Steven from ZTW was very kind to send a pack of 4 ZTW Black widows 2204-2300kv for me to review 🙂 In short, i found them to be great! They are nicely wound, made of good quality and are very easy to mount, making a very clean build.
ZTW Black Widow 2204 – 2300kv
Get your ZTW black widow from HERE (Banggood).
The BWs (Black Widows) are a 2204 motor, with a 2300kv rating with an integrated 18A ESC. The ESC is located below the motor in a protected area, with both an aluminum plate, saving you when you use a too long of a bolt and a cardboard plate on top keeping it from shorting with the motor coils.
In addition to those protective plates, ZTW has dipped the ESC in a clear coating to prevent shorts from flying derbies and maybe even water droplets. I don’t think it is waterproof, but would assume it is water resistant – as opposed to other “in-shrink” ESCs.
The motors are supplied in a cardboard box, with a good foam protection and mounting bolts, prop fastener and a manual. The manual rates the BW2204 to 2S-3S but a quick word with ZTW confirmed they work on 4S too, when using them in the 18A limit (I believe a 5040 prop would be fine).
The integrated ESC makes a very simple, quick and clean build. Not having ESCs in the center of the frame or visibly wrapped with tape to the arms of the frame is very neat. In addition, the motor casing protects the ESCs in cast of a crash.
The BW2204 weight only 31g, and in comparison to a motor+ESC alternative it is somewhat less heavy. For example: A Cobra2204 (24.6g) and RG20 ESC (7.6g) are a total of about 33g as well (depending on how long the wires are cut to). We all know weight is everything!
I’ve managed to build a ZMR250 to be only 374g thanks to these motors (w/o battery and HD camera). And really enjoy flying it!
As to flying, the motors are a blast! I am used to the Cobra 2204-2300kv motors and didn’t feel much of a difference. I enjoyed the punch of the BW2204 and didn’t feel like I was missing anything on performance.
The integrated 18A ESC is a ZTW spyder 18A in a circle configuration (to fit the motor), and it runs the latest BlHeli firmware with a SimonK bootloader on an Atmel chip allowing 1-wire flashing using a compatible ESC flasher or an Arduino. According to ZTW, a new version of this motor will come out soon with a BlHeli bootloader.
Get your ZTW black widow from HERE (Banggood).
Flying with ZTW Black widow 2204 – 2300kv
feel free to contact Steven from ZTW: *************************************** Shenzhen ZTW Model Science&Technology Co.,Ltd www.ztwoem.com email: sales2@ztwoem.com tel: +86 755 29120056, 29120036 - 805 fax: +86 755 29120016 MSN: ztw2@hotmail.com skype: ztwoem2 ***************************************
Excellent review! If you’re using a CC3D FC with this, did you notice any issues with motor rotation? What’s the easiest way to swap the motor rotation? Or are they spinning correctly by default?
Thank you Chris!
Each motor is marked as CW or CCW, which defines the direction the motor spins out-of-the-box. The prop threads are all a regular thread, both on the CW and CCW marked motors.
In case you wish to change the direction a motor spins, connect it to BlHeliSuit using the an ESC programmer through the signal wire, read the settings from the ESC and change the spin direction accordingly.
According to specs it has a built in reverse switch
http://www.banggood.com/ZTW-Black-Widow-2204-18A-Brushless-Motor-With-Built-in-ESC-2-In-1-1900KV2000KV2300KV-CWCCW-p-999817.html
The ones I received from ZTW didn’t have the switch. The ones on banggood might be the older ones.
Now, with blheli, theres no point of such a switch since it’s easily changed in the flashing suit.
Wow, lovely portal. Thnx ..
Thanks for the info… can you point me to a suitable programmer for this (I have 2206 2200KV version)?