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Flight, Crash, Repair and Endurance Testing

Posted by Trent at MyGeekShow on November 5, 2011 at 4:23am

 

 

This week I crashed, repaired and conducted endurance/efficiency testing on the GeekStar. Compared to the Easy Star and it's brushed / NiMh set up, it performed very well.

 

Each flight I used full throttle on takeoff, and half to less than half throttle to maintain altitude.

 

5 min. of flight - consumed 231mAh

10 min. of flight - consumed 399 mAh

15 min. of flight - consumed 575 mAh

 

I then pushed it HARD (3/4 throttle to full throttle) for 12.5 minutes. It landed nice and cool!

 

12.5 min of hard flight - 1,178 mAh

 

Now I'm off to make my own wing, and then I'll truly have a scratch built airplane.

 

Electronics Used:

Motor: http://www.hobbypartz.com/75m42-optima450-2220-950kv.html

ESC: http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=13429

Batt: http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=6306

Prop: http://www.hobbypartz.com/60p-dyp-1001-propeller.html

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Comments

  • Trent at MyGeekShow November 10, 2011 at 10:29am

    @Gary Mortimer: Data logging is coming early next year, and I can't wait! The big flight is still on, and tracking well. 2011 was the year of general flight; I needed to be able to scratch build a functional RC airplane that met or exceeded a kit... And as you'll see in the next two episodes, I finally acheived that! So, next year is going to be FPV/technology including AP, which means I'll be on here a LOT more : )

     

    @Ravi Gupta: Glad to hear you're building your own as well! Are you going to/ have you already moved it to be controlled via Arduplane/something similar?

     

    @Mitchell Jordan: I haven't messed with timing at all, and unfortuantly don't know a whole lot about it, I'm only using what came "stock". Sorry!

  • Mitchell Jordan November 9, 2011 at 8:39am

    Trent, I see you are using the Optima 450 2220-950Kv. I'm using that exact motor on my quad, but I can't for the life of me figure out what ESC timing to use. The Arducopter docs are saying the highest timing possible, but I know over-timing the motor will burn something up. Any insight?

    I basically am wondering: how many magnetic 'poles' are in that motor? that would greatly help me get set up.

    Thanks, and nice plane, man.

  • Ravi Gupta November 8, 2011 at 3:37pm

    Awsome, I did something similar with a foamy myself. It did not look as great as yours, but it did fly very  well. My model has no ailerons so I plan to build the wings too at some point. Absence of ailerons will make it a little bit easier.

    Ravi

  • Moderator
    Gary Mortimer November 5, 2011 at 5:14pm

    Great believer in fail forward faster me ;-) Its getting to the time where you need to either fly some data logging gear say from Eagle Tree or even an AP with power sensors. Then you will see exactly whats going on.

    Loved the bit of video of you in the car, did that for hours and hours myself when testing a particular airframe and getting it upto 100 hours of flight time. I enjoyed trimming it to fly a circle and then seeing how many orbits I would let it make before touching the TX. That was back when getting an AP that could fly a circle cost more than I care to think about. How things change. 

     

    Keep going your learning valuable lessons that will make the eventual airframe pretty cool.

     

    Where are you on your timeline for the big flight?

This reply was deleted.