I've noticed on my motors and a lot of other motors that having the motors above the quadcopter means that the max lift capacity relies on the little C-Clip under the motor shaft which leads me to my question, would it not be better to mount the motors under the arms so the thrust will push the motor together rather than pull it apart when mounted above.
Would there be any negative effects from mounting the motors under the arms ?
I had one of the C-Clips pop off during a flight yesterday and would prefer this doesn't happen again is all :)
Replies
Hi Mate,
Yeah long time since i was building my own drones, i muck about with DJI drones these days, been to DJI china for repair training too.
But to answer the question, Yes they can be mounted underneath.
Octocopters have motors above and below, the blades don't seem to matter just flip them over.
The only trouble you will have is the center of gravity (CG). Your flight controller's gyroscope will need to be mounted as close as possible to the same plane as the propellers otherwise you will get oscillations (wobble) in flight due to a pendulum effect.
The BLDC motors used in quadcopters have 3 wires, just swap 2 of them to reverse the direction...they don't care which direction they spin.
Good luck with your build!
chris
Givi Soltani said:
Hi Chris,
Saw your old post and replied, but I don't think it will be noticed by anyone so I am sending this to you.
I am a Newbie and I am also interested in mounting the motors underneath the arms. I just purchased a X500 and putting it together. However, in the upside down configuration I think it should be the Propeller that needs to be designed/built in reverse (if there is such a thing on the market for CW/CCW motors). The motor configuration is the same as they are mounted on top, the air needs to be pushed down toward ground as usual. The Propellers that luck on CCW or CW motors can't be used in the Upside down configuration and are NOT interchangeable. I am not sure that reversing the polarities on the Motors are recommended either.
So, I am interested in what you may have come up with. let me know please.
Regards,
Givi
Hi Chris,
I am a Newbie and I am also interested in mounting the motors underneath the arms. I just purchased a X500 and putting it together. However, in the upside down configuration I think it should be the Propeller that needs to be designed/built in reverse (if there is such a thing on the market for CW/CCW motors). The motor configuration is the same as they are mounted on top, but the air needs to be pushed down toward ground. The Propellers that luck on CCW or CW motors can't be used in the Upside down configuration and are NOT interchangeable. I am not sure that reversing the polarities on the Motors are recommended either.
So, I am interested in what you may have come up with. let me know please.
Regards,
Givi
I did some tests on RCgroups about this subject specifically. It does not do much difference, but a pusher configuration can be slightly more efficiency from an aerodynamic point of view.
Vernon Barry said:
This is a really old post but I thought I'd chime in any way. There is not as much force on that little c-clip as you might think. We actually had a DJI 450 about a year ago that we flew for almost a week with out realizing that one of the clips was missing. We could actually pull the blade, housing and all right off the motor when it was powered down but it flew fine. This got us wondering so we went and had a chat with one of the engineers where I work who has done a lot with brushless motors. He was not as surprised as us. He told us the magnetic field is so string that there is no way they would pop off while energized. NOT saying I recommend trying this, but it was pretty interesting.
No doubt this has been addressed, however I just wanted to point out that any idea that there is a "pendulum effect" from mounting propellers above the CG as opposed to below it is a fallacy. Because the thrust vector is fixed and gravity acts on the vehicle universally you dont have to worry about any stability compromises with having props under a boom vs over a boom.
EDIT: However you do have to worry about vertical distance away from the Center of Mass as this can introduce translation because of the motor torque :)
Ben
With current multicopter motors, there is really no difference at all between up or down, push or pull.
The bearings used in all multicopter motors at this point are a simple pressed "Conrad" design and they work just as well with the forces pulling up or down.
It shouldn't be that way, they should be using thrust bearings (which would work better with the forces in one direction than the other).
Thrust bearings intrinsically are designed for an up or a down load whereas Conrad bearings work better in a radial load.
But for the present, nobody has yet incorporated real thrust bearings in any commercial multicopter motor.
So up or down makes no difference at all.
In some of them the internal ventilation may be designed to work slightly better with the external airfow going one direction or the other, but for the most part the influence would be negligible.
Also as Scott said above, if you can accommodate it, having the motors mounted below the support arms generally results in a real 5 to 10 percent increase in flight duration due to considerably less negative influence on airflow to the props with the spar on top versus having the spar below the prop.
Best Regards,
Gary
Here I had no negative effect: http://diydrones.com/forum/topics/new-quadcopter-zecke-q185-max
From aerodynamic point of view a pusher is better, The propeller flow is similar, but the motor is located in the region with less flow velocity. From handling point of view the tractor is better because of the distance to the ground.
Yes Chris I do it all the time!
http://monarchmakers.com/index.html
Slightly more efficient, we have noticed a 5-10 percent increase in flight times using this method and as you said the c clip popping off doesn't down the bird!
Cheers!
Scott Brown
Monarch Inc.
-
1
-
2
-
3
of 3 Next