You know, thinking back to when I first got into this hobby, I had an issue like this with that little 250 helicopter I had. It would do this when trying to spool up, but would catch after 5 or 6 tries and spin. That is exactly what this ESC is doing. Interesting... lol.
Looks like it's going to be around $50 total to flash the ESC's. And wow, looks like a PITA as well lol. But, seeing as these are not "SimonK" (so I have found out), I may just do it to try out the BlHeli firmware.
New ESC's will be here Friday according to tracking. And I have a few other things on the way that should be here tomorrow. Can't wait to get this little guy in the air.
Actually, with a new ESC, the issue moved to another motor. So the motor is functioning just fine. I thought the same thing since i used a long screw the first time. I figured that I damaged the windings, but thankfully, I didn't.