap, AAA Cell powered Wowstick

And of course the wonderful, regulated Mini TS80 soldering iron. The first USB iron that doesn't suck. It does not come cheap, but during the building renovations, when I had no lab space, I learned to love it and won't go back to my old Ersa iron.

• Mini TS80 (USB Soldering iron)
• Stand and pouch for the above (also pricey, but good)
• A cheap set of spudgers
• Some solder wick or pump

Other household items include

• a pin to peel off the gunk that seals the solder points
• wire cutters / needle nose pliers
• Tweezers are handy, too

Problems encountered

If you follow my video (see here), you will find that I struggled at a few points

Cracking the case open

The plastic is very thin, so go around the edges carefully with a spudger.

Removing the gunk over the solder pads

This was a pain. I tried several methods. What worked best in the end was to peel the silicone-like gunk off with a needle. No great fun.

Soldering

Desoldering needed more heat than I thought, given the delicate wires. That might have to do with the solder. I set the iron to 340 degrees centigrade. Later, when soldering the new wires to the board, the joints went dry immediately, so I replaced the solder. (Using solder wick)

Hotglue over the cable duct

Where the motor wire enters the body, there is a drop of hot-snot over the groove the wire runs it. This needs to be cleaned out.

Getting the motor out

That was not really hard. I could pull it out with my pliers, but the cable running through the motor holder gave quite a bit of resistance. So I smelled trouble getting the new wires in.

Motor arm

Putting the new motor in

The actual trouble is to get the new wires through the tiny hole in the motor arm. The trick is to bend the wires at an angle. You can see that in my video.

Final words

After the repair, I went through two freshly charged batteries. No problems. And other than in some repair videos, the drone does not look like it had been chewed up by a dog after the repair.