How does the Amp rating of an ESC affect the battery and motor performance?

If a motor is trying to pull 20amps but you only have 12 amps ESCs it will starve the motor of power. I suppose it could potentially even blow the ESC. More importantly the chipset the ESC uses comes into play. Some are faster than others. In short the ESC should be rated for the at least the max amps your motor/Prop comb can pull

in short, the esc can bottleneck the motors performance or enhance it and if the motor asks the esc for to much the esc might just give you the magic smoke

Also just cause its higher rated the amp rating is burst current so if need be u could look into what normal cruising amp rate is then if its fine at that just dont go flat out

thanks guys! Would there be any negative issues using an 18amp ESC for a motor that should only ever need 12amp?

that is fine, only reason for not going too big is weight and cost
DO pay attention to manufacturer ratings for the props and batteries. If you try to run too much prop for the motor it will burn up

(18-Mar-2016, 09:39 PM)fpvmonkey Wrote: that is fine, only reason for not going too big is weight and cost
DO pay attention to manufacturer ratings for the props and batteries. If you try to run too much prop for the motor it will burn up

Excellent, I am going to get one of these built.. Thank you for your help on this first of many questions..