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Show HN: I made a 3D printed VTOL drone

tsungxu.com

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Re: Show HN: I made a 3D printed VTOL drone

#81

Post by digdugdirk »

energywut wrote: post #54

I have ~200 acres of land I fly a drone survey mission to map. Today, that piloting is done by dronelink and a DJI drone. The challenge is that it's about 3 hours of flight time, give or take, to cover the space, and a given battery is good for about 35 minutes of flight time. I have 4 batteries, which means I basically need to be refilling my batteries as quickly as I consume them in order to keep flying continuousl…

https://wingtra.com/vtol-drone/

Never used one, but either this design or a tri-rotor v-22 style tilt motor are the two designs I've found intriguing. Worth checking out at perhaps?

Re: Show HN: I made a 3D printed VTOL drone

#82

Post by tonyarkles »

tsungxu wrote: post #80
tonyarkles wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I printed one of the Titan Dynamics airframes (before they closed up at access for the hobby market) on a Prusa MK3S using foaming PLA and CF spars. The fuselage came out in three prints, the wings as one print each, and then the two wing tip extensions got combined into one print. It would definitely have been tight on an A1 mini but the full size A1 would work great for sure.

I actually managed to batch print the wing sections which you can see in the video in the rebuild chapter. That works really well for wing sections because each takes up a minimal bed area

Definitely! I would have done the same but it was my first time working with the Foaming PLA filament and didn’t want to waste too much of it if the print failed.

Re: Show HN: I made a 3D printed VTOL drone

#83

Post by amstan »

bufferoverflow wrote: post #4

It's an impressive achievement for an amateur. He has separate motors for vertical and horizontal flights, which simplifies the design, but creates a rather bad inefficiency, the vertical motors create lots of drag during the horizontal flight. Maybe it's not a big deal, I'm not sure. Making motors rotate would add weight for sure, thus reducing the range.

Shameless plug: https://aliptera.com/

Tilt-rotor on all 4 motors with an extra twist: the wing shape adds to the lift in vertical mode, so you can use smaller motors, so they're more efficient even in horizontal mode.

Re: Show HN: I made a 3D printed VTOL drone

#84

Post by bagels »

energywut wrote: post #54

I have ~200 acres of land I fly a drone survey mission to map. Today, that piloting is done by dronelink and a DJI drone. The challenge is that it's about 3 hours of flight time, give or take, to cover the space, and a given battery is good for about 35 minutes of flight time. I have 4 batteries, which means I basically need to be refilling my batteries as quickly as I consume them in order to keep flying continuousl…

Instead of one drone, buy 10, and send them out in parallel, and charge them all simultaneously.

Re: Show HN: I made a 3D printed VTOL drone

#85

Post by psadri »

bagels wrote: post #84
energywut wrote: post #54

I have ~200 acres of land I fly a drone survey mission to map. Today, that piloting is done by dronelink and a DJI drone. The challenge is that it's about 3 hours of flight time, give or take, to cover the space, and a given battery is good for about 35 minutes of flight time. I have 4 batteries, which means I basically need to be refilling my batteries as quickly as I consume them in order to keep flying continuousl…

Instead of one drone, buy 10, and send them out in parallel, and charge them all simultaneously.

Horizontal scaling. I love this out of the box thinking.

Re: Show HN: I made a 3D printed VTOL drone

#87

Post by tamimio »

I loved it! But I loved even more the idea of when a person has no prior experience or knowledge in something yet achieves great results in a short period of time. That build mindset is fascinating. The only issue is when applying for normal jobs, unless the interviewer can see through a person's passion, they usually assume you don’t have what it takes or won’t "raise the bar" for whatever they are after. That is, unless you lie or throw in all sorts of buzzwords to create a halo effect.

I have a question, though: Any info about the flight stack? Was it Pixhawk/Ardu, iNav, or something else?

Re: Show HN: I made a 3D printed VTOL drone

#88

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

cyanydeez wrote: post #58
energywut wrote: post #54

I have ~200 acres of land I fly a drone survey mission to map. Today, that piloting is done by dronelink and a DJI drone. The challenge is that it's about 3 hours of flight time, give or take, to cover the space, and a given battery is good for about 35 minutes of flight time. I have 4 batteries, which means I basically need to be refilling my batteries as quickly as I consume them in order to keep flying continuousl…

I reviewed and purchased a smaller drone, from WHISPR. Through that, I looked at similar VTOL drones, which OP is demonstrating. In theory, they're cheap: https://www.uavmodel.com/products/makeflyeasy-hero-2180mm-ua... This one has a maximum climb rate of 3 degrees. Which means you'd need to plan a route that's continously climbing, and tacking back and forth to avoid going steeply. So you would probably combine flig…

While that Sony piece of kit probably can do some cool things, 2950$ without objective/lens, seems rather expensive. Also 8.6 oz / 243 g (Body Only) don't look that light to me.

I'd probably go for some Sony Experia 10III[¹] or upwards, for no more than 300$ at 170 g (unmodified), and strip the hell out of it. Does it need a display, all the parts of the case, and so on? Can can I use its GPS, and pipe it into the flight controller, instead of having to rely on something more powerful and heavy, power guzzling?

[¹] because https://xdaforums.com/f/sony-xperia-10-iii.12225/

cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingenuity_(helicopter)

Re: Show HN: I made a 3D printed VTOL drone

#89

Post by Mashimo »

tonyhart7 wrote: post #34
ponector wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ukraine has dozens of drone producers, many are capable of producing 10k+ per month. This one is quite expensive (2000$) and more is for home-grown terrorist (like 3d-printed firearms)

"like 3d-printed firearms" is this even a thing lol??? I thought manufacturer already have a safety in place like printer that refuse to print money for that

Most of the shelf 3D printers just read g-code: https://all3dp.com/2/3d-printer-g-code-commands-list-tutoria...

Simplified they just get thousands of commands from which position to which position to move a toolhead, at what speed and how much plastic to extrude.

They would have to re-create the 3d model from those commands and compare them to banned ones? But then the firmware is often open source or at least can be flashed. And also how would the printer know if it's a toy gun or a real gun? Or just a part for a gun.

Paper printers / copiers refuse to copy money because the government controls the source, the paper money. They add small dots on them.

The government can't add those dots to self made 3d models.

Re: Show HN: I made a 3D printed VTOL drone

#90

Post by Baeocystin »

energywut wrote: post #54

I have ~200 acres of land I fly a drone survey mission to map. Today, that piloting is done by dronelink and a DJI drone. The challenge is that it's about 3 hours of flight time, give or take, to cover the space, and a given battery is good for about 35 minutes of flight time. I have 4 batteries, which means I basically need to be refilling my batteries as quickly as I consume them in order to keep flying continuousl…

For now, the answer is just buy more batteries and use a DJI drone. There is nothing else that comes anywhere close in terms of bang for your buck.
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