I've found a very common thread in question in power systems, so I though I'd persist with blogging some of my relies, if for no other reason than being able to find em myself!

Motor nomenclature seems pretty much all over the place; however within that mess you can usually find the Kv for the motor and how much power the seller claims it can safely handle.

Power ratings: Note 'handle' is deliberate, not create or generate as the motor doesn't have an inherent power rating like the horsepower of an IC engine - it just converts the electrical energy from the battery with varying degrees of efficiency and delivers it to the prop. So think of power ratings as the max you can jam through a motor without it getting so hot it kills itself. Also, don't feel you have to run a motor at its max rating - most 300W 'rated' motors will be very happy handling say 200W. In other words, the power a motor has to handle is not determined by its claimed rating, but rather by the combination of voltage supplied to it, its Kv, and the load from the prop it is trying to turn. The ability of the battery to deliver the demanded current is also a limitation.

Typically also running significantly below the rated power probably means running closer to the motor's peak efficiency power handling point (which varies depending on voltage btw). That hypothetical 300W motor handling 200W delivered by the battery might be converting 75% to the prop, but up around 300W, maybe only 50%. When you realise...Continue Reading

I've found people often getting mixed up by power ratings. The problem seems to me that people see a rated power for an electric motor and not unreasonably assume that that is the max it will deliver, like horsepower for a car engine. But it's not that way at all - the motor will happily destroy itself trying to turn whatever prop is attached at a speed depending on the Kv of the motor and the voltage of the battery. If the prop is too big for Kv times volts or the Kv is too high for that prop at your voltage, then in trying to turn it the motor is going to want to draw a lot of current from the battery - maybe way over the rated power if the battery can deliver the current and the ESC doesn't fail first.

So what's the use of the power rating? The manufacturer is trying to tell us that the motor at the rated max input power is capable of operating at some reasonable (but almost never specified) efficiency level that won't generate so much waste heat that you cook the motor. For cheap brushed motors, that efficiency might be as low as 50%. For cheap outrunners, maybe 60-66%. In a roundabout way, the power rating is almost more about how much wasted heat the motor can cope with without getting so hot that magnets fail, etc.

So given that the motor won't actually limit itself to the stated power rating, it's up to us as the power system designer to set things up so that we provide enough power for desired performance and that the motor won't want to absorb more than its...Continue Reading