Hi all!
I´ve seen enough photos of people having cut themselves with their copters, to start thinking about building a fully protected multicopter.
Having searched for something similar, I found the safeflight copter, which is not produced any longer.
Reading about flight times and concerning the additional weight, I realised that it would not be an easy task, to build a multicopter, that has acceptable flight times (more than 10 minutes) and still is agile enough to have fun AND small enough or with easy disassembling, to be transported.
Additionally, I thought about giving it a good look with a kind of thermoformed housing.
Has anyone ever made a really safe housing (like the safeflight copter)?
I found some woven thread used to catch big fish, while fishing. It´s a half millimeter thick and holds about 40 kilos. That might be suitable for adding a netting over the copter, so nobody can stick their fingers into the housing of the props.
What´s really annoying, is that I have absolutely no idea of how to add that netting on the housing of the props. Glue? Weaving like in a badminton rack? It should be removable, since you have to change the props from time to time.
For the housing itself, I have made some styrofoam circles, but they seem to be to brittle to withstand a small crash. I thought about having a small layer of glass fibre added around them.
Whatever I think about, adds a lot of weight to the copter, so I thought about setups, that would suit my needs.
But I´m not sure, wether to build an Y6 or X8 copter with 10 inch props or simply a quadcopter with 15 inch props, trying to make the housing of the props as lightweight as possible.
Discussion and comments are welcome and higly appreciated!
Thank you,
Steffen
Replies
I think this is one of the most important issues in private drones/multirotors, for the reason you suggest and others.
If many more peope get hurt by props, no matter the circumstances, it will become a serious direct threat to private drones.
The problem is that as you already know, any guard you make adds weight, but also deceases its flight ability, and can actally cause a drone to fly sluggishly, lose flight time, speed, all kinds of things - yet, somehting is necessary nonetheless.
The styrofoam frames on some you have seen are very light, but they do cause a little drag and reduce flight ability.
Carbon fiber is good, but increases the cost of the craft, and it still has a weight factor, even if it is less than most other alternatives.
Ideally, I think if someone could invent a better 'foam', that would help.
Personally, I would suggest that the actual frame design is very important - maybe you can come up with a design where the guards ARE the frame as well, thus eliminating the weight of having guards and also a frame otherwise, similar to what is already common out there.
I have real solutions to it, but unfortunately, they are two of my desings that I could make real money on, so I feel very uncomfortable with the idea of giving it away, so we both are ham-strung by this, lol., (sorry) so what I can suggest is something that is almost nothing, a thin and sparse lattice of something incredibly strong, and rigid, yet not brittle, that can take some impact without breaking or flexing into the blade(s).
I would suggest incorporating fine, high-quality aluminum reinforcement in carbon fiber, but changes in temperature could cause problems due to expansion and contraction.
I would suggest carbon fiber nano tubes technology, and that would definitely work, but even if the technology were more available, it would be incredibly expensive, and possibly difficult to fabricate on top of it all.
It is a very difficult problem, full of paradoxes and contradictions, yet is extremely important to the future of private drones, so don't give up !
Hi J Smith.
Thank you for your answer. Reading about a real solution you have in mind, I got very curious, what that might be. I hope you find a way to get that on the market soon.
For now, I´m going to add some of the following:
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/RC_PRODUCT_SEARCH.asp?strS...
Not the perfect solution, but better than nothing, as long as I still need some more flight training.
I´ve had some mail contact with the guys from Dronewerx concerning the PG-Y6
Here´s the link:
http://www.google.de/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.suasnews.com%2F...
The frame is not yet available and since its made from carbon fibre, I think it´s going to be expensive.
Your post about the "real solutions" makes my head work already and I hope, I can sleep tonight :-)
Okay, you gave me some very interesting ideas.
What I found, looking at the idea of chrisa with the fan cage, are metal wire guards for pc fans. They are too small for 10 inch props, but looking at a light and stable metal brought me to titanium wires. Just ordered some in different thicknesses for a first test. They are called grade 5 titanium alloy and are assumed to be lightweight and stable, used in aerospace. Cost: 3.80 € per meter. Gonna tell you, what came out of testing those :-)
Forget that idea. I´ve ordered some and they are not very stable. Won´t work.
Been working on that
see it here..
That looks awesome too! Great to see all your answers and ideas!!!
What´s it made of? It looks like it´s made out of one piece. How did you realize that and where can I get the materials? How about the weight? Flight time? Sorry for so much questions
recently I saw a y6 design that was all cut plate, in a very well done exoskeleton. I will see if I can find a picture and post it,
Did you mean this one?
imgres.htm
That would be great! Gonna check out, if there are gfk plates available in that size. And what they cost.
Perhaps it´s possible to start with a thin wooden plate. Perhaps Balsa-wood (don´t know, if that is the correct translation for the type of wood that´s used for sailing planes.
tbh just don't use carbon props
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