Hello
I'm looking into building a Quadcopter, but I have no idea what light weight, cheap battery to get! It needs to be able to power a 5v central board, a 5v motor control board, 4 brushless motors (not sure of voltage here) and several sensors etc... I would like them to be powered for as long as possible, but 30minutes would be a minimum... Ideally it should be as light as possible and easily rechargeable. I have no idea what to get! I am on a limited budget as well! Don't you guys use LiPo batteries? If so, where do you get them?
Any help in general about the Batteries is appreciated!
Thanks
The Raspberry Pi Guy
Replies
Ah... OK! I didn't realise how 30 minutes was a bit over the top! So, you think that the battery should be the last thing on my list? Thanks for your replies!
Flight time is determined by prop size motor speed/strength and most significantly weight.
First off, 30min flight time will take effort to achieve with a quadcopter, its not too hard but a random component assembly will not get you there.
Secondly, yes practically everyone uses lipos, any hobbyshop sells them.
Main thing here is you need to plan out the build first unless you want to waste time and money trying stuff to find it does not work well together, so you have to figure out what payload it needs to be able to carry and power in terms of weight, size etc.
Then you need to look for a frame/motor/esc/propeller combo apropriate for the payload considering you will likely have a battery making up around 40% or more of your quads weight.
Look around on Rc forums to check other peoples combos, they often also list exactly what components they use and where they bought them. Look for build blogs.
Another thing is that 30min flight is pretty long, also in real life. Most of my flights are between 5 and 10min, not so much due to battery but because I need a break or need to change some parameter I am testing.
Hope this helps,