Advice on motors

[Al Knights]

Gents I'm seeking your knowledge, looking for a 40/50 ic size electric motor. What are your recommendations. I'm planning a tri motor JU52, the German transport aircraft with the corrugated skin.

Any help appreciated.

Al.

[Steve Hargreaves - Moderator]

Hi Al....I wonder if you are approaching this from slightly the wrong angle.....rather than look for an "equivalent to" electric motor maybe look at what benefits an electric motor could bring to the model. Electric motors produce their power in a completely different way to IC engines so it makes sense to try & harness some of those benefits.

A 40/50 sized glow engine will produce around 1 BHP whilst turning an 11x6 say at around 11,000 rpm (rough figures for illustrative purposes). For sure there are electric motors that will do exactly the same but is this what you want? Why not go for a larger, more scale sized prop....a three bladed prop even...there will be an electric motor that will do that too whilst still producing "the power of a 40 sized IC engine"

Remember that an electric power train needs to be considered as a whole taking into account the battery (number of cells, capacity, physical size etc.). No good finding a great motor if you then have to compromise on the battery size to get it to fit.

In a nutshell then what I am saying is don't just just look to swap like for like but consider how to power the model from scratch & perhaps do a bit of reading around the subject of electric power to understand the benefits (& indeed pitfalls) of using electrons instead of glow fuel to power your model.

Good luck....

[Steve Balaam]

When you get to the stage of selecting a motor take a look at the Cobra motors, I've used these for several years, they are very reliable and cost effective motors. One of the nice things about these motors is that Lucien at Innovative publishes real world propeller/ Lipo size data which will help greatly when deciding what motors to run **LINK**.

Hope this helps

Steve B

[Eric Robson]

A J.U 52, would benefit from electric power as the small cowl would not have a i.c. motor and exhaust sticking out. It would look good with 3 motors running much safer with electric (less chance of a dead engine) but to keep it simple a single motor would be fine. Is it the Pavel Bosak plan from Sarik? as that recommends a 40ic. but that was before the days of electric. I fly my Flair S.E.5 40-48 (four stroke recommended ) on a Propdrive 42-48 650kv motor with 4s 14x6 prop loads of power 12min. flights. and much cleaner. Eric r