On 2/19/13 3:44 AM, Atomic wrote:
Might be easier to use RC grade brushless motors/ESCs for speed control. I intend to try that eventually!
My experience with R/C motors and ESCs has been that they might not be suitable for this application: a) the motors are made for light weight and high output, but not long term durability. You might do better finding a nice sealed (or at least not open frame) commercial unit to drive. The typical R/C motor often has very low impedance, to get maximum output from limited battery pack voltage. b) The typical ESC doesn't control the actual speed in terms of holding a setpoint, which is what I think you'd want for a rotary gap. They do more of a "throttle" kind of function with a PWM scheme.
I've used ESCs to control conventional 12 and 24VDC brushed motors with good results, asssuming you stay well within the current and temperature limits of the ESC. The R/C market has a very different duty cycle and cooling available than a TC. For most R/C devices, the more throttle you're putting in, the faster you are going, and the more cooling air/water you have to deal with the IR losses in the switch device.
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