I have the 880kv arducopter motors, an rctimer esc (30C I think) and a 8000mah 30C battery. Prior to upgrading the battery (from 2 2650mah), my quad was flying ok. Even when I used the new battery everything was ok. Then one day, arming the copter and increasing the throttle to just below take off, smoke developed from the left esc. Smelling it confirmed the source of the smoke :)
Question: is there a general rule on what C rating of the motor, the esc and the battery should be? I mean should the esc be limited to 20C (reflecting what's available at the store) or I can go higher. If my battery is 35C, should my esc be higher than that C rating? Any pointers will be appreciated and please don't limit your reply to my two sample questions and feel free to educate me on the proper way of mixing it up the motor, esc and battery C ratings.
Thanks.
Replies
Roger, here is a link that I send to folks when they as questions regarding C ratings of Li batts.
http://www.hooked-on-rc-airplanes.com/lipo-battery-packs.html
Regarding the entire power train, you need to know the power you'll need in order to size out the other components. If one of the items do not meet the necessary power requirement then that item can fail or worse cause all of them to fail.
If your setup was all sized for a 20A motor and you changed something like the size of the battery, it could easily cause additional draw of power and let loose the blue smoke.
You should get an amp meter so you know the power utilization of your setup prior to upgrading, other wise you can spend a lot of time troubleshooting and $$ fixing stuff.
You could also be within rating limits of all the components and one could simply have gone bad.
I'm not a copter guy, so these basics may only be part of the bigger picture for the multi-copter setup, but I'll bet they'll tell you that you have not provided enough details to provide a solid assessment of your setup. Please post additional details like the weight of the battery, is it a 3 or 4 cell, what props are you using, what is the weight of the entire setup, what code are you using. Those are the details needed to give so an expert can give you some real advice.
-good luck