Hey credence,
ORIGINAL: credence
Well, if you're starting to smell the wonderful aroma of burned plastic and fried electronics, I think it's time to look into a new motor
Granted, brushless motors can get pretty hot before they become physically damaged. But if you're running that hot to begin with, well, it's just not good for your setup, and the LAST thing you want, is for the motor to die while you're in mid-flight. Better to be safe than sorry. Align motors are supposed to be pretty good for what you get, from what I hear. Let us know how it goes
Ok, RC-Expert sent me the Align 420LF and an alu-cased version of their own 3200KV-motor to test with and they arrived in the mail 2 days ago. I can keep the one I like best as free replacement and send the rest back. The alu-cased RC-Expert didn't run much cooler than the CF-cased version, but the Align 420LF didn't heat up significantly during my initial tests, even without heat-sink (which I have now put on; The more cooling, the better).
I took it for some hovering today and kept it in the air for 8 minutes, after which the motor and ESC were just moderately hot, while the RC-Expert motor would probably have melted itself out of the chassis by then. ;-) The cooling-fan in this Align outrunner-motor works so well, that the casing actually increases in temperature a bit after landing, when the fan has stopped and the remaining heat from the windings seeps out. It's a bit lighter than the RC-Expert motor, but I just needed minimal trim-adjustments. I could increase the gyro-sensitivity a bit with this motor, to where it would have wagged it's tail with the old motor. Any idea what this would mean?
All in all, I'm very happy with the Align 420LF in my T-Rex 450X.
Grtz,
Traveller