Firstly my thanks to AON Electric for supplying this motor for testing.
The AON is a 3000kv brushless motor and a new entrant in the brushless
motor market. It is at the heavy weight end of the spectrum for a T-Rex
motor with a weight of 98g. Fitting the motor proved to be a rather fiddly
exercise. The bottom two main frame screws need to be loosened in order
to stretch the frames apart. This is the only way to get the large diameter
motor and circular heatsink into the motor bay. I fitted a 13T pinion in
line with the 3000kv motor rating. Having set the Phoenix 35 appropriately
I did a test spool up to measure headspeed. The figures returned 2240 RPM.
Which is a touch slow for a 3000kv motor, I was expecting closer to 2400-2500
RPM.
My flight tests with this motor have been mainly some small climbouts and
hovering as I have been limited by bad weather. The longest time spent
on the motor being some gentle flying at an indoor event. The motor doesn't
feel particularly punchy and if anything a bit sluggish. AON recommended
going 4S with this motor, which will form the second part of this review,
on 3S the motor is really quite average in performance terms.
Aside from this the motor responds well to throttle changes with loading
clearly audible when applying full pitch as well as noticeable drop in
headspeed. There Phoenix 35 kept the AON under nice control using the governor
mode throughout the flights.
I'm going to run two separate bench tests for the AON, one test using the
Tanic 3S 2220mah and the other with the Thunder Power 4S 1320mah pack.
Both tests will follow the standard format as below. The tests were conducted
in an ambient 20 degrees centigrade, 68 degrees Fahrenheit. The pitch range
on the T-Rex being from +/- 10 degrees. Blades used were the standard Align
315mm wood blades.
Time period
Activity
90 seconds
Spool up and hovering throttle/pitch (mid stick)
30 seconds
Full power / full pitch
30 seconds
Hovering throttle/pitch (mid stick)
30 seconds
Pitch pumping from full negative to full positive pitch
60 seconds
Hovering throttle/pitch (mid stick), spool down
Charts for 3S operation :
The AON (on 13T) recorded the following maximum values :
14.55 amps
12.6 volts
159 watts
The recorded minimum voltage was 10.2 volts during the 30 second full throttle/pitch.
The motor temp at the end of the test was 66 degrees centigrade, 149 degrees
Fahrenheit. The lithium pack reached a max temperature of 40 degrees centigrade,
104 degrees Fahrenheit. All of this is well within specification and nothing
of concern.
During the 30 second climbout the headspeed dropped from 2240RPM to 1950RPM.
A total drop of 290RPM.This was starting from a lower headspeed than previous
motor tests which should be easier to maintain and confirms my initial
observations of this motor feeling a bit sluggish.
Where this motor shines is in it's amp draw, which peaked at only 14.55 amps during the initial spool up. In the hover the motor is only pulling 9amps. So if you are looking for a sport flyer motor capable of giving good flight times then this may be the motor to go for on a 3S configuration. I say 'may' as this is a heavy motor (98g) and much lighter motors could produce similar power output and amp draw to this. It will be interesting to see how this motors characteristics change when using a 4S pack as recommend by AON.
Having completed the above I wasn't happy that this was really all the
power this motor could muster. So I fitted a 15T pinion just to see. Having
done an initial hover test I really needed to run off some graphs as the
headspeed seemed a fair bit quicker and the small climbouts performed were
more rapid than previous attempts on 13T.
Having got the graph results the summary is as follows :
The AON recorded (on 15T) the following maximum values :
16.9 amps
12.6 volts
181 watts
The recorded minimum voltage was 9.8 volts during the 30 second full throttle/pitch.
The motor temp at the end of the test was 84 degrees centigrade, 183 degrees
Fahrenheit. The lithium pack reached a max temperature of 53 degrees centigrade,
127 degrees Fahrenheit. The motor temp is rather hot and I'm not comfortable
with this level of temperature even though the motor may be able to take
it.
During the 30 second climbout the headspeed dropped from 2320RPM to 1950RPM.
A total drop of 370RPM. This is the exact same speed the motor managed
to maintain on 13T. My conclusion is that 15T gives you more headspeed
but not really a great deal more power unless you don't load the motor
continually in big collective climbs.
My conclusion is the same as before in that this appears to be a motor
more suited to 4S.....more to come.....
