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Optimal Battery for Agriculture Hexa

Posted by Chris Paquette on February 11, 2013 at 3:55pm

Hi all,

I'm a newcomer to the community and I've been working hard to learn as much as I can before I start building my own. My goal is to build an xCopter for what seems to be a more common task of surveying crop health using NDVI. Since this is my first build, I have plans to buy the "3DR ArduCopter Hexa-B Frame + Motors + Full Flight Electronics Kit" with the following (standard) specs:

GPS, AudoPilot 2.5, Telemetry

Motors: 6x AC2830-358 @ 850kv

Props: 6x APC 10x47 SFP Style

Payload: 2x 350g cameras (total 750g without battery and camera mount)

Battery: ??? (?g)

Desired Flight Time: 25-30 minutes, but will accommodate 20 minutes

What type of battery should I use?

I know this question may have been asked (a few times), but I figure I'm missing extra weight in my payload calculation (forgetting additional components to factor in). The flight time will be crucial because we plan to survey a farm no bigger than 125 acres in one shot (flying approximately 400 ft).

If this is not feasible, please let me know!  Thank you for your help in advance!

Chris 

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Replies

  • Greg Fletcher February 12, 2013 at 2:08pm

    Chris, your math is off. You have 10 amp-hours battery capacity and your drawing 54 amps, you get 10 Ah/ 54 A = 0.185 h or 11 minutes flight time with no reserve. Also running a copter at 75 % power just to hover doesn't leave much extra power for control.

    I think for your application you would be much better off with a plane than a copter. Much longer flight times and you cover more ground.

    Greg

  • Michael Johnston February 12, 2013 at 4:49am

    two cameras or one???

    gopro-3d-hero-system.jpg

  • T3
    Richard Boyhan February 11, 2013 at 6:33pm
    You are not going to be able to make even 20 minutes with just 1 camera. I fly the same Hex with 3S 5000 mAh battery and I get 11 minutes of flight. If I double up my battery and add another 3S 5000mAh battery in parallel, I get another 5 or 6 minutes more. My camera is a GoPro and I use a cheap 2 axis gimbal. Total weight of camera and gimbal mount is 217g. Now to fly 400 feet at a realitively slow speed of 3m/s, your copter would take about 40 seconds. Normal default speed is 5m/s and it would only take 24 seconds.
    Hope this helps, good luck.
    Richard
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