Impressive! Can you share the design to the Ukrainians? [be careful, so it won't leak anywhere else]. 3 hours loitering can mean a lot on a battlefield.
Show HN: I made a 3D printed VTOL drone
91–100 of 154 posts
Re: Show HN: I made a 3D printed VTOL drone
#92It'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.
What exactly do you mean by
> the wing shape adds to the lift in vertical mode
Wings require airspeed to work, which there presumably aren't a lot of in vertical mode.
Re: Show HN: I made a 3D printed VTOL drone
#93It'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.
Looks like an autogyro. Which are quite efficient.
Re: Show HN: I made a 3D printed VTOL drone
#94I 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…
You could look into paying a satellite imagery company to take the photos: https://skyfi.com/en/pricing
Re: Show HN: I made a 3D printed VTOL drone
#95I 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 think this fixed wing drone https://ageagle.com/drones/ebee-x/ would fit your usecase.
Re: Show HN: I made a 3D printed VTOL drone
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yep, I've used that as well, but, as you say, it's just very bad for impact resistance. I think the sweet spot between weight and durability might be ABS or something like ASA.
Yes and there is foaming ASA as well which is almost as light as foaming PLA. But I can't print ASA well on my A1 and the weight penalty was still enough that I didn't try, given the mission profile of flight time.
Did I dream or is there even foaming TPU? TPU in general seems almost indestructible to me so should be good :)
Re: Show HN: I made a 3D printed VTOL drone
#97I 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…
It would be a project, but the HeeWing's T2 Cruza VTOL is extremely interesting as you could put in both a high capacity battery and a good quality camera.
Re: Show HN: I made a 3D printed VTOL drone
#98I 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…
The OP VTOL drone is aesthetically pleasing, I feel, but is over-engineered for a task such as mapping long distances.
For your needs, a slow-stick with a KFM wing would suffice - the smallest, lightest, simplest, most capable airframe one can build, and that is a slow-stick[0] with KFM wings[1].
VTOL is cool for those of us raised on a healthy sci-fi diet, but is entirely unnecessary for a slow-stick, which can be hand-launched directly into the air (vertically) and landed at a stall within a meter.
Plus, it is small, light, effective and extremely simple, which means its a lot easier to repair and maintain. Add some ardupilot magic and you've got a really capable platform for surveys and reconnaissance.
tl;dr Consider building a small fleet of slow-stick+KFM planes, attach your camera to it, and do your survey that way ..
[0] - https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?1395335-Begin...
[1] - https://www.flitetest.com/articles/kfm-wings-a-basic-explana...
Re: Show HN: I made a 3D printed VTOL drone
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ukraine has dozens of drone producers, many are capable of producing 10k+ per month. This one is quite expensive (2000$) and more is for home-grown terrorist (like 3d-printed firearms)
"like 3d-printed firearms" is this even a thing lol??? I thought manufacturer already have a safety in place like printer that refuse to print money for that
There are two parts to a gun.
The "explody bit" that needs to survive intensive pressures, which boils down to a carefully machined barrel (rifling is optional) and a firing pin.
The "comfort features" that make it easy to hold that barrel in a human hand, that direct the recoil to parts of the human body that can better handle it, that hold the ammo in a way that automatically feeds the next bullet (spring magazine) and that makes it easy to press the firing pin against the munition (the trigger).
The latter can easily be 3D printed.
Re: Show HN: I made a 3D printed VTOL drone
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ukraine has dozens of drone producers, many are capable of producing 10k+ per month. This one is quite expensive (2000$) 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
>>Andy Greenberg has been reporting on ghost guns for more than a decade. He first used a 3D printer to assemble a gun in 2015, and he says that today’s process is not only faster but cheaper. We talk to Andy about how he legally printed the same gun Luigi Mangione allegedly used in the alleged killing of the United Healthcare CEO last year, and whether US law is keeping up with the technology of 3D-printed guns.
Here is a link: https://www.wired.com/story/uncanny-valley-3d-printed-untrac...