T200 thruster ---why the thrust is so little? Only 3.5KG

Blue Robotics Products Thrusters and Motors
1

Hi,
i brought a T200 thruster from your website. The spec on your website is: Max Thrust – Forward @16V-11.2 lbf -5.1 kgf.
But in my testing, I just get result of Forward-3.5KG. It is a big difference. I used same ESC and same power 16V 350watts. Can you please help me to figure it out what problem is it? If you can provide your testing device photo, that will be great help for me. Thanks.

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2

Hi Zhang, can you please provide more details (pictures will be good) of your test setup and wiring?

  • What battery are you using?
  • How long/what gauge are your wires?
  • How much thrust do you get in reverse? (The front of the thruster is the side with the cable entry)
3

Hi Zhang,

There are three important things to note when testing thrust and comparing to our numbers:

  1. Voltage drop can have a significant effect on thrust. Make sure your power source and power distribution system are up to the task of supplying at least 30A constant per thruster without significant voltage drop. If the voltage at the ESC under load does not match 16V, your results will match ours. Make sure the connection between the ESC and thruster is good as well, and can also handle the current.

  2. The forward direction of the thruster is water moving from the end with the cable and through the nozzle to the tail cone. Thrust in reverse will be lower.

  3. All performance specification of our thruster are taken as “bollard thrust”, or in static conditions where water velocity at the thruster entrance is zero. If the water is moving into the thruster at speed of the thruster is moving in water, thrust will decrease as the difference in water velocity between the entrance and exit decreases. Testing in too small of a volume, such as a bucket, will rest in inaccurate numbers.

You can see a blog post detailing the test setup originally used to determine these ratings here.

-adam

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