What are the best motor choice for lifting M10+RED Epic

Hello,

550mm boom lenght will give you enough clearence for running 16" props. You need 600mm booms for running 18".

After saying this, I run KDE 4014XF-280 with 18" props on CineStar 8 frame. I can comfortably lift it when loaded with customs brushless gimbal + Red Epic + some heavy cine lenses ( I used Leica Summicron lenses on my last job) on a flat Octo setup.

My flight times are around 10-12 minutes with 20A 6S batteries.

M10 is fairly lighter than any custom brushless gimbal on the market. If you put a naked Red Epic, power it by Lipo and put some reasonable glass on it, you will have much more flight time than my numbers.

I also run MK electronics with BL Ctrl 3.0 ESCs.

With this setup, the booms are long and with 18" props, the flight performance after 14 knots are not satisfying. I would prefer a smaller X8 setup for better wind resistance, and maybe put on KDE's new XF5215 motors.

 

YOu need to define a more specific payload weight because with the red you it can vary a lot even with a MOVI. Youu can get the bare bones Red-Canon prime lens combo pretty light or you can get pretty heavy if you have the side handle, Heavier prime lenses, follow focus etc to where it's weighing close to 8-9 pounds. If you can get your M10 payload to about 5 pounds you can use Tiger U5 motors with 550 mm booms and 16 inch props. That's what I use on my flat 8 and have over 125 flights on it carrying my red scarlet setup. I use the MK 3.0 dual quadro XL cool board.

 

If long flight time is your goal, you might want to consider a X8 build using the T-motor U8 or U10 with very large props (26-28"). The U7 is optimized for power and responsiveness, but you should consider lower RPM motors for longer duration. I'd run the numbers in eCalc before doing anything.

 

Steve, I'm fascinated by the experimentation you've been doing with with your X8 rigs. I was close to building a Cinestar flat 8 with U5 motors, 550mm booms and 16" props but now I'm reconsidering a coax configuration due to it's easy of transport. We'll be lifting a Red with prime lenses using a Movi MR gimbal. My main concern is the motor failure redundancy of the X8 configuration with such a heavy payload. What are your thoughts on X8 configurations and motor failure redundancy? Speaking of efficiency, I guess that increasing the motor size to turn larger propellers works as long as the efficiency gains are greater than the added weight of the larger motors.

Very interesting stuff Steve!

 

Thanks, man.
To be honest, I'm concerned about how the X8 would perform if it was to lose a motor, a prop or an ESC. I've reached out to some folks (including Holger) to inquire about this.
One thing to concern yourself with is to make sure you have enough reserve power to handle the spontaneous loss of 12.5% of your thrust. Tracking hover throttle percentage and current is a good place to start. Unfortunately, eCalc, as helpful as it is, has proven to be anywhere from slightly to wildly inaccurate, especially with X8s. So the trial and error process can be expensive, or even catastrophic depending on the magnitude of your "error".

 

I lost a prop, it literally flew off as i forgot to check the prop nuts, and it was a smaller GoPro bird, but it didn't change flight drastically. I lost some yaw control but i was still able to keep the bird stable for a nice safe landing.

 

Was this on an X8? What flight control were you running?

 

Yes an X8 I used some large contra motors from hobby king on a TBS discovery frame, 4S 13" props roughly 5-6lbs AUW. I was using a Aeroquad controller board on it.

 

Thanks Steve! I'll start with a flat 8 with 550mm arms, U5 motors and 16" props. Redundancy is something we'll need to investigate with a coax setup before flying a RED. I have a van so the flat 8 configuration will just fit inside Cheers!

 

Absolutely no way. At a GAW of 25.75 pounds I"m right around 62% throttle at hover and that is the highest I feel comfortable flying. My copter weighs 14.5 pounds with 2 QC 10,000 batteries and my gimbal with camera weighs 10.75 pounds with a completely stripped down Red scarlet and 24mm prime lens.

 

That makes 2 of us.

 

This crash has got me thinking mostly about what I could have done better as a pilot. As a flight instructor, I used to routinely cut the engine at the most inopportune times on my students, so that they were always sharp on recovery and flew with a plan of action at the ready for every scenario, always in the back of their minds. We ALL need to be able to practice simulated motor-outs if we want to be as safe as possible in this game. If commercial ops are going to be sanctioned by the FAA I suspect it would be mandatory. Does anyone know of a multi-rotor flight simulator that can do this?

 

I don't know about mk, but i was lately stress testing one of my X8:s with wkm and in heavy yaw maneuvers one of esc:s burned inflight. Copter was easily controllable at least with stock X8 config. It was losing height immediately and don't know how far it could have been possible to fly it as i landed almost immediately but at least it was definitely controllable.