Balu,
I don't need a lifetime commitment, but this isn't a passing fancy -- you're writing something that represents all of us. I suppose all I need is you to be willing, while you're around, to keep up with this. If you decide you want/need to move on, Send me a PM to me or one of the other Mods to let us know you're dropping support soon, so we know we need to convince someone else to take up your baton and run with it.
Keep working on the article, and I strongly suggest you and FGA chat together about this (check out or PM mailboxes for that -- should work well for passing ideas that haven't matured enough to post in public). Both of you, think about writing a quick outline to see if you can re-arrange content to line up with what someone needs (first things first), and where links would be useful.
As I said in FGA's thread, Don't take this comment process as we think you're doing poor work -- not so at all! we wouldn't have even considered this if we thought this was shoddy work. Keep up the good work! As you get close to finished, as FGA stated, I'll rename the threads and sticky them. We can talk about the names for the matched threads as that approaches.
BTW, Guys, if you have a section that you think needs specific attention for review, edit the thread and Highlight the text to something obvious (like Bold red or orange), and add a note to the end of the thread. most of us are reading through them, but we might glance over what you're concerned about and we all miss it (just something to make review a little more interactive).
As for the calculations, you've stumbled on a few valuable relationships in these motors:
- Power is not the limiting factor for motors. Current and bearing load are. Bearing load is based on thrust and speed -- most are okay on thrust, but some motors can overspeed the bearings and burn them out if you use too high of a voltage (check the motor's voltage ratings). For current, think of it this way -- that little segment of wire in the motor doesn't care what the voltage is (as long as it's not ridiculously high), but the more current the more heat. The more heat, eventually the insulation burns out and you get shorts in the coil (and smoke, and a dead motor).
- If the bearings and ESC can take it, higher voltage at the same current can give you proportionally more power out (20% more voltage -> 20% more power for the same current). The only big Gotcha here is the same prop at a higher voltage will draw a much higher current. If you step down a size on prop (rule of thumb: 1" on length or 2" on pitch) you should be back in the neighborhood of the current at the higher power, but the smaller prop can generate *more* thrust than the bigger prop at lower voltage.
- Some motors are mis-spec'ed to rate only power -- It's convenient for comparing motor A to motor B, but useless for sizing the ESC and battery to the motor. In these cases expect that max power to be measured/spec'ed from the highest spec'ed voltage, then back calculate the max current (I = P/V). Spec your ESC and batteries on this current, and size the prop to draw something less than this.
