E-Rotmilan maiden

Last saturday, I had finally some time to fly my E-Rotmilan. And the maiden flight went bad because of my motor/esc/propeller setup. Before to fly, I did a short running in of the motor and ESC, fixing the fuselage robustly to a table in the garden. The heat schrink tube around the ESC melted after few minutes of short periods of use at a very low power (10 to 20% of the power). The ESC entered in température protection mode and stopped.




I changed the heat schrink tube before to go to the flying field. After checking everything I launch the plane without motor, then started the motor. The climb rate was good, but quickly the ESC entered in protection mode again. After that I noticed that the brake was not working, despite I programmed it using the USB link and the software Castle Link. I did few climbing but everytime the motor stop quickly, so I decided to land and return home to analyse.

Remember my post regarding the setup, with the simulation using eCalc. I finally decide to buy a 100A ESC compared to the 75A max current calculated. Looking at the data logged during the flight, we can see that we have peak to 200A, and a temperature reaching 149° Celcius. The first half is te running in, the second half is at the field, and the end of the graph is the maiden flight itself. I think I did 3 climbs.

Now the question is: Is it a faulty ESC ? a problem of cooling ? This is what I need to determine in the coming days. I will work on the cooling of the motor and the ESC creating air entries on the fuselage for the motor and on the canopy for the ESC. Concerning the brake not working, I have no idea ...

To be continued ...