Does anyone know the correlation between hovering time, flight time, and battery life on a copter? How much of the battery will be used just to hover and how much is used to to fly over a distance?
Thank you!
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Your question does not have an answer as "flight time" is not fully defined by intrinsic copter parameters (incl battery, weight, motor and ESC efficiency,...)
Only hover time can be precisely computed, assuming however no external forces. For that you can use the ecalc link others have already posted here.
I see... I guess I can just typically assume the "flight time" to be shorter than the calculated hover time. Thank you!
Hi Kate.
Hovering, especially in calm air, draws the least amount of current. Consequently, battery life decreases proportionally as maneuvers become more complex and aggressive. A copter/battery combo rated for say, 15 minutes of hovering may only yield about 5 minutes of aggressive flying.
If you haven't discovered eCalc yet it's an invaluable tool and can accurately predict expected battery life based on your machine's configuration and flying characteristics:
http://www.ecalc.ch/xcoptercalc.php?ecalc&lang=en
Cheers!
Crady,
Makes sense. I'm going to try to get better with this tool. Thank you!!
Kate
Should one want to spend more time reading related DIYD blog posts and discussions... I added a link to this blog post onto this DS page about Testing UAV and UAS performance. :-)
This is so great, thank you!
well it really all about light waight and efficiency , you need a battery light enough with enough power in amps to deal with the waight of the copter, you also need motors ESC that draw as little amps at full throttle as possible. last pecs is prop size lager prop more lift power, more lift at lower RPM less AMPs used.
1. light as possible
2. motors ESC that match your props power amp draw
3. power density of bttery
OG,
If I have an all up weight of 2.38 kg on a hexacopter with an 8000mAh 3S1P 30C battery, 12x4.5 propellers, and motors that draw 20 amps at full throttle (so ESCs that draw 30 amps), I'm calculating a pretty low flight time (about 4.5 minutes). Do you have an idea of how that time is proportioned into hover time and actual flying?
Thank you so much!
Hi Kate,
Brad Hughey is our resident expert on exactly this kind of calculation (although I too would like to know why the multiplier was 5) and his method of calculating is very likely to yield a realistic product.
However, you can check out this kind of thing yourself here:
http://www.ecalc.ch/xcoptercalc.php?ecalc
Just fill in number of rotors, prop size, an appropriate motor and battery and it will produce a pretty reasonable estimate for hover anyway.
It takes its max flight as full power all the time (can't happen) and it's mixed as a 50 / 50 blend of max throttle and hover throttle (also incredibly unlikely).
Hover time is the most realistic figure and normally flying around will not change that figure by very much, some types of flight can actually increase your total flight time a bit over hover, although most (especially if you are countering gusts or a wind) will reduce it somewhat.
And if you are flying acrobatic high G maneuvers flight time reduces a lot (seems very unlikely with a Hex as you have described though.
Based on my own experience and with Xcopter calc I would say Brad's estimates are very close.
Best Regards,
Gary
Thank you, Gary. You're too kind.
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