Cooling the motors down between the flights and noob's rant

[flying_dude]

Good afternoon,

I am pretty new to the hobby and all I've done until this point is flying mCX2 indoors. I will go as far as saying that I've improved a lot but I can also see how much I still have ahead of me even before mastering the very basics. And the is good because I like to be challenged. If something is too easy I quickly loose interest.

I try to practise every day going trough all 6 of my 175 mAh batteries getting 7 minutes flight time out of each one. I use DX6i and I created a profile based on the recommendation from the last thread I started. I am starting to feel that it might need some adjusting mainly with the end points of servo travel as if I hit the stick hard to make a turn or go forward/backward the heli gets a bit unstable and even falls down in extreme cases. I am still undecided as for what to think about this but I am leaning to believe that it is just a nature of the small coaxial heli rather than anything else. Or is it? I guess expecting nice banked turns of a coaxial is bit too much. I practise mainly flying around rectangular room in different orientations and yeah I sometimes just have a go at flying in my "freestyle" way

I will soon get a Phoenix sim (waiting for it to arrive in stock at my LHS) and get practising with CP. I am so keen to learn and I am having a blast. I will be getting the mCPx very soon as well.

Anyway, back to the main subject. I was told to give the heli rest for it to cool down between flights. It does make a perfect sense, really. But, is it necessary after each flight or would it be ok after every second one? And how long for is it reasonable to wait?

I actually purchased second mCX2 because the motors on the first one failed (I think I cooked them by not resting them enough) and my LHS didn't have them in stock. I will get them in a few days and will replace them, so I should always have one coaxial working if I happen to break something again. I think they will last me for a bit to help me to learn the orientation.

I have one more question on my mind at the moment and that is how soon should one be changing the blades? I admit I hit things and walls and there are number of very tiny nicks and chips on the blade. They don't look like much but how would I know. So, can I keep on going with them until they show some serious damage or would it be wise to change them sooner? I guess as long as the heli flies reasonable well they should be fine. But I will be very happy to take advise on this.

Well, rant over and thanks for your time if you read the whole thing

[acwman]

Anyway, back to the main subject. I was told to give the heli rest for it to cool down between flights. It does make a perfect sense, really. But, is it necessary after each flight or would it be ok after every second one? And how long for is it reasonable to wait?

Not necessary, but don't expect the motors to last long if you don't rest them...

Best thing is to wait for them to totally cool down.. ie.. the longer you rest it the longer the motors will last.

[Zeeflyboy]

I always wondered about this advice... Is there really anything to go "bad" through use in a brushless motor other than the bearings? Replace those before they fail and the motor just keeps on trucking for years. The brushless motor with the correct maintenance, crashes excluded, will probably be the longest lived bit of kit you'll ever have on the heli. ESCs eventually die with use, lipos die even if you don't use them, servos wear out and develop slop, mechanical components fatigue and fail etc etc... The motor should out live them all.

I know excessive heat is bad and in the extreme could actually demagnetise the motor (we are talking moy caliente here though), but assuming you have a setup with sufficient cooling to keep temps within the operating range I don't really see the advantage of post flight cooling... If anything you are putting more thermal cycles on the materials.

As long as its not getting too hot, and the ESC temps are okay I don't see much point in cool down periods.

Edit - Dingus here should realise we aren't talking about brushless motors..... Lol. My bad.

Yes, good idea to rest brushed motors at least every few flights.

[acwman]

Guess the op is talking about the mcpx and mcx so those do not use brushless motors..

[Zeeflyboy]

Hence the edit at the end

Just thought I'd leave the evidence that I'm a moron since I had already written it all.

[flying_dude]

Thank you for taking the time to answer

[GravityKills]

>> And the is good because I like to be challenged
well, to be honest, flying coax is not that difficult. The real deal are single-rotor helicopters, coax relates to real heli like Guitar Hero relates to real guitar
Get a simulator (Phoenix), pick some 700-sized model to start with (i.e. T-Rex 700, Synergy N9, etc, those are relatively slow) and learn to hover it. In all directions, and looking up.
Here's the challenge...

[cjcj1949]

Excessive heat is never a problem. Operating temperature always affects the life of anything. There will be a best temperature and anything above or below that will reduce life and or performance. The temperature that something is working at is determined from the power being generated as heat, the rate at which it loses heat and the length of time it has been used. You can either replace things a lot, follow the whateverybody else does approach, or solve the diifferential equations. Newton's law of cooling gives a rough guide and tells you that the rise in temperature is proportional to the energy input. In a real situation you will reach a constant temperature when the heat in is equal to the heat out. Often things don't last that long.