I have an old drone I am upgrading. It uses 10 inch props. As I search the Internet and drone shops I do not see any drone frames that will allow 10 inch props. Do I have something ancient compared to today’s stuff? In fact, I never see anything more than 7 inch it seems.
Just wondering.
Frame does not matter
You use 3s lipo battery than 10inch prop
And use 4s battery for 8inch prop
For 2212 motor and 2300kv for other
How do you know this? I guess the smaller props turn faster and need more voltage? Where can I learn about this?
Which motor use? In your drone.
My motors are 900KVA 2830
Yes it’s true smaller prop faster spine more voltage
You can learn motor manual but it’s will calculation. I have not idea
Check out ecalc.ch. You can use that tool to calculate motor, battery, prop, and much more.
Thanks, this is an interesting site.
I’ve walked the same path this year. Ended up replacing everything except for the Turnigy 9X.
Yes, common attention has shifted towards smaller and faster copters and there is a whole new generation of pilots out there for whom FPV strictly equals copter racing. It’s the new norm.
7+ inch frames are now uncommon, but still exist, e.g.: Hexsoon EDU-450 — Copter documentation
Regarding your hardware: gotta see the exact list. I guess most of it is still flyable, but not as efficiently. Over the years motors have gotten more efficient (g/W), ESCs lighter (4x20A Q-Brain is 50 g without the heatsink and overheats, 4x45A Mamba is <20 g and doesn’t), VTXs lighter and significantly more powerful (not to mention digital video!), FPV antennas much better tuned, etc.
I had a 1.25 kg empty weight 10" flying brick that barely held in the air for 10 minutes, now I have an 11-12" 750 g empty weight that flies for 50 minutes, probably an hour.
10" is a dead-end in my opinion. Too big to fly acro and crash frequently, too small to be efficient. If you’re ready to upgrade and looking for the same flying experience as 10 years ago, I’d probably recommend looking into 12-14". Still cheap (relative to the big dudes), but more efficient.
Also, ecalc is a confusing piece of crap.
Assuming you want to fly FPV, the bigger and heavier the frame, the more damage to it (and, potentially, surrounds) will be when it crashes 
If you want to film movies with a big camera, then big, heavy and stable will be better Then you’ll want a hex or octo for redundancy (if one motor fails, hex will still land, and even remain controllable).
I have 4 900Kv 2830s motors I cannot even see where they are listed in motor data bases.
4 in 1 ESC JHEMCU BS 40A BLHeli_S I think this is an older ESC without BDshot and telemetry
Matek H743 slim FC
FlySky FS-iX6 10 channel radio
You say that 12-14 inch are available. Those are much larger than my 10 inch or hyuonder year.
I think I will go ahead and configure my drone with these parts and perhaps later upgrade again to a smaller frame.
I still would like to know how people size the frame - motor size - ESC - FC - battery
I must say that I am more interested in learning about the technology in the drones than in the actual flying of them. Mission planner is challenging but very interesting to learn about along with learning about motors, ESCs, weight, betteries, and etc. Putting all of this is fun but a bit difficult. Yesterday, I was trying to push a connector into my H743 FC and the connect broke off on the FC. Fortunately, there are solder pads I can connect to. That was a $97 FC.
With eCalc as was suggested. You need to buy a subscription. It’s cheap for the results it provides.
Yes Dave, but I am also cheap It seems like one can do the calculations yourself if you know the formulas and have the data.
Propellers should have a thrust vs RPM curve.
Motors should have a current vs power curve.
Batteries have a Mamp/hr number,
and etc.
A 1 month subscription is the same as one set of props for a 5" FPV quad. A year is less than two sets. If you’re flying anything larger, and the program saves you one “testing” one set of props then you’re cash ahead. Let’s not even talk about motors, batteries and ESCs.
But if you like the math, and you can find the data yourself then go for it. Just offering a potential solution.
you are probably correct but still I want to learn about the technology rather than have a program just give me the answer. I guess the hard part is getting the data for the props and motors.
Agreed.
Ecalc is a tool, like a calculator. It doesn’t say buy this or that. You still need to adjust the variables and evaluate the possibilities. Just like a calculator saves you from doing arithmetic, you still need to work out the maths.
Why not learn how to USE a tool before calling it “a piece of crap”?