jerbo6iks

Hi,

I'm now noticing that my DF seems to experience short dropouts in main motor power about half way through the battery. Of course when it drops the nose swings right making it difficult to control. It this an electronics problem or is it just the inevitable degradation of the main motor? It seems to happen with any battery pack I use.

I have probably put it through 4 batteries every day since the week of Christmas. What is a realistic expectation of motor life?

Seems the upgrades that make sense are:
Head stiffener
Better main and tail motors - How do you judge motor goodness? I want durability more than massive excess thrust. Do they go together/
Motor Heatsinks.

Any thing else?

Thanks.

MovingLite

Sounds like you are indeed ready for a new set of motors.

On your next set of motors, an external heatsink is always a good idea, will give you a longer life.

As far as mods are concerned, looks like you listed the good ones.

Enjoy!

Super-Hornet

Hi

I think my dragonfly suffer similar problem with u also. My motor is the standard (stock) motor. After one pack of batteries (750mAH), the motor goes very hot (Tail motor also). I now always wait till the motor cool down first before I plug in another batteries.

I also suspect both my motor is degrading. Sometimes I can smell something burning coming out of my tail motor (no smoke and I think it is common to brush motor).

I'm thinking of changing both motor to a higher / better performance but then I change my mine. I now decided to go for Hummingbird barebone with heatsink and transfer all those electronics to the HB. Currently my area hobby shop out of stock for barebone HB. Stock will arrive after 2 to 3 weeks. Till then, I'm waiting for some advice from those ppl (anyone who read this can also give me some) who migrate from DF to HB.

flyingchaos

This happens to me too, but its when my battery is obviously low after a flight and Im still cranking on the throttle to force it in the air!

I think what happens is that when a motor winding gets hot, the resistance gets lower and helps speed up current drainage from the already weak batteries.

Also when a battery gets weak, the motor is experiencing more stall torque trying to keep the bird spinining/flying. Thus more current drain.

ANyway what either amounts to is that there will be a current spike, resulting in a lower voltage spike to the battery and your reciever will actually get lower than ~5.1 volts from teh BEC/ESC/mixer resulting in servo glitches.

Simple put, dont crank on the throttle after a long(relatively speaking) flight and the batteries are noticeably drained. Just land and swap a new battery. (youll probably want to wait for the motor to cool if you want long life out of your motors :-)

Happy flying.

Dan

MTDV

My Feedback: (58)

I always carry a modified portable 12V blower (from a hair dryer) to cool the motor down before replacing a fresh battery.

flyingchaos

I like the blower idea, though in minnesota during this time, I just leave the heli in the garage or outside for a minute or two :-)
it's probably about 15 degree F out right now ....

Gotta watch out for condensation when bringing it back in however