I had a bit of a break in the weather today to get this little beauty out to get some comparative field testing done with the Turnigy Plush 40A ESC and the HobbyWing Platinum PRO 40A ESC.😊
Video of today's field testing
Before going too far, I must mention that the Turnigy Plush 40A ESCs I am using were purchased a few years ago, so they are version 3.1.
As you can see from this picture taken from the current Hobby King website, they are now up to version 4.2.
You can see when you compare the two pictures, that the BEC (battery elimination circuit) on my version is 3A/5V and the newer version 4.2 has a 5V/5A BEC. I don't know if any other upgrades occurred, however if you buy a new one, perhaps your performance will differ from mine. I guess if I'm still using ESCs that are over three years old with all the flying I do, they must be "Bulletproof"😉😏
Here is a close up of the HobbyWing ESC.
You can read more of my initial impressions and testing of the HobbyWing ESC at this blog post. For more on the testing process I went through to find the best settings for the motor used in today's field test (Racerstar BR2406 2600 Kv), you can go to this blog post. If you would rather just see the numbers from the testing straight away, please go my motor spreadsheet, along the bottom you will see a tab called ESC testing.
So details on today's testing as mentioned in the video, motor used is in brackets above, prop is the 6x4 APC gas prop used for all the bench testing. Battery is the Gens Ace 2200 3S 45C
Settings for the Plush ESC in this test are factory default, timing is low which as you can see on the motor spreadsheet gave the best overall performance in bench testing.
Settings for the HobbyWing ESC in this test are timing set to 26.25 degrees, PWM (pulse width modulation) frequency set to 8KHz. These have to be programmed as the factory settings are 15 degrees for timing and 12KHz for the PWM frequency.
So for comparison for this blog post, here are the bench test numbers using the 6x4 APC gas prop and Gens Ace battery.
Plush
50% throttle - 11.5A/141.5W producing 487 gr/17.2 oz of thrust;
100% throttle - 29.8A/352.3W producing 935 gr/33 oz of thrust.
HobbyWing
50% throttle - 11.9A/146.1W producing 507 gr/17.9 oz of thrust;
100% throttle - 32.2A/387.4W producing 940 gr/33.2 oz of thrust.
So you can see by the numbers, there is very little difference in top end thrust and I would agree with that from what I saw at the field today. However, as I mention in the video, there is a definite and noticeable difference at mid range throttle between 50-75%. I found at 50% throttle on launch, the plane almost wanted to pull itself out of my hand with the HobbyWing ESC and it definitely flew faster at 60% throttle (my normal setting for just flying around) than with the Plush.
After shooting the video, I managed to get a few more flights in before it started raining using the HobbyWing ESC. I saw noticeable difference in throttle response again between about 60-75% throttle both up and down. A couple times when I decreased the throttle it happened so quickly I thought something was wrong with the motor and when hammering the "burners"😎, I did notice a slight improvement in acceleration with the HobbyWing ESC. Beyond 75% throttle and below 50%, response was pretty much identical for both ESCs.
So far I have not noticed any issues with motor skipping, sagging or surging. As I mention at the end of the video, with some motors I have tested where I have experimented with changing timing, the motor will run fine for awhile and then respond erratically to throttle inputs or just sag in power without the throttle being touched. I didn't see any of that today with the HobbyWing ESC, mind you I only got about five flights completed before I had to cut the session short due to rain.
So far so good with the field testing, but I will continue to test with other motors to see if the performance continues to be consistent.😊
Park Jet noise...the "other" sound of freedom.
Cheers,
Scott
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