Do bigger motors provide more power if everything else in the setup stays exactly the same?

It wasn’t a yes or no question :rofl:

I can’t see how you would have more power delivered to the wheels when everything else apart from the size of the motor stays the same. It does make sense to me that the bigger motor would draw more power for the same performance and would likely perform better from a thermal perspective, but what I really wanna know about is the power to the ground.

It’s not a defining contribution to this thread, but i have never seen an esk8 calc that asks you for your stator size. It only ever asks for power values and kv.

1 Like

Woulda thought a larger stator diameter could maybe provide more torque. Not sure that equates to more power tho. Windings at a larger distance from shaft is like a longer lever arm…?

3 Likes

More torque would equal more power to the definition i have constructed in my brain for sure.

The length of the stator affecting power is an interesting proposition… say you had a motor with exactly the same copper mass in the stator but one was short and girthy, but one was long and skinny, you reckon the longer one would have more power?

2 Likes

Preface: I know fuck all about technical aspects of motors and their performance :joy:

Expand the example, one motor with very wide but short stator. Other with very narrow but super long.

My gut feel would be longer but narrower stator could potentially spin to higher rpm’s with less power input?

Wider but super short stator potentially more torque but might need more power input to spin at the same speed as the skinny one?

Like a torquey big block vs high revving race engine…?

2 Likes

I am also in this boat :rofl: that’s why we need big brains :grin:

I can see your reasoning with the short and girthy motor providing more torque tho.

3 Likes

We’ve already had nearly the same question asked:

I’m basing my answer off the agreed upon facts in that thread, because my memory is poopoo.

As for your question: when you increase motor size, if the winding thickness stays the same your KV will change, or you have to change the winding thickness to have the KV stay the same. So you can’t actually keep all other factors equal.

In any case, data shows that larger motors have a smaller internal resistance. This makes them more efficient at converting whatever electrical power you do put through them into mechanical power rather than heat.

(In practice since our ESCs drive the motor with a specific amount of current, this would mean less voltage is required to achieve that amount of current, i.e. less battery power (thus battery current) is needed to drive bigger motors at the same current level.)

So yes, bigger motors do actually provide more power (either in top speed or torque or both, depends on the new KV) at the same settings, although that amount is likely negligible. The biggest difference is that now you can actually push the motors harder before overheating, i.e. raise your ESC settings.

10 Likes

I thought it allowed a specific amount of current but output a specific wattage? P=V*I and all that

Only if you’re already saturating them or hitting temp cutoffs :wink:

1 Like

Thanks, i guess i would have found that, had i used the search button. But i don’t think its unhealthy for the topic to be expanded upon and with your help they have now been inextricably linked together.

7 Likes

I’m afraid I don’t understand the question. Could you rephrase it please?

it certainly doesn’t hurt to revisit topics after some time has passed. If anything starting a new thread that ultimately points to an older one will help somebody find what they’re looking for.

I just went from 6374s to 6396s without changing the settings and on the street I can’t feel the difference, other than the motors are slightly cooler, which is the main reason I went bigger.

I haven’t fully read the older thread but I’m kind of interested in the amount of braking current generated by the same KV motor of a different size. Is there any difference there?

2 Likes

It depends. There are two main kind of losses in the motors, copper losses and iron losses. Copper losses = I^2*Rphase*constant

If my understanding is correct, this constant is basically the integral of the three sine waves…
In FOC the graph of the phase currents looks the same as the graph of a three phase AC. The integral of a sine wave under the period of pi is 2. As the period of a full sine wave is 2*pi, the absolute value of the area under a full sine wave is 4. We have 3 of these sine waves under the period of 2*pi, so this constant should equal 3*4/(2*pi) which equals 6/pi

So we can get the copper losses by I^2*Rphase*6/pi.
If we move to a bigger motor while keeping the same KV, the resistance goes down, therefore you will have less copper losses. With the same input power, lower losses mean a higher output power due to a higher efficiency. Note: the difference in output power is nowhere near enough that you can feel it.

The other type of losses is iron losses. Iron losses equal the idle current of motor (I0) times the BEMF which it is spinning at, which is nearly the same as the voltage applied to the coils. This BEMF roughly equals Vbattery*duty_cycle. When current flows through the motor, the actual voltage varies a bit, usually not more than by 2V, so lets just leave this out not to overcomplicate the equations.

So iron losses equal I0*Vbattery*duty_cycle. The idle current depends on the quality of the motors construction, better magnetic properties leading to a lower idle current. It also depends on the motor’s size, higher size means higher idle currents. And it’s also influenced by the rotational speed of the motor, by how much, I don’t exactly know right now.

However, what we can say for sure, is that if we take the exact same motor, and just scale it up in size, keeping the quality of the construction as a constant, then the idle current and thus the iron losses increase. Meaning, that a bigger motor has higher iron losses all else being equal. Which means for the same input power, we get less output power. But again, the difference is so small, that you won’t feel the difference.

This was my take on it, if there are some electrical engineers here, feel free to correct me if i messed something up, I am not an electrical engineer yet. (although I am currently enrolled in a university course as a first semester EE bachelor student)

9 Likes

Hi
I’m looking for motors with more torque, such as the Flipsky 63100. The Factoryk seems to me to be very honest with their specifications, tested with 60 volts and 4 nm. Apparently with more tension they should also generate real torque. Flipsky is said to be apparently not honest with their statements. What do you think ?

I like how they rate the different kv with different power outputs and don’t see that often but their claimed continuous and max wattage seem maybe too close to be real unless with some great cooling. ?

Related to 4nm at 50v doesn’t make sense. If u know the kv and the amperage then you could figure the nm and voltage not relevant.

2 Likes

Current drawn is decided by load. The current needed to propel you up a hill will be the same for x and y motor for the same voltage. Dsnt matter if you slap a 100kg motor on there, same power needed for the same hill only thing that changed was the extra power needed to carry the motor (not counting losses or efficiency here). The avaible power output will ofc be bigger for the 100kg motor. Assuming you can use it(tow esk8?)

Bigger motor, more mass to rotate and heavier.
Bigger motors tend to get more efficient from a %-perspective. ABB holds the record of most efficient motor (last I looked) but at 99% efficiency the losses still totalled to 1MW or something ridiculous.

3 Likes

When riding at a constant speed, maybe. But usually in esk8 it’s decided by your throttle :wink:

(Sorry for teasing, I just don’t get what the point of your first paragraph was.)

1 Like

Differences are marginal and to be found in efficiency. Bigger is better within margins of practicality. Basically the inverse everything Evolve does. They did a great job strangeling every piece of tech they stuffed into their boards from day one… I can only assume they wanted to increase reliability and profit margins by bottlenecking performance…probably some type of warped theory that could only be dreamed by a landscaper turned board builder… and now look at the market…all they had to do was make the 4x4 available and they probably could have kept their momentum going…I cannot believe they don’t even have a 6375 motor option… WTF…

My question for you is that do you notice a range difference perhaps? Im going with a single 6374 for my new build and was pondering if a 6355 would affect range.

I vaguely remember an old esk8 friend who changed from a single 5065 to a 6374 motor, and said his range dropped.

I wonder if that small difference ends up being offset by the increased weight on the board making it require more power to move :thinking:

I’ve not worked extensively with motors myself, so I’d need to do some research to confirm or deny any of what you said. which I don’t have the time to do/ don’t want to bother with

There are many different fields withing EE that require their own expertise / experience. Although there are many older people in the field that have knowledge in many different expertise just due to how long they’ve worked. For reference, even if I were to email my oldest (former) professor and asked him about this question, he’d still likely need to do some research before saying anything concrete on it. Despite having been hired by NASA for several different projects. On the other hand, asking him anything about electrostatics would get you an immediate answer.

It 's good that you’re already doing some research on your own. It may help you find areas within EE that you’re interested in now so that you can make better course decisions in the future once you get to choosing what EE electives to take.

1 Like

so if you pull full throttle on the bench, you pull the same current as you would if standing on it? intresting :thinking: world first! :wink:

2 Likes