Hi, just been testing my Y6 with it's new 6000mah 4S pack and noticed the motors are getting hot. This is affecting the bottom motors more where if you touch them on the base, non rotating part, they are too hot to touch for more than a few seconds. The rest of the motor is hot but can be held without issue.
To check I did another flight with a 3S 4400mah setup and the motors were again getting hot, not as hot but the flight time was 5 mins vs 13 mins.
It's also worth noting with the 4S setup the ESCs were also getting hot, again after a 13 min test flight.
The flight itself basically consisted of a 13 minute hover in loiter mode, I was testing battery times, and consumed 5000mah. The weather for the UK was hot, 25 deg C. The Y6 is a new 2014 B version weighing 1900 grams or so, std config plus 600 gram pack, with std 10 inch props and 850 blue motors.
And finally to the question, is this normal of does something sound wrong?
The only thing I can think I haven't done is balance the props, guide for this would be handy, but I have no vibration issues looking at the data log.
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Well that's not good. Any idea of the cause yet? When I crashed mine last time ruining a motor, the motor plate broke and the holes in the arm elongated, but the arm did not bend or break. These Y6's are heavier than I'd like, but are built strong.....except for the landing gear which may be a good thing as it's better to strip the threads in the spacers than break stuff.
I think the motors are on the hairy edge of being underpowered for anything but stock equipment, 1 6-8k mah battery and only light gimbal/camera setup. Then again, this guy has used his Y6 extensively for video running a gimbal/Go Pro and 2x 5000 mah batteries.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpaRRjKNUZs ;
I just did a web search re temp that is too hot to touch and this was related to water but they stated 130-135 deg is where it would start to injure your skin so your reading of 130 and it seeming to hot to hold you hand on it may not be that far off.
Greg
Thanks for the input. I pulled off the CF mount discs and installed the metal plus mounts. Hopefully test in the next few days will produce cooler results on the lower motors.
Just a question, if there was a upgrade kit, that got this rig flying for 20+ minutes, with gimbal and FPV, the motors getting hot would be resolved and the overall payload increased by 30%. What is that worth as a quick purchase upgrade? How much would you pay?
Good question. I'm more the DIY type, and I'm still trying to DIM, as we all are on this thread. But for someone who has bought an RTF Y6 for somewhere between $1k and $2k, going from ~13min to over 20 significantly increases the value of the investment.
I imagine there'd be some takers among those who want to use a 3DR Y6 for professional purposes, and it would be worth a few hundred bucks. I'm not sure how big that market is, though... perhaps you're thinking of something that would work for other platforms as well?
Also hard to answer that question without knowing what's included - i.e. if there are motors and props in it, that helps justify cost - but I think you're trying to approach it strictly from a value proposition point of view.
I was able to scrounge up some props, motors and screws to get my Y6 up in the air again to test. The bottom motor in the picture was one I considered "bad" as it does not spin freely and gets hot, but not having a choice I used it today. Finally the Y6 is back in the air. All the trim settings and tuning will need to be redone once the replacement motor and props get here, but at least it went up and even Loiter worked properly. It was quite windy but I was determined to fly, crash or not.
So, after being up in the air for 3-4 minutes, it landed without incident. 20 mph wind gusts are not fun to navigate in :) Knock on wood.
After checking the motor temps (by feel, did not have IRT), my conclusion is the "+" motor plates allows much better cooling of the motors. Within a few minutes the two motors were cool to the touch whereas the rest were still warm, including the plates and arms. IMO plates are blocking convective heat transfer, and the motor design does not accommodate using flat motor plates to dissipate the heat. See pics above. Using aluminum may help, but I think they should have holes drilled to expose the holes in the bottom of the motor.
I am swapping out all the 3DR plates for the "+" plates. It probably only needs 3 screws, but 4 were installed for good measure.
DG, I've not tried with the + plates that came with the motors, but it looks like it would be an improvement. Thanks for sharing this, I will give this a try when I'm able to fly next.
+1 on this, having now mounted my DYS gimbal everything is heating up a little further so a little extra conduction cooling would be worth while. It's funny how much the booms heat up even with the carbon mounts, I imagine it makes a bigger difference than you'd think.
Thanks for keeping the thread going and all the experimenting.
OK while I see you point, I think Conductive & Convecting cooling is optimal for both motors but will be more helpful to the lower ones. I'm discussing with Terarig about machining 1/8" solid discs. I planned to put them on my drill press to cut holes for mounting and will look at cooling holes for the bottom of the motors cut outs for convection and conductive cooling. Anyone interested in 45mm diameter aluminum discs for the lower motors? Give Tearig a message if interested and we could cut down the water jet cutting costs.
Happy to cut them however you all want them, ideally and looking at the performance of the motors, its probably more cost effective to change them rather than trying to air cool something that is underpowered to begin with, the resulting heat is allways going to be a factor, expecially during flight, this will drastically reduce the life span and will ultimatly fail.
Running parts can be mixed material, and would like to gang together as much as we have, material will be least expensive if it is supplied and just shipped back and forth via USPS priority mail. We have several CNC mills, Mill turn lathes, waterjets, Lasers, and in a after IMTS we will have some additive metal/machining centers, so there is nothing that we could not produce...
Thinking of the issues I think that the plates should have fins for cooling, if this is the desire and we all should contribute to the design, I will be happy to draw them up 3D based on the input of the community and will post the design files here so others can follow our development.
Sketch out some ideas and post the pictures, can be pencil and paper I will take care of the hard parts, scale, tolerances etc., just want to find a group consensus, as we can make this design better
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