so i clipped a tree branch on saturday and one of my front motors has been running noticeably hotter than the others ever since. like i can hold the other three for a few seconds after a flight no problem but this one i have to pull my finger away pretty quick. performance seems okay i guess, hover is stable and i havent noticed any wobble in the footage but its bugging me.

stator looks fine visually, no bent shaft that i can see, bell spins smoothly by hand. i did pull the prop and run it up briefly and it sounds maybe slightly rougher than the others? hard to tell. running 2306 motors on a 5 inch build if that matters. should i just swap it out or is there something i should be checking first that im missing

if the shaft took any kind of side load in the crash there's a decent chance a bearing got dinged even if it looks okay externally. rough sound at speed is usually a dead giveaway. heat tracks with that too because a damaged bearing creates friction that wouldnt be there normally. honestly at the price of a replacement 2306 its probably not worth spending much time diagnosing, just swap it and move on. keep the old one as a parts motor or to practice rewinding if youre into that sort of thing.

that said if you want to be sure before ordering anything you can try spinning the bell by hand while applying a tiny bit of lateral pressure to the shaft and feel for any grinding or uneven resistance. good bearings feel completely smooth under that kind of test.

had basically the exact same thing happen last month, tree got me too. mine ended up being a slightly bent shaft, wasnt obvious just looking at it but when i put a prop on and spun it slowly by hand i could see a tiny wobble. was causing vibration that was making the motor work harder than it should. swapped the shaft on mine since i had spares but tbh it was more hassle than it was worth, motor never felt quite right after. just gonna replace it next time.