A custom solution for characterizing the thrust curves of the cheap motors I buy for my various aviation projects.
A custom solution for characterizing the thrust curves of the cheap motors I buy for my various aviation projects.
A cube of T-slotted aluminum framing provides a study base that is easy to clamp or bolt down, and 3D printed mounts allow the same setup to test all kinds of power units, including EDFs, brushless motors, and rocket engines.
A 5kg load cell and amplifier provide thrust data, and the high refresh rate provided by the Teensy 4.0 allows for high measurement resolution. The Teensy also runs the ESC, allowing performance to be measured over custom test profiles or durations.
The associated data can either be viewed natively in the Arduino IDE's plotter or exported to a CSV file for more advanced analysis in Excel or Python.