Non electric motored Traditional Helicopter

Posted by Benny Shimon on February 5, 2016 at 9:50pm

Hi all, 

has anyone have some records\ test results regarding APM with Non electric motored Traditional Helicopter? things like large helicopters motored with benzine or methanol motors.

I would like to start a POC (prof of concept)  with a tinder tiger raptor 30 and scale up to bigger ones.

I have some ( 2 years )experience with hexa and quads and its working great for me.

thanks in advance for your kind response

Benny

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Replies

  • Benny Shimon August 15, 2016 at 9:26pm

    Hi, so what is the conclusion?   ardupilot can not fly traditional helli powered by nitro or gasoline?

  • Kazuki Y August 15, 2016 at 7:25pm

    Hello everybody.

    I'm skipping the gasoline machine of 700 class.

    Version 3.2.1 or later, the big problem is also flying without.

    Vibration measures so that everyone is said is very important.

    Engine : OS GT15HZ

    Rotation control : Futaba Govenor GV-1

    Rotor rotation set : 1500RPM

    My aircraft videos.

    Ver3.2.1

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xI7XoVt4uIc

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Pf1nwBaY0s

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SSRCqrIprE

    Ver3.3.3

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DgEJjVk_u8

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cOTwMD32ls

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nyv6ek0icY0

  • Benny Shimon February 7, 2016 at 8:54am

    Hi Guys,
    thanks Nate and Steve, yes I now that dumping the FC is the big thing other wise it will be a disaster.
    Steve do you have some links to share with me ?
    here is a thing I found regarding arducopter 3.2.1 and vrBrain Autopilot are you familiar with this autopilot?

    thanks for your help in advance
    Benny

  • Steve Mitchell February 7, 2016 at 7:44am

    Yes, it can be done but it’s not easy.

    I have three SAB Goblin 770/Urukay’s (800 blades) running the Zenoah RC car engine. Vibration dampening of the Pixhawk FC is one of the biggest hurdles to overcome.

    As Nate has said: Safety is a huge concern with petrol powered helicopters. An engine kill switch, dual batteries, maybe a generator and proper airframe inspections before each flight are all thing to do/consider to increased safety.

    Your Raptor 30 or a Trex500 would be fine for your POC before moving up to something bigger. There is a large amount of information on this site and other forums regarding helicopters. It just takes a lot of time to find and read!

    Good luck.

  • Nate Miller February 6, 2016 at 9:09am

    I put an APM 2.5 on a Bergen Observer EB about 2 years ago. The was powered by a gasoline engine. Whole project was a disaster. The heli shook so badly I couldn't ever find a way to mount the APM and get reliable attitude solutions. The helicopter also had some serious reliability problems. We carried enough gas for 2 hours of flight, but after 9 months of full time testing we were never able to get a flight longer than 60 minutes before a mechanical failure forced us to land.

    With gassers you also have to worry about rotor speed in the controls. We fed the signal from the magneto back to the autopilot so it could measure motor RPM. Wrote a few controllers to govern the rotor speed at 1900 RPM as the manufacturer recommended. It was quite a bit of work. With electrics all you have to do is send a constant command to the ESC and it takes care of the rotor speed.

    Safety is also a HUGE concern on the gassers. On an electric if you loose power the motors stops. On a gasser if you loose power the carb stays at whatever the last position was and there's a huge potential for fly-away. Happened to us on our first flight. Thankfully the collective was low enough it came back to the ground. Ended up having an EE design a circuit that grounded the magneto if the APM lost power. It also turned out to be a great way to kill the engine on cold days because closing the carb didn't work.

    Short story: Don't do it. I had a team of 3 highly skilled engineers waste a lot of time trying to get a gasser to work.Very expensive and very dangerous, and we never got performance better than a high end electric multirotor

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