100 A ESC's X Rotor Pro 6-14 S

Will Batch 4 be updated with 100 A ESC’s?

Since people reported of <300 A draw at climbing and PDwhite had 110 A draw at each ESC
with 22 x 14 props, i am wondering why not just updating the next batch with these…

IMO this OPPG project needs to go back to the drawing board and figure out a better combination of motor/prop/ESC that draws less current than what’s out now. Not just add ESCs with a higher Amp rating. Everyone will benefit from more powerful & efficent motors.

Manny

I don’t think it needs to go back to the drawing board. I think the original drawing board was outstanding. With that said, things a constantly changing and being improved. Paul & Zach have put this project in the opensource world and they and the people who have the units are making up improvements. If you feel that way, get one and make the changes you feel would improve it, and then make your comments/suggestions. Or start your own drawing board/project.
My hats off to the Whitehead brothers for commiting to the project and making it a reality.

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When is the next batch going to be ready and or available ? Thanks

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My thoughts for 100 A ESC’s are more for heavier pilots or people who fly with 8 or 12 batteries…

The current 80 A ESC’s can handle 100 A for 10 seconds. The 100 A ESC’s can handle 120 A for 10 seconds

It is recommended that you have at least a 20% margin between the amp requirements of your motor and the rating of your ESC. This way you will know you will not be overloading the ESC’s.

How the ESC controls the Motor>

Motors are rated by Kv, which means the number of revolutions the motor will turn when you apply 1 volt of electricity. So our 180 Kv motor’s will spin at 8640 rpm if you apply 48 volts.

From this you might imply that the ESC changes the voltage to the motor in order to change the speed of the motor, but that is not the case. If you look at the specifications for our ESC you will probably see a frequency number. This might range from 2 KHz to 12 KHz or higher. This is related to how fast the ESC can pulse power to the motor. Our ESC’s are not a variable resistor that adjusts the voltage to the motor, it is a fast switch that pulses power to the motor.

You can think of this as a duty cycle control. How long will the ESC leave the power on till it turns it off? Then, how long will it be off before it turns it back on? There is no need for us to know this cycle time, only that on every on cycle your motor is getting the full voltage of your battery.

This is as well the reason the ESC’s have capacitors - this on/off switching leads to voltage spikes and
the capacitors are there to smooth this out! With longer battery wires there could be voltage spikes of 4-10 volts. More capacitors will smooth this out. BTW most voltage spikes are at half throttle ( more on/off)

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I agree that 100 amp ESCs are what should be used based on the amps we draw. However, the ones we are using never even get warm and have not created any issues. I’m sure the placement on the arms helps a lot to keep them cool.

The switching you are talking about happens so fast that if you tried to measure the voltage to the motor with an amp meter the reading would be the average so it would actually look like a voltage decrease. Basically, switching is a method to decrease voltage (or at least average voltage) but the reality is what you explained. The problem is every time the ESC “flips this switch on” you have full amps too and those amps are higher than the ESC is rated for. But some would argue that the ESC can handle it because the true amperage is an average of the on and off as well. I prefer to be on the safe side and design more robust rather than push things to the limit so 100 amp or higher ESCs would be ideal.

I don’t think the ESCs have capacitors on the output to smooth the switching but I could be wrong. I do know they have capacitors on the input to prevent spikes caused by induction in the wires.

I have a batch 3 build and was curious if at a later date I wanted to replace my current ESC’s with the ones you listed above, is it a pretty straight forward swap or does programming for the throttle have to be adjusted or any other adjustments?

Agree – to error on the side of caution for something a little more robust is wise. Though I am uncertain if they would fair any better with voltage spikes created from longer leads…

Good vid on how caps cleaning up spikes on drone

Has anyone scoped ours?