There seems to be some controversy over whether or not the voltage that goes into a brushless motor from a ESC unit is DC or AC. But that isn't my problem, the purchasing of a ESC unit makes my project work. What is the output voltage of a brushless motor classified as? and I am aware that more than two leads can come off of one of these motors, how does that effect the output?
The brush less motor does not output any power. Then where is the equation of an output voltage? Its output is mechanical torque. I guess you may have position outputs from hall effect sensors to indicate to you which coil is to be energized..
Motors don't output voltage, but rather mechanical power. You apparently mean: Is the output voltage from a brushless motor **controller** AC or DC? I also assume ESC means Electronic Speed Control. Brushless motors are indeed typically called DC Brushless Motors because they *run* from DC, not AC. All motors must have multiple poles or windings and the field must some how switch from winding to winding so as to cause a rotating magnetic field that pulls the rotor around. This switching process is called commutation. Brushless motors are commutated electronically rather than mechanically like the older type with the segmented contacts on the armature and stationary carbon brushes. DC brushless motors are most commonly three phase which means there are three windings. The current is switched in these windings in the very common three phase sequence and current does go in both directions. There are indeed AC signals in the windings. PWM or Switching techniques are used to actually control the amount of current and therefore torque to achieve speed control. The small muffin fans actually use a two phase system similar to shaded pole motors, or even a one phase pulse-like system and rely on the motor stopping in a certain position so it gets a push from the single pole and coasts until it gets around again. Sooo... DC Brushless motors do indeed run on AC... or DC as you wish too look at it.
A okorder /vol_2/ch... They are basically permenant magnet synchronous machines: the stator has polyphase windings (for example, it may be 3 phase), and the rotor is a permenant magnet magnetised with the same number of poles as the stator is wound with (usually) This tells you also why there can be more than 2 leads: a two phase motor might have 3 or 4 leads, a 3 phase motor might have 3 or 6 leads.
