I'm currently dreaming up a super simple, square aluminum tube, welded H-Octo airframe. Since it's made of aluminum, and welded, the electric path should be pretty good.
Any electronic gurus have any idea if I could use the frame itself as the ground connection for the battery? The ESC's will be mounted very close to the motors, so if I could do this, I'd only have to run a single positive wire to each ESC.
Cars are built this way.
But I don't know, what with the high power and frequency of the ESC's operate at, will it just become a giant flying Yagi antenna and cause more trouble than it's worth?
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I was learning GMA Aluminium Welding, certainly as many others around here, without having "Pulsed Mode(s)" available. Mentioned by the way and not to forget - it was a BOC Murex. Due to the heavy wall thickness parts we were required deploying "spray droplet transfer" - the root cause also for my one and only but the more painful photokeratitis.
Aluminum is darn hard to weld, isn't it?
Hi
It sounds like a good idea but dont do it, you will have a accident waiting to happen.
Electrically heres why :-
1. If you make the frame (-) Battery and power everything form (+) Battery then eventually you will drop a live wire to the frame or wear through some heatshrink and let the smoke out of the bottle!!.
2, If you electrically connect anything to aluminium you need to be aware that dissimular metals (Alu/ copper/ steel) will all cause corrosion and bad joints, it can be prevented buts its not easy.
3, motor currents flowing in the frame will give an offest to the controllers and so they may run at different speeds with the same Rx signal.
4, more radiation of interference,
5, A heavy landing and broken or loose Arm could give undesired operation.or a short circuit to the frame from a cut wire.
Yes, cars can get away with most of these issues ( at a weight penalty)
6, Dont laugh buts its also illegal to connect a battery system of more than 12 v nominal to the ground side in a vehicle in USA/Can. . .