Ramblings on Heat and Efficiency
Today, I’ll be showing all the sources of heat within a BLDC motor. We’ll be using the ODrive D5065 motor as our model. To start, there are 3 types of heat present in a motor at any time: iron losses, copper losses, and mechanical losses. Starting with copper losses, you can have heat loss due to the motor demanding current from the electronic speed controller (ESC), which would represent DC current loss as described by $P = I^2 R$. Additionally, as a result of the motor requiring 3-phase power to work, we also have skin effect and proximity effect. The effects of which increase greatly at higher frequencies. ...