KDE XF esc's
- Thread starter kloner
- Start date
tahoejmfc
James Cole
I have been in constant conversation with T-motors Becky and as usual T-motors says they respect the customers. But will not respond to the fact that no esc is available for the motors and will not let me return these Piece of SH8&t motors. So Im pretty much stuck with these junkers and will never buy t-motors again.
Has anyone tried the T80A esc with these motors, the only esc that t-motors recommends
One thing I did notice is the Power leads on the KDE 55 is only 14 gauge and it gets really hot, KDE needs to change the wire size to 12 for me to commit to purchasing these esc's.
These controllers have multiple issues with the U7,
1. wires get too hot
2. temps are way too high
3. Sync issues still
Has anyone tried the T80A esc with these motors, the only esc that t-motors recommends
One thing I did notice is the Power leads on the KDE 55 is only 14 gauge and it gets really hot, KDE needs to change the wire size to 12 for me to commit to purchasing these esc's.
These controllers have multiple issues with the U7,
1. wires get too hot
2. temps are way too high
3. Sync issues still
Last edited by a moderator:
KDE Direct
KDE Direct, LLC.
Hey Guys,
Was thinking more about this last night, and one aspect we're not looking at is the length of the motor power-leads. One aspect that can cause this effect, that looks like commutation errors, is the lack of instantaneous power from the LiPos to the ESCs, when the ESC is asking for the power to be delivered at microsecond bursts. Since the LiPos are a chemical reaction, there is a delay until power is delivered - this delay is covered by the capacitors built onto the ESC (to lower the "voltage ripple" that occurs), but when the motor leads are excessively long, the wires themselves also act as a resistor (and an inductor) and produce a delay, which causes the ESC to be starved of power. One of the reasons I may not have witnessed this effect on the bench with the U7, is the fact my power lead is very short - directly plugged into the LiPo. For any system, it's always best to have the shortest wires from the power-source to the ESC, otherwise the capacitors are working hard (and being overworked) to maintain good working operation and synchronization.
The motor itself also plays a major role in this - if the electromagnetic design is poor, again, the motor will ask for very high micro-bursts of amperage to keep up with the demands for torque (as seen by throttle pumping) and the power-system is being abused, trying to keep up with the demands. It's not a failure of the ESC, but a failure of proper motor design to prevent these micro-bursts from regularly occurring (which also heats up the ESC very rapidly, causing a need to keep things cooler, such as shown in the video by Tahoe). This is why it is critical to properly match the ESC and Motors, and design the components (motor/ESC) as a complete unit - so these issues do not arise, and temperatures remain much cooler across the board.
fltundra
Member
All were tiger?
tahoejmfc
James Cole
Hi KDE,
These points you make are well understood by most users here. The KDE wires on the 55esc are undersized. After 2 minutes at 60% throttle the 14 gauge wires on the esc get very hot.
Most of us here working through this problem have engineering backgrounds and have been working with high amperage custom systems for many years now.
No one with a multi-rotor system is going to be running a single esc to a single battery like in your setup. Everyone is going to be running through a harness with 8 or 10 gauge high quality wire from someone like castle creations, or a custom power distro system. Most of us running high amp systems are also running 2 batteries on our copters to reduce the C load on the batteries, create a safer system by doubling the available cells in case one cell fails during flight so that the copter will not fall out of the sky due to voltage sag from that cell failure.
Almost all escs tested with the U7's have issues, the motors design is sub par and has too much rotational mass to adjust its speed at such a high rate without it falling out of sync.
I highly doubt that the temps of your esc is any different with your beautifully crafted motors(no sarcasm there, I really like your motors and wish I could afford them)
The way the esc heat sync is designed is nice, the way your actually used thermal epoxy instead of just a heat transfer tape like maytech and Hobbywing helps reduce your heat, but your esc needs larger fins for better passive cooling or a added fan to add active cooling. You can see that your esc runs 25f degrees cooler with a 12V 2.5cm fan. Most of us building systems like this will be carrying a 15-30,000$ camera package and esc temps above 125f are concerning to all of us. If you wish to hit this market properly then please add a fan mod kit or improve the heat sync.
Safety is all of our #1 priority, we have spent alot of time and spreadsheets crunching numbers of our motor/prop combos to make sure we are running an efficient safe system.
These points you make are well understood by most users here. The KDE wires on the 55esc are undersized. After 2 minutes at 60% throttle the 14 gauge wires on the esc get very hot.
Most of us here working through this problem have engineering backgrounds and have been working with high amperage custom systems for many years now.
No one with a multi-rotor system is going to be running a single esc to a single battery like in your setup. Everyone is going to be running through a harness with 8 or 10 gauge high quality wire from someone like castle creations, or a custom power distro system. Most of us running high amp systems are also running 2 batteries on our copters to reduce the C load on the batteries, create a safer system by doubling the available cells in case one cell fails during flight so that the copter will not fall out of the sky due to voltage sag from that cell failure.
Almost all escs tested with the U7's have issues, the motors design is sub par and has too much rotational mass to adjust its speed at such a high rate without it falling out of sync.
I highly doubt that the temps of your esc is any different with your beautifully crafted motors(no sarcasm there, I really like your motors and wish I could afford them)
The way the esc heat sync is designed is nice, the way your actually used thermal epoxy instead of just a heat transfer tape like maytech and Hobbywing helps reduce your heat, but your esc needs larger fins for better passive cooling or a added fan to add active cooling. You can see that your esc runs 25f degrees cooler with a 12V 2.5cm fan. Most of us building systems like this will be carrying a 15-30,000$ camera package and esc temps above 125f are concerning to all of us. If you wish to hit this market properly then please add a fan mod kit or improve the heat sync.
Safety is all of our #1 priority, we have spent alot of time and spreadsheets crunching numbers of our motor/prop combos to make sure we are running an efficient safe system.
fltundra
Member
I'd like to see your tests with a KDE motor.:tennis:
Old Man
Active Member
There's a difference between between being near maxed out for voltage and maxed out for current. Those differences pretty much dictate which wires end up the longest, motor or ESC. 12awg wire should be the minimum standard for high current motors and ESC's, and that wire should be low impedance. Tiger motors have some really crap wire input leads but that doesn't mean the ESC can't be a lot better. 14awg is less expensive but it does not function nearly as well as it should. For large MR's my power supply wire is 10awg and ESC supply is 12awg. Current runs the outside of a wire, not the core so more outer surface area provides more current.
KDE Direct
KDE Direct, LLC.
Hey Guys,
We put in a full day of flight testing yesterday, benchmarking the KDE4014XF-380s and the upcoming KDE5215XF-435s on 6S. Our test setup is:
Aeronavics SkyJib X-8
T-Motor 18" x 6.1 CF Propellers (CW/CCW)
DJI A2 Flight Controller
KDE Direct XF UAS 55A+ ESCs
KDE Direct 4014XF-380 Brushless Motors
Pulse ULTRA 6S1P-10000mAh (2x Parallel, 20000mAh total)
We tested the setup with varying weights, and here are the results for flight-time (to 85% pack usage):
18 lb. (no payload): 25:30
23 lb. (5 lb. payload): 17:30
28 lb. (10 lb. payload): 12:30
33 lb. (15 lb. payload): 10:00
At these weights, we still maintained full yaw-authority, even at the end of flight. We tore down the setup, and then installed the KDE5215XF-435 motors and wow - incredible performance. It started to rain on us, so the flight was cut short, but we were checking for smoothness of the ESC/Motor combination and also, ESC temperatures. No added cooling or heat-sink to the production design, and temperatures were very cool - much more so than the extreme bench-tests we are doing, which are much harder on the system than true flight conditions.
28 lb. (10 lb. payload), 9 minute flight (cut short by rain), the ESC temperatures only reached 106F peak (KDE Direct XF UAS 55A+).
We put in a full day of flight testing yesterday, benchmarking the KDE4014XF-380s and the upcoming KDE5215XF-435s on 6S. Our test setup is:
Aeronavics SkyJib X-8
T-Motor 18" x 6.1 CF Propellers (CW/CCW)
DJI A2 Flight Controller
KDE Direct XF UAS 55A+ ESCs
KDE Direct 4014XF-380 Brushless Motors
Pulse ULTRA 6S1P-10000mAh (2x Parallel, 20000mAh total)
We tested the setup with varying weights, and here are the results for flight-time (to 85% pack usage):
18 lb. (no payload): 25:30
23 lb. (5 lb. payload): 17:30
28 lb. (10 lb. payload): 12:30
33 lb. (15 lb. payload): 10:00
At these weights, we still maintained full yaw-authority, even at the end of flight. We tore down the setup, and then installed the KDE5215XF-435 motors and wow - incredible performance. It started to rain on us, so the flight was cut short, but we were checking for smoothness of the ESC/Motor combination and also, ESC temperatures. No added cooling or heat-sink to the production design, and temperatures were very cool - much more so than the extreme bench-tests we are doing, which are much harder on the system than true flight conditions.
28 lb. (10 lb. payload), 9 minute flight (cut short by rain), the ESC temperatures only reached 106F peak (KDE Direct XF UAS 55A+).
KDE Direct
KDE Direct, LLC.
Overall, there is a major change in temperatures and performance when the ESC and Motors are properly matched, as there is with any power-system that is "tuned".
The goal of the KDE Direct XF series is not to correct for T-Motors issues and problems, but rather to provide Engineered solutions for the sUAS market and industry-leading customer support. In this regard, the XF UAS ESCs are designed specifically for the KDE Direct XF Brushless Motors, and we have no intention of trying to fix the issues with the "U7" and other series - that's up to T-Motors to correct and address for their customers. We will try our best to get the KDE Direct XF UAS ESCs to be compatible with T-Motor equipment, but when there are design aspects out of our control with their products, we cannot guarantee compatibility.
The goal of the KDE Direct XF series is not to correct for T-Motors issues and problems, but rather to provide Engineered solutions for the sUAS market and industry-leading customer support. In this regard, the XF UAS ESCs are designed specifically for the KDE Direct XF Brushless Motors, and we have no intention of trying to fix the issues with the "U7" and other series - that's up to T-Motors to correct and address for their customers. We will try our best to get the KDE Direct XF UAS ESCs to be compatible with T-Motor equipment, but when there are design aspects out of our control with their products, we cannot guarantee compatibility.
Fat Corgi
Member
Most people will be running long (+400mm) motor leads, from the esc to the motors. Is there anything that you have engineered into these esc's that helps cope with the longer run, or should we just run thicker gauge wire up the arms? I'm looking to get a matched system, and the KDE equipment is the top of the list.
tahoejmfc
James Cole
Very Nice! Do you know what the Ambient Temp was during the tests? Just wondering if the test was just hovering or flying around a bit? I would love to see a video of the setup in flight, sounds solid with the tuned esc/motor combo. Another question, what are you using for power distro?
Thanks
Thanks
KDE Direct
KDE Direct, LLC.
The length of the lead from the ESC to the motor is actually not a concern for the ESC, and there are cases with some large-scale airplanes with lead length over 4' and pulling 300A+ amps, far worse than we put ESCs through in multi-rotors. No concerns with the motor leads, and we even ship our XF motors with 760mm+ leads on the larger motors.
What is much more critical is the length of the power-wires to the ESC (LiPo to ESC), and having these as short as possible is always a benefit to prevent voltage-ripples and over-stressing the capacitors on the MOSFET board lines.
KDE Direct
KDE Direct, LLC.
The ambient temperature was ~78F and about 60% humidity (summer day in Washington).
We shot a video of the KDE4014XF-380s in conjunction with the KDEXF-UAS55 ESCs, pulling the heaviest load we tested (35 lbs.) Our method of testing for flight-stability is to run full-climbouts in GPS mode during the last minute of flight, and watch for any loss of yaw-authority. No problems on 18" props and we'll start testing the KDE5215XF series for even heavier lifts next week (when the rain goes away). The power-distribution is the Power Hungry Systems PHS-10 (http://www.powerhungrysystems.com/products.html). This was just an internal test video we took, but I posted it public just so you can see.
Last edited by a moderator:
maxwelltub
Member
I'd love to know if anyone has been testing these with the Herk III board.
Exactly what I'm going to be doing KDE4014XF 380's with a Herk III vs KDEXF-UAS35's
maxwelltub
Member
Oh swell, looking forward to it! I love my new Herk board, and I'd really like to get those 435s working on it
fltundra
Member
All in one ESC's. Board fails, bird hits ground. 8 single, one fails, bird lands safely.
https://www.facebook.com/herkules3.de?_fb_noscript=1
Av8Chuck
Member
I've seen a lot more larger scale MR's with 18+" props putting the ESC's under the motor. I guess this is the cool new setup, it's certainly a great place to mount them. But I guess your saying that's not a good idea? Is there anyway to test for this?
What problem does the Herkules III solve? A better/easier way of wiring? I didn't do a lot of searching but it also appears to be very expensive.
Herk III has redundancy in Octo & X8 configurations if one board fails... Anyway when has one failed?