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Long Endurance Cooling Options

A project log for Open Sky Anchor WiFi Drone Brings The GIG

Mission "Wifi" Impossible > Bring Long Range 5G and 2.4 G WiFi Backed By A 1 Gigabit Fiber To The East Brainerd EF-3 Tornado Disaster area.

josh-starnesJosh Starnes 07/23/2020 at 00:250 Comments

     One issue we must address is endurance running on these motors. Many pilots recommend resting between every few flights for cooling. This may just be superstitious for those who know they are pushing the limits of their motors with heavy weight or higher voltages to the motors like a 4S 14.8V battery instead of a 3S 11.1 that they are engineered for. Splitting the load between 6 or even 12 motors reduces individual motor load and heat. In addition DJI and other companies have added cooling solutions, on the new generation motors, that pull air from the bottom up through the motor. Some also have small heat sinks on the base plate. That being said I will try out both approaches. First being a 3D printed centrifugal fan that slides onto the shaft under the prop, this will need to be balanced just like a prop. Second is cutting down a 40mm x 40mm aluminum heat sink into a round shape to act as a base plate under the base of the motor. This will further draw heat away from the core magnet wire winding. This is where nearly all the heat is generated in the motor. The base powder coat will be removed and heat transfer paste applied. I will bench test both of these on 50 percent, 75 percent and 100 percent throttle for 10 minutes to see if we have heat soak differences with and without the cooling solutions.

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