Performance of the VOXL ESC

voxl-phoenix

Hi, I would like to know what the performance of the VOXL 4-in-1 ESC MDK-M0134-1-01 would be, if I use a 5 inch propellers with EMAX ECO II Series 2207 2400 KV motors. I belive the total velocity would be 12–15A at full throttle for each motor or it might go up even higher and I have a 3s battery for my setup.

thank you.

Alex Kushleyev

@voxl-phoenix ,

The M0134 ESC can work at 15A per channel (continuous) with 3S battery, however it needs direct air flow to cool it down. The limiting factor is going to be heat / temperature of the ESC, so I cannot answer your question conclusively. For example, if you enclose the ESC (no air flow) and then run 4 motors at 10-15A, then practically any ESC will overheat.

If you already have the M0134 ESC, I suggest that you first figure out the maximum continuous current draw with your motor / propeller. You can do this test using our voxl-esc tools, specifically the test i would recommend is the power ramp test : https://gitlab.com/voxl-public/voxl-sdk/utilities/voxl-esc/-/blob/master/voxl-esc-tools/doc/low_kv_motor_tuning.md?ref_type=heads#power-ramp-test (since your motor is not low kv, you can ignore the main topic of that document, but you can see the results of the power ramp test). The maximum current should be at the maximum applied power. If you share your test plot, i can confirm that it looks OK.

The power ramp test will slowly ramp ESC output power from 10 to 100% (or whatever you set it to) and will also show the RPM and current drawn. Note that ESC temperature is also provided.

If you have your drone frame, you could mount the ESC, motors, propellers and secure the drone to a desk or something heavy (so that it does not fly away), then you can actually these tests on all 4 motors and monitor ESC temperature in these conditions. The tests can be run for a lot time, simulating RPMs at hover or higher RPMs. Even though the drone would be strapped down (not actually flying), most of the air flow over the ESC is usually coming from the propellers, so that would be a good estimate of ESC performance / temperature during flight testing.

ESC Temperature: the critical ESC temperature would be above 105C, although i would not recommend operating above 80-90C (during normal flight) - that probably means you do not have sufficient cooling. We typically like to see the ESC around 50-60C (or less) during non-aggressive flight.

If you would like an ESC that will certainly be able to handle your motors / propellers (while still needing cooling, but not as much, due to lower resistance Mosfets and other design features), you should try our FPV ESC :

If you are not familiar with the voxl-esc tools, I suggest that you check the documentation there because the tools can be used to fine tune the performance and analyze performance / prevent crashes, since you can run tests and analyze data in a test environment.

If you have any more questions, let me know.

Alex