Any drone / UAV builders in this forum?

Is anyone here into building drones? What kind of equipment do you us? What do you use it for?

I've built 3 myself, starting on my 4th. I started off with the crazy idea of attaching a robotic arm to a large drone to allow for remote manipulation of things... But I realized it's to difficult to start with something like that. So I've been building my skill, model by model, until I can blend conventional robotics with the UAV functions. I use almost entirely Ardupilot hardware, though I have a SP F3 for practicing manual/acro flight. These days I'm just trying to get my piloting skills up. I fly both line of site and FPV.

I hope I'm posting this in the right place. The content seems to be mostly about military aircraft, but it seemed to fit here better than anywhere else.

Got a 3D printer,that count?

originally posted by: Blackfinger
Got a 3D printer,that count?

There you go! Yeah... I'll to end up having getting one myself, along with an X-Carve. There are actually tons of 3d printable drone frames, but they aren't durable enough for my needs. I require G10 and carbon fiber.

Here... i build my boards from hand and scratch, print my parts on a Prusa i3 hephestos and looking forward to build a small cnc (but I have someone that has several 5axis on his disposal so it´s not high priority. I was working on UAV like projects in the early 2000s towards 2009.

Although, with the maximum allowed transmitter power in germany... The way is the price... meaning I enjoy the building and creating part more then using it later.

The ultimate project would be something similar to this:
www.123rf.com...
but without the turbine feeding the other two fans, making them either electric or based on the Dyson hairdryer / fan. This way I can have thinner wings and but the motors with a slight shift to the center axis.

the motors are tiny,



but it remains to see how effective this really would be, and if it´s not just drawing air over the edges, making the whole thing stall and drop to earth.

a reply to: verschickter

Ha! I'm the same way. I can't tell you many times I've built something just to lost interest once it's done. I think I have the soul of an engineer.

So let me get this straight.. You are trying to build a VTOL out of a hairdryer motor? L O L that's genius. I think thrust to weight would be your biggest enemy there. You could probably pull off horizontal takeoff with that motor, but VTOL is hard. It seems like you would have to make the wings extra thick to accommodate those motors, unless you went with a big frame. You might like this, someone did something similar with an old impeller fan.

www.youtube.com...

a reply to: DrWily
Not trying at this time, but it´s on my list.

originally posted by: verschickter
a reply to: DrWily
Not trying at this time, but it´s on my list.

Do you have a way of measuring the static thrust? I would build some kind of test rig using a cheap kitchen scale. Once you know how many grams of thrust you have, you can start to think about materials and components. It would be amazing if it produced more than 500g of thrust with 12v.

a reply to: DrWily
I would´nt stick dyson fans on it, I probably would print the channels right into the wings and store the motors on the center axis. But each channel has to be equal length or you get pressure difference on the whole ring. don´t know it this is enough, with the door mechanisms for the wing and all the other stuff to keep it in hover mode. not enough to hold it´s weight in hover, let alone accelerate away.

It´s easier to build a quattro or hexacopter, that´s what I´m on currently to test software related stuff out. What I´m obsessing on currently is the onboard firmware and also the command and control. So far I use bluetooth as a SPT developer bridge (for development) and I´ve only recently got the 4G connection to work. GPRS as backup, it relies on GSM so nearly everywhere you have GSM coverage, you can get GPRS, if the basestation (tower) has it turned on.

I want it to be responsive so it won´t crash into humans or stuff. I´ve already bought ultrasound transducers and build the board for that. but they draw inane amounts of currents so until someone generous here buys me a jet turbine with a crankshaft so I can hook a generator to it, it´s pretty useless.

Edit:; We worked with helium filled models and servos back then to help lift

a reply to: verschickter

That's a impressive ornithopter, I've never seen such realistic mechanical movement.

Yeah, putting stuff on the center axis seems best. Makes me think of the push/pull configuration of the Dornier Do 335. That is an ambitious project for sure... For the channel thing to work, it seems like you would have to have perfect center of gravity right where the air comes out. Maybe you could have 3 channels, with independently controlled flaps so you can do self balancing like a multicopter.

a reply to: DrWily

That's a impressive ornithopter, I've never seen such realistic mechanical movement.

Thank you, was not my work alone, there was a whole team working on it. It looks so fluid because it was self optimizing. The wind gave us a hard time though.

originally posted by: verschickter
Thank you, was not my work alone, there was a whole team working on it. It looks so fluid because it was self optimizing. The wind gave us a hard time though.

I imagine... Even multicopters aren't that great in the wind. Most can only go around 30 or 40mph tops (unless you are talking about racers) so even a 15mph wind will make it insanely difficult to control. I've heard traditional helicopters are much more stable in the wind.

I once built one of these using 5hp Futuba as main power source .

When tethered it lifted 95 kg in the hangar ; i thought vtol was possible to achieve.

originally posted by: 23432
I once built one of these using 5hp Futuba as main power source .

When tethered it lifted 95 kg in the hangar ; i thought vtol was possible to achieve.

Interesting. It's like someone flipped a old push mower upside down and turned it into a plane. I watched the whole video, thanks for the link. Thinking about the Coandă effect makes my head hurt a little, haha. My first thought was "What if the engine fails, can it glide?". But I read that if you let the blades auto-rotate, it's possible to glide. It would be neat to compare the efficiency with a flying wing and a traditional aircraft. Like... Create a model for each type, all exactly the same weight, then see how long they last on a 11.1v lipo in level flight.

a reply to: 23432

How did you power it?

originally posted by: verschickter
a reply to: 23432

How did you power it?

Well, his FanWing example is electric, so my bet is Lithium Polymer / LiPo batteries.

a reply to: DrWily
Would give a good energy density in the power source, but that was not the purpose of the question. I hoped for him to share details. Details like Voltage, Amperage, PWM?, Capacity, inrush current for the motor such things.

If you want to max out operation range/time, you can´t just plug stuff together. That´s why I stopped building own boards with non SMD components. I have access to a fully automatic pick-and-place robot, the configuration takes longer than the actual soldering process. The weight that you can save with SMD parts alone is insane. Needs a steady hand, though, because sometimes you need to correct a little bit.

Thing with 3D printing is surface finish..You need a smooth surface for lifting bodies..With models any designs need to be extremely high poly to be efficient.At the moment the technollagy is going through growing pains.Its promising and maturing quickly but still a ways to go yet..Still love this thing
Razor

I want to build this and my wife is calling me insane.

I feel the need....

originally posted by: DBCowboy
I want to build this and my wife is calling me insane.

It is insane. I would NOT want to build or fly that thing. Imagine how many lipo battery chargers you could need? Or are you going to balance charge all of them sequentially? It looks like he is using APC props, $3.75 X 54 motors = $202.50 in propellers. You are probably looking at over $8,000 in motors and ESCs. LOL at "KK stabilization". And I don't even want to think about the batteries themselves. I seriously doubt he can get out of ground effect for more than 3 or 4 minutes without puffing a few batteries. It would be a fiasco.