Most reliable esc

[paraskos]

Any one know which are the most reliable esc. I'm biulding a Hex to lift a 5d so need good 40a esc

 

[redridinghood]

After being on a quest to find the perfect ESC and having bought and tested many available ESC on the market I would list them in this order of reliability and performance.

Comfortable in handling 40 amp
1. Herkules III
2. Ultra ESC 40 Amp (when they become available)
3. Castle creations Phoenix Ice or lite 50 and above

Not so able to handle 40 amp reliably
4. Hobbyking-Hobbywing all nfet with ext oscillator 40 Amps and above (simonk flashed)
5. Herkules II
6. Autoquad ESC32

Most available esc's are not suited for multirotors since they either lack features like active freewheeling and over current protection or are have output filtering making them too slow for good performance. Keep in mind this is my personal opinion.

 

[ChrisViperM]

I have these ones on my Cinestar and I am more than happy with them:

http://www.kopterworx.com/DJI-Power/Maytech-MT40A-SImonK-firmware


Chris

 

[Emowillcox]

Herkules III
Where are you getting your Herkules III esc?

 

[redridinghood]

Send globeflight an email.

http://www.globe-flight.de/Herkules-III-High-Power-Brushless-ESC

 

[R_Lefebvre]

2. Ultra ESC 40 Amp (when they become available)

Did you rank something that is not in production yet, on a list of "reliable" speed controllers? What is that based on?

I'm using #4, myself. Not too many flight hours yet, and I'm not really pushing 40A normally. That would only be considered "War Emergency Power" for my Octo. I think the key with ESC's, is to leave some headroom. I'm typically only flying on 6A. They'll only hit about 30A if I punch it. There's a small weight penalty, but that wasn't a design consideration for me. In turn I saved a ton of weight on copper due to design considerations.

I think a big reason why people have problems is sort of what you allude too. If you're pulling 20-30Amp on a 40Amp ESC at 50% throttle in a hover, without active free-wheeling, that's probably not going to work out well. Again it gets back to design considerations.

 

[Carapau]

From my experience in helis, the top notch ESCs are the Kontroniks. Unfortunately, their price is also top notch.

 

[R_Lefebvre]

From my experience in helis, the top notch ESCs are the Kontroniks. Unfortunately, their price is also top notch.

I've never used them, but I hear that a lot. I also heard from one guy who had a capacitor fail, so he had to send it in for repair. It took many many weeks to get fixed. He wasn't too happy about it. So it appears they aren't 100% reliable, and then you need a spare for if something happens.