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This small guide is to help you choose the right motor for your quadcopter or other multirotor. To help
you with this decision, it would be desirable to have several test statistics at your disposal which can be
found in the thrust data tables. Luckily, reputable manufacturers will have carried out these necessary
tests so you don’t have to and these will provide you with the needed information. An example of one
such thrust data table for a MT1806 is given below:
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If you are totally unfamiliar with brush-less motors, its a good idea to quickly read our beginners guide
to brushless motors
Where to start?
Knowing the weight of your multiorotor is the first thing we need to know. When you are building, or
planning your next drone build knowing the exact weight can be difficult. However you will need to start
somewhere and as choose and change components you can slowly refine the weight estimation.
I like to start by first knowing what frame I am going to use, as that gives some restrictions on the
maximum motor or propeller size. Most frames that you can buy will also give you some
recommendations as to what motors you should use to give you an idea of what to look for. I will also
then add the weight of the camera and gimbal I want to use.
For miniquad racing, you would want a very agile quadcopter, so having a much higher thrust to weight
ratio is desirable, but for an aerial photography drone that we will be flying gently, you could get away
with lower power to weight ratios, but in general I would say that you should plan your build at around a
2:1 power to weight ratio, as you can always use the extra remaining weight to add bigger batteries to fly
for longer.
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So the weight of our drone will be around 680g so we need to have motors that can produce at least two
times the amount of thrust in total (1.2Kg of thrust in total), however if they can produce more we will
probably be able to fly faster. Since we are building a quadcopter, each motor must product at least
300g of thrust each.
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If you do find this process particularly hard the best place to start is to look around a dronetrest, or
the internet for other drone pilots who have shared their information on a drone build similar to
yours, you can then base your weights on the parts they used. Or you can always ask for some
help and advice on our help section
If you find it hard to know where to start, the best thing is to find a build guide, or quadcopter similar
to the one you are building so see what motors and other equipment was used that you can use as
a starting point.
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So, the first port of call is arguably investigating the thrust produced by the motors. To further
differentiate between motors, it is my belief that efficiency should next be considered. The efficiency is
commonly expressed as the thrust divided by the power used in watts or g/W. The more efficient a motor
is (or the bigger the g/W number is), the longer the copter will fly. A general rule of thumb would be
anything over 7 for efficiency is good, and of course, the higher the value the better. Some of the larger
motors (BE 8108) have an efficiency (g/W) of over 18!
Once you have found several motors that produce the required level of thrust an easy way to
choose the best one would be to get the most efficient one, but this will also usually end up being
the most expensive one.
However, as mentioned previously in this article, this may not be your priority. You may want small, agile
copter for acrobatic moves in the air, in which case you want high rpm, and the efficiency will necessarily
take a hit which is usually the case for high KV motors. In our example we are choosing a motor for a
miniquad, so the type of motor you would use for these copters is one like the MT2204, the table of
which is shown above. This is why the efficiency of this motor is relatively poor.
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Instead of using all the remaining weight for a battery, a slightly lighter battery at 160g (tattu 3S
1800mah) was used so that our quadcopter will have more agility for racing. The actual brand will
depend on your preferences and budget, but for more information you might want to check our LiPo
battery buying guide
Hope that helps you when it comes to choosing a motor for your drone. If you have any questions
please let me know. If you want some advice before buying anything you can also ask on dronetrest and
myself, or someone else will be more than happy to give you some suggestions
Brushless motors - how they work and what the numbers mean
3 more
hi i am looking at building a drone that flies for 1hr and can carry 5kg-15kg any tips would be very
welcome
Best to start small and work your way up. If this is your first drone build, best to start with an off the shelf
kit to get familiar with the basics, as building a drone that can lift that much weight and fly for that long
will be very expensive as motors that powerfull cost at least £200ea
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i have six drones on the way to me so by time i have built them i will have the skills needed to achieve
my goal of building these but not the tec knowledge so any help is still welcome
Cool, well if you are not sure about something specific just post your question here and one of us will
help. And if you want any tips it would be best to create a build log over in our build log category and
show us all how you are progressing in your build and what you do in each step and if something is not
quite right I am sure one of us will point it out to you
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