Hey RCGroups,

I have been trying to build a 6S mini wing for a few months now and struggled to get the motor and ESC combo right. I'm using the new HobbyKing swallow 670 frame and a pulse lipo 75c 6s battery with TBS crossfire, TBS 5.8 vtx, Runcam mini.

I have tried a
35a castle ESC w/bec + Turnigy Multistar 2206 (blew bloth)
35a castle ESC w/bec + TMotor F80 (blew esc)
35a castle ESC w/bec + hyper HyperLite Team Edition 2205 1922kv and ran into ESC / motor sync issues / ESC limit
60a YEP esc w/bec + hyper HyperLite Team Edition 2205 1922kv (Smoked the motor)

Could anyone recommend a motor / ESC combo with BEC for the Swallow that could work? I just want to fly really fast. I've done the rest, high altitude, long range, etc...

Thank you!

What size prop? 5"? That is why you are blowing stuff up. Not because you are running 6s. Get a blheli-s esc to start. Then figure out how many amps the motor can handle. Change motor kv and prop size to get amps in the ballpark. Fly.

Originally Posted by Scotth72

What size prop? 5"? That is why you are blowing stuff up. Not because you are running 6s. Get a blheli-s esc to start. Then figure out how many amps the motor can handle. Change motor kv and prop size to get amps in the ballpark. Fly.

Most of these tests have been without a prop. I actually tried an old ESC I had this morning which was an e-maxx blheli-s 30a. Maybe a different way to do this, I have a Tiger Motor F80 2200Kv FPV Series Motor left over. What ESC would be the best to use?

Shouldn't run a motor\esc without a prop for too long as it will heat up unnecessarily.

Is the purpose of 6S for speed ? These wings have a large flight envelope and will usually fly perfectly fine on 2S and up. My advice would be to first get her running on 3s and get comfortable with the performance and then once satisfied start experimenting with power systems.
If you are hell bent on jumping in straight away on 6S the I would suggest jumping in to the F27c Stryker beyond the parkflyer thread and asking mopararmy, arcteryxxx etc in there as they are well versed in "high power pure bullet " machine building , what they know about high-end setups is all you need to know.

Originally Posted by scousethief

Shouldn't run a motor\esc without a prop for too long as it will heat up unnecessarily.

Is the purpose of 6S for speed ? These wings have a large flight envelope and will usually fly perfectly fine on 2S and up. My advice would be to first get her running on 3s and get comfortable with the performance and then once satisfied start experimenting with power systems.
If you are hell bent on jumping in straight away on 6S the I would suggest jumping in to the F27c Stryker beyond the parkflyer thread and asking mopararmy, arcteryxxx etc in there as they are well versed in "high power pure bullet " machine building , what they know about high-end setups is all you need to know.

I've already flown 4s for years. 3s for 3 hours @ 10k AGL. & 90 miles. I will reach out to those users thanks.

Here are some videos, this is commonly what happens. Either the ESC or the motor goes. That was my last F80.

IMG 1247 (0 min 10 sec)

IMG 1249 (0 min 12 sec)

IMG 1250 (0 min 8 sec)

I like your style.

Ask "ParaJared",
he's done this numerous times!

Originally Posted by rclab1

I like your style.

Ask "ParaJared",
he's done this numerous times!

PM'd them. Thanks

Some motors have "overvolt protection" so some motors rated for 2-4s can actually take a 5s and be okay and some motors overheat crazy fast.
-I suspect that your Multistar 2206 blew because it's a cheap motor rated for only 4s, probably no overvolt protection.
-T-motor f80 seems is rated for 6s but I suspect it will blow pretty fast because it's a little 36 gram motor. In your case it looks like the esc blew first however
-Hyper light is even wimpier of a motor at 22 grams. I don't see that being useful on anything but the lightest of fixed wings. It seems to be a multirotor motor.

Instead of approaching this from by merit of having 6s must mean it will be fast perspective might I suggest you approach this from a "pitch speed" = fast perspective? In theory we could build a hella-fast 1s setup it's just that the operating voltage tends to go up the more wattage you want to pull. The way I approach this is to look at motor spec sheets, I tend to use Cobramotorusa.

5-6 inch prop right? Okay, what's the highest viable pitch speed we can get a 5 inch prop going without making the airplane too heavy is the question I think you are asking. Lets look at 20 gram motors like you were trying to use, let's look at this chart. Sure Hobbyking says it can take 30 amps but that's for a quadcopter. With an airplane you press and hold maximum throttle and it looks like you don't need more than a 15 amp speed controller but about the best you are getting as far as "pitch speed" is 65mph optimistically. If the Swallow needs a 5-6 inch prop you don't want a 4 incher on it.




Okay, now let's look at faster setup. With this heavier 60 gram motor it looks that we can have about 112mph. I'm not sure if that's "fast" for you or not.



If that's fast enough than good! Go get yourself a Cobra C2213/12, a 40amp esc, a rc watt meter, a APC 5.5x6.5, some 4s lipo and a prop balancer.
-balance that prop, it's really important at those higher rpms
-hook your watt meter to your plane and see what the amperage is at full throttle. In this case Cobra predicts overheat at 30 amps.
-if your motor is overheating shave a little material off the end of the prop and re-balance
-see what the amperage is at full throttle
-if your motor is overheating shave a little material off the end of the prop and re-balance
-see what the amperage is at full throttle
-if your motor is overheating shave a little material off the end of the prop and re-balance
-see what the amperage is at full throttle

You get the idea, for that specific motor maybe just target 30 amps.

What size 4s battery you want will be contingent on CG. Strapping a 60 gram motor to the tail of the Swallow will be unnatural for the airplane. You will need to counterbalance all that tail weight. Preferably you want the smallest 4s battery you can put in the nose and still meet CG. You can approximate this without buying a bunch of random batteries.
-Strap 60 grams of something to the tail of your Swallow
-put your FPV gear and esc in the nose
-see how much additional weight you need to add to meet CG.

That weight should be very close to the weight you need in battery.

Hope this helps!

Brushless motors can take any voltage within reason. Just keep the motor under the amps spec listed by the manufacturer. So if a motor is rated at say 20a continuous, but "rated" at 4s. You can run 6s no problem, but you need to keep the amp draw below 20a. Almost all will remain cool and run just fine like this. But you can't put 6s to a typical 4s motor without changing the prop. It will just blow up. Amps go sky high, the motor gets hot, and the motor dies.
Do not run motors without a load for anything more than a second or two. That's just bad.

Originally Posted by Scotth72

Brushless motors can take any voltage within reason. Just keep the motor under the amps spec listed by the manufacturer. So if a motor is rated at say 20a continuous, but "rated" at 4s. You can run 6s no problem, but you need to keep the amp draw below 20a. Almost all will remain cool and run just fine like this. But you can't put 6s to a typical 4s motor without changing the prop. It will just blow up. Amps go sky high, the motor gets hot, and the motor dies.
Do not run motors without a load for anything more than a second or two. That's just bad.

You are kinda right. You can dump as much amperage and voltage down these motors as you want and it isn't the electrical flow that kills them it's the heat.

With my electric bicycle motors rated at 48 volts I run them at 72 volts without zero issue. With higher quality RC airplane brushless motors I can run "4s" motors at 6s without issue however what happens with cheaper motors is they overheat exponentially fast when pushed beyond spec.

You will find that cheap 4s motors will take let's say 400 watts when they are used with sub 4s batteries but when you go beyond that you will find it gets exponentially worse, say maybe 375 watts max on 5s, then only 325 watts on 6s.

The defining point for me being not the wattage, amperage, voltage but the heat. I measure at the windings and when the windings hit 110 Celcius I consider that the maximum amount the motor can take.

Additionally in regards to wh/mi you will find that some, but not all motors when overvolted beyond spec run inefficiently. Your wh/mi numbers go up but they still most assuredly "work."

Cobra C-2213/12 Brushless Motor, Kv=2000 Cobra C-2213/12 Brushless Motor, Kv=2000 $28.99
Cobra 40A FPV Wing ESC with 6A Switching BEC 39.99

ORDERED. I will keep you all posted. I am bummed to be stepping down to a benign and pedestrian 4s system, but as long as it screams, were OK. I will list my 6s batteries for sale in a minute, they are all brand new never flown. The good thing is, the weight savings may allow me to stuff DJI's HD race goggle system in there for a full HD shred fest.

Cool!

The spec sheet indicates APC 5x5 would reach about 112mph (assuming you keep everything sleek). Are you going to go with the 5x5 or a more aggressive prop yet?

Hopefully 60 grams on the tail isn't too much for the Swallow.

Originally Posted by parajared

Cool!

The spec sheet indicates APC 5x5 would reach about 112mph (assuming you keep everything sleek). Are you going to go with the 5x5 or a more aggressive prop yet?

Hopefully 60 grams on the tail isn't too much for the Swallow.

Doesn't look like it will be a problem. 60g isnt much and the wing is perfect size for that setup. Overall, I was aiming for 200mph but 112 will do I also just ordered the DJI occusync system, going to run full HD in it. #nobudget

Total weight with everything 514g

43.7 Air Unit
9.4 Cylindrical Antenna
18.2 Camera
60 motor
47.6 esc
7.5 servo
7.5 servo
155 battery
5.5 rx
160 frame