Originally Posted by Telnoi

Would you use kapton tape to secure escs? Not sure if it conducts heat very well.

Probably not a good idea, people use it to keep the heat in on their 3D printer hot ends.

Originally Posted by Sqwert

Probably not a good idea, people use it to keep the heat in on their 3D printer hot ends.

Yup, also what I use it for...hence I wondered what ''boltrc'' uses kapton for.

Originally Posted by boltrc

Its taken a while, but its has been done, thanks WELD.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4hMkVWBMvs

My GOD that's beautiful.

I really want a quad this shape next

Originally Posted by Telnoi

Yup, also what I use it for...hence I wondered what ''boltrc'' uses kapton for.

Depends on what type it is. Regular Kapton (HN) polyimide tape is not a thermal insulator. It's thin and has high temperature resistance so it gets wrap around an actual insulator to hold it on. For hot ends it's typically used to hold on a ceramic/fiberglass barrier to insulate the radiant heat.

Then there's other versions like Kapton MT which has really high thermal conductivity (typically used on heatsinks) as well as foil/insulated types.

I have my Aikon 30A SEFM wrapped in thin black heat shrink and then secured to the arms with 1" wide kapton tape. On 6x45 props I regularly max out the amp reading at over 100 amps on my red rotor OSD. My ESCs still feel fine when I land. They are at the very worst "warm" to the touch. Definitely not hot.

Here is a link to the actual tape I purchased on amazon if anybody is curious.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

You can see pics in the posts linked below

Originally Posted by Plur303

here

Originally Posted by Plur303

and here

Originally Posted by boltrc

Its taken a while, but its has been done, thanks WELD.

Hello
What kind of heatshrink r u using ?

Cheers

Originally Posted by Cubensia

Hello
What kind of heatshrink r u using ?

Cheers

Ask on the youtube video

Done

Originally Posted by Cubensia

Done

Think I posted on there and got a pretty quick response that's all

Came across a bit harsh my previous reply

The Kapton is used because its light, thats all, saves around 2-4 grams for no obvious compromise. Helps that its non conductive and heat tolerant. Beside's fun to be different.

I never thought about the heat insulation point, we have not had problems reported so far. May favorite aspect is the small thin strips to secure wires.

@WELD - whats your verdict?

Cheers
Mark

I think the kapton is so thin it doesn't really matter how conductive to heat the material is. I know thermal conductivity is expressed in units like kelvin meters per watt, or watts / (meters * Kelvin). You can see that distance is part of the consideration. If the material is paper thin it can still allow considerable heat to pass through it even if it isn't an especially heat conductive material.

I think of it kind of like solder. Lead and tin are pretty mediocre electrical conductors, but a properly soldered joint is thin and the two pieces of copper being joined are basically touching each other at their closest point. Electrical resistance is also expressed with a unit of distance in the definition. If you are talking about sub millimeter distances it isn't really anything to worry about as long as the material is a decent conductor of electricity. The electrical resistance added to the circuit is almost trivial.

But a wire made out of lead and tin would be horrible, just like a solid heatsink made out of kaptop/teflon would be horrible.

My $0.02

There is a way to mount ESCs I have been considering for quite a while, I just think it is overkill and probably adds a couple grams of unnecessary weight. There is heat conductive double sided tape that is often used to mount heatsinks to computer components. It's kind of thick like foam tape so it can conform to the shape of the parts on the circuit board. What if the double sided heat conductive tape was stuck on the carbon fiber arm, then the bare ESC with no heat shrink was stuck onto the the tape. Finish it by wrapping in a single layer of kapton tape to make sure it doesn't come loose. That would basically turn the carbon arm into a heat sink for the ESC. Carbon fiber is a pretty decent conductor of heat, at least in the direction of the fibers. You could turn the arm into a decent heat sink for the ESC.

I think that is overkill though. And it probably weighs a tiny bit more than thin heat shrink and kapton tape. I'm just a nerd.

Thanks Plur, good advice. I also like your comment about electrical resistance. My analysis and also actual testing by robomort shows that most pdbs need not go over 2ozs. Same goes for the Kraken XT60 pigtails, no need for heavy duty stuff when its a mere 10mm long.

Cheers
Mark

Some quick feedback from the many Kraken pilots out there. If you have a noisy gyro or any vib's from your motors, using metal screws for the FC stack is going to give you a lot of grief. This is particularly the case for FCs like the Lux.

We like and recommend the long nylon screws (+ nylon nut at top) for weight and they absorb a lot of the vibration, its quite amazing the difference they can make.

If you want to go with metal screws for strength, we suggest using one of the shorter alu ones. Use a nylon standoff then to mount the FC with a M3x6 nylon screw from above to hold it in place.

Hope that's useful.

Thanks
Mark

Kraken pilots, do any of you actually have warm ESCs immediately after a high powered flight? I ask because for the longest time now the only thing that gets warm are my motors on any of my rigs (Tanto, BlackOps, and K5R). It might be that I'm not trying hard enough, but if the vast majority of pilots are having the same experience, this could bode well for getting the ESCs off the arms and put elsewhere to help with aerodynamics.

Also, Mark any updates on the K3 release? Will BoltRC carry the new ZMX Fusion motor series, and if so any idea on when they'll be available through BoltRC?

Cheers.

Very true about aluminum screws and vibration. That chart I posted a few days ago has vibration damping properties shown. You can see aluminum is at almost zero vibration damping. All the vibrations carry straight through it.

Originally Posted by Plur303

picture in this post

Originally Posted by vis101

Kraken pilots, do any of you actually have warm ESCs immediately after a high powered flight? I ask because for the longest time now the only thing that gets warm are my motors on any of my rigs (Tanto, BlackOps, and K5R). It might be that I'm not trying hard enough, but if the vast majority of pilots are having the same experience, this could bode well for getting the ESCs off the arms and put elsewhere to help with aerodynamics.

Cheers.

My Aikon 30A SEFM are barely warm. Nowhere near hot. Even after a hard flight that puffs a lipo (im good at that).

I've been curious about 4 in 1 ESCs for a while. Racerstar has mentioned they have a 4 in 1 30A ESC that runs BLHeli_S in development. That would fit inside the canopy in the flight controller stack. It would be a tight build in there but it would also be super clean. You could basically eliminate the need for a PDB and run the battery straight to the 4 in 1 ESC. Then just have a small wire coming away from there that would deliver lipo power to whatever other components you wish to power.

I haven't seen a 4 in 1 ESC that has a good way to solder a battery lead to it yet, they all look like pads that would rip off in your first crash that ejects the battery. So securing the battery pigtail would be a must.

I'm cautious about 4 in 1 ESCs because they are expensive and when one ESC dies you have to discard the whole thing.

Or maybe some sort of ESC cradle board like what came with the old QAV-250, only smaller. I think KISS also has a ESC cradle board. I think a specialty cradle for the Kraken for LB 20A or Aikon 30A size ESCs could be made to fit in the Kraken pod.