Comment by Vicente on March 16, 2010 at 3:32pm

Hi Robert,
Nice project!
What are you going to use as clutch or one way bearing between the rotor and each drive chain?
Without that, after engine or bevel gear failure would be impossible to perform an autorotation.

Probably a good idea is to make a small version of you model using this type of motors, maintaining constant RPM and changing just the pitch. Well at least cheaper way to tune you code and test the electronics.

Good luck...

Comment by fibrewire on March 16, 2010 at 5:53pm

I was hoping to put temperature and vibration sensors on each gear drive and rotor housing - then anything outside normal operation would send a yellow alarm to return to base, red alarm would disengage the engine and perform an emergency landing. There would be a relatively generous window between detecting excess heat and vibration and actual bearing seisure.

Sometimes in actual helicopters, a loud bang is heard coming from the main transmission and loss of power occurs with warning alarms going off, and then right before ditching the rotorcraft, all the power comes back and noise goes away. Upon inspection after the incident, several teeth from main gears are chipped, and the transmission gets overhauled. Other times the pilot and passengers aren't so lucky.

I like that variable pitch motor! The rotor gear boxes I have operate on the same principal, but there is a collective bearing block that attaches to the center shaft to pull the pitch actuator up and down. Any ideas?

Moderator Comment by Roberto Navoni on April 1, 2010 at 6:53am

Hi Robert,
In our project Multipilot Board we had develop HG3 a Variable Pitch Quad ... see my repository ... http://code.google.com/p/lnmultipilot10/ and the video of HG3
Regards
Roberto

Moderator Comment by Roberto Navoni on April 1, 2010 at 7:00am

There are also some picture and video on my page in Diydrones http://diydrones.com/profile/RoberoNavoni The first fly of HG3 was 1 week ago you can see the stability in the video ... we're working to improve the filter on MultiPilot Board. The electronic and firmware is ready to start a long fly test. If you 're interest to join to our project you can !! :)

Comment by fibrewire on April 1, 2010 at 10:06am

ABSOLUTELY! You, my friend, are my savior!

Comment by fibrewire on April 9, 2011 at 3:39pm

Seems like I've been on hiatus for a little over a year. I realized my preliminary assertations of the simplicity of the project were slightly... overzealous. More to come soon.

Comment by Tim Lucas on April 11, 2011 at 12:53am

This is a very interesting project, Chances of success however very low in my opinion, if you can pull it off good on ya! would love to see the results.

in my opinion the electronics/ control boards and firmware are going to be the hardest part to get rite  unless your budget and knowledge is huge.  

dont think any control systems exist to control 4 variable pitch props, so you will probably be probing in the dark with this one.

There is no way direct input from an RC or cyclic could keep this in stable flight.

Build a small platform first to test the control system out on   odds are a million to 1 you get it rite the first flight with something like this,     so you dont want to wreck something that took massive amounts of time and money.

Just my two cents.

good luck!

 

Comment by fibrewire on July 3, 2011 at 11:39pm

I have a ton of sketches, and one of these...

Comment by fibrewire on July 3, 2011 at 11:45pm

I don't know about the huge budget, but the knowledge part gives me some wiggle room. Every project I've ever worked on was ludicrous, and each 'next' has been more entertaining than the last.

 

I'm currently finding parts for my engine, and working on a 2-part elastomeric bearing for the rotor blades.

Comment by fibrewire on July 3, 2011 at 11:47pm

As for the electronics, probably closer to "piece of cake" than "million-to-one"

 

Proof - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkSx3fSz0tE

Comment

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• Next ›
• Page