Brushed Motor Lifespan

[bbodnyk]

I built my own mini-quad a while ago; see http://quadcopterforum.com/threads/3d-printed-mini-quad.5657/

I'm using the stock motors from a Hubsan X4 107C/D and wanted to see how long they would last. Since then I've been faithfully recording for each flight the date, time of day, air temp, battery used, flight time and comments as necessary.

My conclusion so far is these fairly inexpensive brushed motors will last fairly long if you don't stress them; i.e. allow them to run hot.

I couldn't upload the Excel spreadsheet so exported it to a txt file.

 

[Jackson]

Are they brushed or coreless?

 

[bbodnyk]

Are they brushed or coreless?

At roughly $3 a piece they are brushed. I doubt whether they make coreless motors that small.

 

[Jackson]

They make them pretty small.
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/2pcs...-motor-toy-motor-airplane-RC/32260362572.html

Motors
Browse:
Micro coreless motors, designed by enthusiasts for high performance micro multirotors.

http://micro-motor-warehouse.com/collections/all

 

[bbodnyk]

They make them pretty small.
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/2pcs...-motor-toy-motor-airplane-RC/32260362572.html

http://micro-motor-warehouse.com/collections/all

I've seen those motors at the micro-motor-warehouse. When my current motors eventually fail I was thinking of trying them out. Interestingly the description of their CL-0820-17 motors states a lifetime rating of 5-6 hours; I'm almost at twice that with my stock Hubsan motors though the 5-6 hours could be continuous operation while my use is intermittent. The max thrust of 40g could be useful though. I wonder what the max thrust of the standard Hubsan motors are?

 

[Jackson]

I wonder how well these would work?
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/10pc...RPM-for-JD385-388-F180-H107L/32337427987.html

 

[bbodnyk]

At roughly $3 a piece they are brushed. I doubt whether they make coreless motors that small.

I stand corrected! I took apart one of my Hubsan motor that didn't work anymore and found that they are brushed coreless motors.

 

[GJH105775]

I stand corrected! I took apart one of my Hubsan motor that didn't work anymore and found that they are brushed coreless motors.

View attachment 758 View attachment 757

Haha, most all of these are coreless. They are actually cheaper to make this way.

 

[bbodnyk]

Alas, after 168 flights with a cumulative flight time of 18 hours 41 minutes I accidentally burned one of my stock Hubsan motors up. I crashed and thought I had the throttle lowered all the way but it wasn't.

Regardless I've proved to myself at least that these ~$3 motors will last quite a long time!

 

[GJH105775]

Alas, after 168 flights with a cumulative flight time of 18 hours 41 minutes I accidentally burned one of my stock Hubsan motors up. I crashed and thought I had the throttle lowered all the way but it wasn't.

Regardless I've proved to myself at least that these ~$3 motors will last quite a long time!

Yes haha, they do break surprisingly easy, but so will anything if you abuse it.