Motor controllers | Focus Thermal management Ensuring robust thermal management is paramount to the reliability and service life of motor controllers, as the biggest limiting factor on motor controllers today is how much power can transmit through without being lost as heat. Maximising that takes scrutiny of every square inch of board space, starting with one’s MOSFETs and the thermal aspects of their design. Among the MOSFETs commercially available today are some that come with proprietary metallic surface materials, which can then be coupled with thermal management approaches on the part of the ESC manufacturer, such as having plates of copper or gold installed on the opposite side from where their MOSFETs sit, ensuring an effective cooling surface to extract heat through the PCB from the FETs’ undersides. This makes for a dual-cooled transistor topology which can be highly beneficial at any product size and power throughput, regardless of whether the housed ESC is placed under a propeller’s downwash, inside a fuselage, or force-cooled by ram air, fans, or pumped water-glycol. At day’s end, heat will accumulate at the MOSFETs and baffle their performance without defined, incisive thermal interfaces at ground zero. With that, customers can place a thermal pad directly against or under the MOSFETs, creating a direct conduit for heat to pass out of the semiconductors and into their external heat sink, particularly if pads and enclosures can be customised by the manufacturer to fit the end-integrator’s available packaging volume or mounting spot. High copper infill inside of PCBs also helps maximise the number of pathways for heat to be conducted out of the motor controller, as well as enabling larger conduction paths with reduced resistance throughout the board. However, one alternative path to customising the enclosure has also been to leave a somewhat open space adjacent to the motor controller board, to enable customers to bond whichever type of heat sink suits the thermal profile of their application best, whether that be a finned air-cooling sink or a liquid-cooling plate with serpentine channels snaking throughout. As one might expect, this approach has been motivated by a rising number of OEMs who specifically aimed to design and construct their own, highly optimised thermal sink. Commutation The trajectory of motor controller design evolution five years ago seemed to suggest that field-oriented control (FOC) was going to become universal across high-end units. That hasn’t happened, however, for a few key reasons. One is that, in many cases, FOC-based ESCs remain slightly expensive due in part to processor requirements; though this can be offset when coupled with sensorless BLDC motors. World leading power density and reliability Quality, consistency and repeatability Robust CAN & PWM interface with rich telemetry Runs cooler with efficient power electronics Extensive documentation and engineering support AEROSPACE MOTOR CONTROL SOLUTION FIELD PROVEN ON MULTIPLE TIER1 PLATFORMS WWW.CURRAWONG.AERO/VELOCITY World leading power density and reliability Quality, consistency and repeatability Robust CAN & PWM interface with rich telemetry Runs cooler with efficient power electronics Extensive documentation and engineering support AEROSPACE MOTOR CONTROL SOLUTION FIELD PROVEN ON MULTIPLE TIER1 PLATFORMS WWW.CURRAWONG.AERO/VELOCITY 280±10 280±10 1.2 1.1 26.1 450 TEXT A 609.6mm±0.7mm[24in±0.06in] 609.6±0.7mm[24in±0.06in] Ø10±0.1 B B design optimization simulation testing certification manufacturing Made in EU Largest propeller production capacity outside China WE PRODUCE PROPELLERS www.mejzlik.eu
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