Drive Calculator is a tool that can be used for DC motor analysis and as an aid in the selection of the complete power system for electrically powered model aircraft. Purchasers of commercially available products can use the program to help guide them to a suggested combination of power system components for a given model aircraft. The program can also help DIY (do-it-yourself) motor builders optimize the results of their work.
The application comes with a SQL database that contains separate tables for motors and drive configurations, batteries, ESCs, gearboxes, propellers and stators. You may add components' specifications and measurement data to the database, and you may share that new data with other users and receive database updates via the online data exchange.
I warmly recommend studying the manual to make the best possible use of the software.
The new search and filter function lets you select motors by their KV value. This function may help you in finding similar motors in case your motor is not in the database.
Simplified use of the "virtual dyno" to create power constants for propellers based on motor measurement data.
In case a propeller's thrust constant is not available in the database, Drive Calculator displays an estimated thrust value.
You can change the number of cells by dragging the mouse cursor vertically anywhere in the diagram area while holding the left button.
A warning message is displayed if the supply voltage exceeds the limits of the ESC.
Drive Calculator for Linux does not crash any more during a database update.
Fixed a bug in the database update code that occasionally warped the motor computation results.
Removed the old database code that occasionally crashed the application. To convert old database files Drive Calculator now launches DB2CSV as a helper application.
New algorithm for evaluating more than 3 sets of motor measurement data achieves closer approximation.
Re-designed motor calculation reliability rating displays more meaningful results.
Version 3.301: Fixed a bug in the no load data detection that could cause a wrong classification.
Version 3.302: Fixed a bug in the update function that caused the loss of some remarks.
Version 3.303: Fixed a bug in the computation of motors based on specifications (no measured data available).
Please send comments and error reports to christian@drivecalc.de
Regards
Christian Persson
Hannover, in November 2007