Welcome to Drive Calculator 3.4

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. The current version of the database is separately offered for download on www.drivecalc.de.

With some Linux distributions the pull-down menus are displayed incorrectly. In such case you may use the included shell script, which installs a suitable GTK theme, to launch the application. Simply click on 'drivecalc' instead of 'DriveCalculator'.

I warmly recommend studying the manual to make the best possible use of the software.

New in version 3.4:

You may now toggle between 'Vopt' and 'Vpitch' display in the main window. See manual.

Search function "Find Weight ..." to search motors by their weight. This should make it easier to choose a similar motor (approx. same KV, same weight) for a performance estimation if your motor is not in the database. See manual.

For special purposes you may choose a 'virtual load' instead of a real propeller from the propeller popup menu. See manual.

After having run a database scan to find matching motors for the selected power supply and propeller you may select a small number of motors from the result by thrust. To do so, click in the area left to the 'thrust' bar next to the desired value. See manual.

Option to use the current motor as an auxiliary means for measuring the mechanical power draw of a propeller. See manual.

Shortcut option to select the motor or the propeller in the main window with a mouse click in the respective editing window. Click on the 'Type' label to select the propeller you are editing in the main window. To select the motor you are editing in the main window click on the label 'Name'.

Refined plausibility check on new motor measurement data. The check may now produce a warning message.

Several bug fixes.


Please send comments and error reports to christian@drivecalc.de

Regards
Christian Persson

Hannover, in April 2010