There are two types of motors in multi-rotor devices: collector and brushless. Their main difference is that for a collector motor, the windings are on the rotor (rotating part), and for a brushless motor, on the stator. Without going into details, we will say that a brushless motor is preferable to a collector motor, since it most satisfies the requirements set before it. Therefore, in this article we will focus on this type of motors. You can read more about the difference between brushless and brushed motors in.

Despite the fact that the use of BC motors began relatively recently, the very idea of ​​​​their device appeared quite a long time ago. However, the advent of transistor switches and powerful neodymium magnets made their commercial use possible.

Device BC - motors

The design of a brushless motor consists of a rotor on which magnets are fixed and a stator on which the windings are located. Just according to the relative position of these components, BC engines are divided into inrunner and outrunner.

In multi-rotor systems, the Outrunner scheme is more often used, since it allows you to get the highest torque.

Pros and cons of BC engines

Pros:

• Simplified design of the motor due to the exclusion of the collector from it.
• Higher efficiency.
• Good cooling
• BC engines can work in water! However, do not forget that due to water, rust can form on the mechanical parts of the engine and it will break after some time. To avoid such situations, it is recommended to treat the engines with a water-repellent lubricant.
• Least radio interference

Minuses:

Of the minuses, only the impossibility of using these engines without ESC (rotation speed controllers) can be noted. This somewhat complicates the design and makes BK motors more expensive than collector ones. However, if the complexity of the design is a priority parameter, then there are BC motors with built-in speed controllers.

How to choose motors for a copter?

When choosing brushless motors, first of all, you should pay attention to the following characteristics:

• Maximum current - this characteristic shows what maximum current the motor winding can withstand in a short period of time. If this time is exceeded, then engine failure is inevitable. This parameter also affects the choice of ESC.
• The maximum voltage - as well as the maximum current, shows how much voltage can be applied to the winding for a short period of time.
• KV is the number of engine revolutions per volt. Since this indicator directly depends on the load on the motor shaft, it is indicated for the case when there is no load.
• Resistance - the efficiency of the engine depends on the resistance. Therefore, the lower the resistance, the better.

Modern radio-controlled vehicles, whether aircraft, automobile or marine models, are equipped with powerful, reliable electric motors with high performance, which can have a different type of design. The brushless system is considered the most common: it is used mainly in cars and aircraft models, since it is for them that the number of revolutions and speed play a key role.

BC engine: key features

The main advantages of an engine with this design:

Track racing cars are most often equipped with a brushless drift motor, which can withstand high loads and can handle the high power that is required when entering corners at high speeds. The brushless motor can be optionally equipped with a gearbox. Its power depends on the number of turns and the current strength maintained; for model aircraft and racing cars, devices with high performance and power reserve are used.

Where to buy brushless motors for models at the best price?

Here you can find a wide range of brushless motors that are compatible with car and aircraft RC vehicles. If you need a BC engine of 1/10 models, then you can buy it from us at an attractive price. All our products are certified and are distinguished by high quality, reliable assembly and durability. The motors offered by us have strong cases, they are made of the best materials and in compliance with all the subtleties of the design. If you are looking for a reliable brushless motor at an affordable price, then this is where you can find what you need. Your model will immediately attract attention and become a real reason for pride, and its technical capabilities will delight all viewers!

Hello. Today I would like to tell you about the cheapest quadcopter on BC motors with a camera. It will be about the previously unknown Bayangtoys X16 model for me. The closest competitor in terms of price on BC motors is the JJRC X1. The review will include the flight of the quadric itself, video from the Foxeer Legend 1 camera and crash results, in one of which the GitUp Git2 camera was lost.

Specifications

BC motors 2212 / 920KV
Diagonal between motors 35.5cm
8" propellers
Battery 3S 2200mah
Charging time about 3 hours
Flight time up to 16 minutes
Control range up to 350 meters
Frequency 2.4GHz
Equipment for 6*AA
Camera 2MP

Bayangtoys X16 came to me along with other parcels, the intermediary stuffed it into one big box, and I forgot to check the “Keep packaging” box. Therefore, I can’t say anything about the packaging from the store itself.


The box says it's an updated version.


Let's move on to the set. The instruction is in English, the quality is good. It is written in simple language and everything is intuitively clear with the help of pictures. I specially filmed this page so that you can see the first jamb: there are flips on the box, but not in the instructions.


We begin to get the contents of the box.


The simplest charger for a 3S battery at 15V and 0.8A with charging through a balancing connector.


I was very pleased with the presence of a 3S human battery at 2200mah. Judging by the date on the battery, it was made quite recently. Weight is 167g. The connector is not the most convenient. Most will prefer to resolder to XT60 or T-plug.






The power supply for the charger comes with a European plug. Gives out 15V 0.8A




Complete 2MP camera. Latch fastening. I’ll put it on a quadrocopter, we’ll fly, but I don’t see the point in writing a video from it. Another point is that separately it costs around $13. I would rather choose a model without it, if there was such a position. Then, for the price, it would be the leader among the cheapest quadcopters on BC motors.




To record multimedia, they put a 4GB card and a card reader.


Then I found a package in the box, which contained a lot of things. Let's watch together.


Four legs, full copies of Syma X8.


For disassembly, they put a Phillips screwdriver, and for fastening the legs, self-tapping screws. There is also a wrench for tightening the nuts and a hexagon to get the motors.


Two nuts silver and two black. I saw a man lost a nut. In order not to buy an additional set, you can cut one into two parts. Black with reverse thread.


The 8-inch propellers left a good impression with their size. There are 8 of them in total.


The equipment works on 6*AA. My batteries are lying around in the mail somewhere, so I had to insert regular batteries. The cover of the compartment simply snaps into place, there is no fixation with a screw.




Now let's take a closer look at the hardware. There are two black buttons on the top end. The left one is responsible for switching costs. There is a Low and High mode. From myself, I note that the low mode is quite dreary, so you should fly at a high one. But the right button does not carry any functional load. At first I thought that they simply forgot to indicate its purpose in the instructions, because flips are indicated on the box! But, alas, ah. How much I did not press it, how much I did not hold it - the result is zero.




Above the on/off switch is a loop for hanging around your neck with a lanyard. There are buttons near the sticks, with the help of which we trim the quadcopter if it leads somewhere to the side. When the equipment is turned on, a red LED lights up above the loop.


We move to the bottom of the transmitter. To the left of the screen are fake buttons, to the right is a block of buttons. The central one is responsible for returning to the take-off site. There is no GPS in this model, so everything is built on a compass. When the X16 approaches you, you will have to take over control. The down button starts recording video, and the top one is responsible for the photo. The right one turns on the Headless mode: regardless of the location of the front and rear, the quadcopter is controlled relative to us.


Let's move on to the hero of the review. The quad is white with characteristic red lines on the rays. The red motors look great and the size is just right (hello JJRC X1). Diagonal distance from the center of the motors 35.5cm.


At the top is an imitation of GPS. Disassembly showed that this is a fake. She weighs 5g. Fixed with one screw and looks flimsy. I think after the first crash it will fall off. On the case there is a black inscription Typhoon.


On the belly there is a 2.5 connector for connecting the camera and a platform for mounting. By the way, the camera from Syma X8 fits without any problems.


But there is one point on the underside that is completely incomprehensible to me. Motors are covered with plastic cups. On the example of other models, I realized that they close the gears, but here, after all, there are BC motors. It is unlikely that they are for cooling motors. What do you think?




The legs are attached with two screws. The distance from the belly to the floor is 10.4cm. That is, you can take and install a gimbal and a normal camera.


The battery motor cover is fixed with a latch. Inside the battery keeps normally, does not hang out. But what I really liked was the presence of plastic posts inside that hold the battery on the sides. If you carefully cut them off, you can insert a larger capacity battery.






A fully assembled X16 looks like this.

Disassembly

Knowing the love of many to look at the insides, I disassemble this model without any problems. As I said, the GPS antenna is just an imitation. I can’t identify the motor model myself because of the absence of any inscriptions, but on rcgroups they consider 2212 / 920KV. Motor control circuits are located separately on each beam, which is good. You can see the soldering level yourself.

Crash and lost camera

It was immediately decided to put the complete camera aside and try to attach your favorite GitUp Git2 action camera with the help of improvised means. To do this, I installed a mount on the belly with double-sided tape, a latch in it, and already fixed the rectangular “frame” mount on it with a screw. I put the camera in the frame. This design did not inspire confidence in me, I thought the mount with adhesive tape would most likely fall off. But I really wanted to shoot a video with the stabilization of this camera. By the way, more or less normal suspension. And what do you think? During the flight, the quadcopter was blown away by a side wind in the region of 9m/s. Before that, I drove it with my own camera, so I rule out communication breaks right away. I had to scratch about 150 meters across the field, since the grass was 10 centimeters. When I found it, there was no limit to joy, and then I immediately fell into a precipitate: the camera flew out of the “frame”, and the mount was in place. The reflector flew off, there was a crack in the hull, the propeller was bent… I wandered around the field for half an hour without any result: the camera was lost. They will grind them with a combine or find them at the sorting of potatoes.






Frustrated, he went home. I decided not to leave people without a video of the flight from the board and took the Foxer Legend 1 camera - everything in it is intuitively clear and you can flip the image in the program. This time I fixed the camera with reinforced tape and blue electrical tape on top for reliability.


During the flight, everything went fine until I started talking to my friend and safely fit into the branches of a tree. It was clearly not my day) The beam is full of stuffing, the height of the fall is somewhere around the second or third floor.




Blue electrical tape is our everything) A new case costs around $9. There are no problems with other spare parts either, props are about $3.

I am not a fan of producing separate videos, so the flight, camera shooting, unpacking and review in one video.

Conclusion

Summing up this model, I can summarize the following.
Weight 526g, battery 167g, with the camera from the kit everything weighs 725g. I saw a video of how a liter bottle of water was clung to him. Nauseated, of course, but flew. You can easily put a normal gimbal and an action camera. I deliberately waited a couple of days after the crash and then only began to write a review in order to talk about my impressions less biased. When the battery is connected, an audible signal sounds immediately, although the patient himself is turned off. That is, food is already being served on board. Therefore, after landing, immediately disconnect the battery. Unlocking and blocking the motors is extremely simple: move the sticks down to different angles. Fly only on the second expense, because the first is quite boring. Flight time with a native camera without shooting and photos was 16 minutes! In the video review there are moments with turning off the motors. The quadcopter tends to roll over, but by turning on the motors it quickly returns to its original position. The kit comes with a 3S battery at 2200mah and it's very cool. Charges in about 3 hours. Quadcopter compartment allows you to redevelop and put a battery with a larger capacity. This is not a racing model, suitable for fans of shooting video. Traction is just great, normal stabilization. I didn’t fly further than 200 meters, because it’s visually bad to observe it already at such a distance. We put fpv and fly further, they promise up to 350 meters. Another plus - ESC separately for each motor. Spare parts are already in short supply. There is a discrepancy between the box and the instructions regarding the flips: there are none. For beginners, I will not advise this quadcopter, because there is no propeller protection in the kit. After crashes, it continues to fly. I haven't ordered new parts yet, because I don't know what I want from it. If there were no JJRC X1, then this would be the cheapest quad on BC motors. But look at its 8" propellers, 3S motors and battery, and now X1. The choice towards X16 is obvious.

There will certainly be errors in the review, so feel free to correct in the comments. Feel free to post your questions, comments, and clarifications there. And to make it more interesting for everyone to read the following reviews, you can write what interests you from this site in the region of $ 50-100. If I have the opportunity to take, then why not? And yes, what are these rudiments under the motors for?

Thank you all for your attention.

The product was provided for writing a review by the store. The review is published in accordance with clause 18 of the Site Rules.

I plan to buy +11 Add to favourites Liked the review +37 +45

Published on 19.03.2013

With this article, I begin a series of publications about brushless DC motors. In an accessible language I will describe general information, the device, the control algorithms for a brushless motor. Different types of engines will be considered, examples of selection of regulator parameters will be given. I will describe the device and the algorithm of the regulator, the method of choosing power switches and the main parameters of the regulator. The logical conclusion of the publications will be the regulator scheme.

Brushless motors have become widespread due to the development of electronics and, in particular, due to the appearance of inexpensive power transistor switches. The appearance of powerful neodymium magnets also played an important role.

However, the brushless motor should not be considered a novelty. The idea of ​​a brushless motor appeared at the dawn of electricity. But, due to the unavailability of technology, it was waiting for its time until 1962, when the first commercial brushless DC motor appeared. Those. For more than half a century, there have been various serial implementations of this type of electric drive!

Some terminology

Brushless DC motors are also called valve motors, in foreign literature BLDCM (BrushLes Direct Current Motor) or PMSM (Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motor).

Structurally, a brushless motor consists of a rotor with permanent magnets and a stator with windings. I draw your attention to the fact that in a collector motor, on the contrary, the windings are on the rotor. Therefore, further in the text, the rotor is magnets, the stator is windings.

An electronic regulator is used to control the engine. In foreign literature Speed ​​Controller or ESC (Electronic speed control).

What is a brushless motor?

Usually people, faced with something new, look for analogies. Sometimes you have to hear the phrase “well, it’s like a synchronizer”, or even worse, “it looks like a stepper”. Since most brushless motors are 3-phase, this is even more confusing, leading to the misconception that the regulator is "feeding" the motor with 3-phase AC current. All of the above is only partly true. The fact is that all motors except asynchronous can be called synchronous. All DC motors are synchronous with self-synchronization, but their principle of operation differs from synchronous AC motors, which do not have self-synchronization. As a stepper brushless motor, it can also probably work. But here is the thing: a brick can also fly ... however, not far, because it is not intended for this. As a stepper motor, a switched reluctance motor is more suitable.

Let's try to figure out what a brushless DC motor (Brushles Direct Current Motor) is. In this phrase itself, the answer is already hidden - this is a DC motor without a collector. The functions of the collector are performed by electronics.

Advantages and disadvantages

A rather complex, heavy and sparking assembly, the collector, is removed from the engine design. The design of the engine is greatly simplified. The engine is lighter and more compact. Switching losses are significantly reduced, since the commutator and brush contacts are replaced by electronic switches. As a result, we get an electric motor with the best efficiency and power per kilogram of its own weight, with the widest range of rotation speed changes. In practice, brushless motors heat up less than their collector brothers. They carry a large torque load. The use of powerful neodymium magnets has made brushless motors even more compact. The design of the brushless motor allows it to be operated in water and aggressive environments (of course, only the motor, the regulator will be very expensive to wet). Brushless motors create virtually no radio interference.

The only drawback is considered a complex expensive electronic control unit (regulator or ESC). However, if you want to control engine speed, electronics are indispensable. If you do not need to control the speed of a brushless motor, you still cannot do without an electronic control unit. A brushless motor without electronics is just a piece of iron. There is no way to apply voltage to it and achieve normal rotation like other engines.

What happens in a brushless motor controller?

In order to understand what is happening in the electronics of the regulator that controls the brushless motor, let's go back a little and first understand how the brushless motor works. From the school physics course, we remember how a magnetic field acts on a current-carrying frame. A frame with current rotates in a magnetic field. However, it does not rotate constantly, but rotates to a certain position. In order for continuous rotation to occur, it is necessary to switch the direction of the current in the loop depending on the position of the loop. In our case, the frame with current is the motor winding, and the commutator is engaged in switching - a device with brushes and contacts. The device of the simplest engine, see the figure.

The electronics that control the brushless motor do the same - at the right moments it connects direct voltage to the necessary stator windings.

Encoders, motors without encoders

From the foregoing, it is important to understand that it is necessary to apply voltage to the motor windings depending on the position of the rotor. Therefore, electronics must be able to determine the position of the motor rotor . For this, position sensors are used. They can be of various types, optical, magnetic, etc. Currently, discrete sensors based on the Hall effect (for example, SS41) are very common. A 3-phase brushless motor uses 3 sensors. Thanks to such sensors, the electronic control unit always knows what position the rotor is in and which windings to apply voltage at any given time. Later, the control algorithm for a three-phase brushless motor will be considered.

There are brushless motors that do not have sensors. In such motors, the position of the rotor is determined by measuring the voltage on the unused winding at a given time. These methods will also be discussed later. You should pay attention to an essential point: this method is relevant only when the engine is rotating. When the motor is not turning or is turning very slowly, this method does not work.

In what cases are brushless motors with sensors used, and in what cases without sensors? What is their difference?

Motors with encoders are preferred from a technical point of view. The control algorithm for such engines is much simpler. However, there are also disadvantages: it is required to provide power to the sensors and lay wires from the sensors in the engine to the control electronics; in the event of failure of one of the sensors, the engine stops working, and the replacement of the sensors, as a rule, requires disassembly of the engine.

In cases where it is structurally impossible to place sensors in the motor housing, motors without sensors are used. Structurally, such motors practically do not differ from motors with sensors. But the electronic unit must be able to control the engine without sensors. In this case, the control unit must correspond to the characteristics of a particular engine model.

If the engine must start with a significant load on the motor shaft (electric transport, lifting mechanisms, etc.), motors with sensors are used.
If the engine starts without a load on the shaft (ventilation, propeller, centrifugal clutch is used, etc.), engines without sensors can be used. Remember: a motor without encoders must start with no load on the shaft. If this condition is not met, a motor with encoders should be used. In addition, at the moment of starting the engine without sensors, rotational oscillations of the engine axis in different directions are possible. If this is critical for your system, use a motor with sensors.

Three phase

Three-phase brushless motors are the most widely used. But they can be one, two, three or more phase. The more phases, the smoother the rotation of the magnetic field, but the more complex the motor control system. The 3-phase system is the most optimal in terms of efficiency/complexity ratio, which is why it has become so widespread. Further, only the three-phase circuit will be considered, as the most common. In fact, the phases are the motor windings. Therefore, if you say “three-winding”, I think this will also be correct. Three windings are connected according to the "star" or "triangle" scheme. A three-phase brushless motor has three wires - winding leads, see figure.

Motors with encoders have an additional 5 wires (2 for position encoder power, and 3 encoder signals).

In a three-phase system, voltage is applied to two of the three windings at any given time. Thus, there are 6 options for applying DC voltage to the motor windings, as shown in the figure below.