[HN Gopher] Show HN: I made a 3D printed VTOL drone
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Show HN: I made a 3D printed VTOL drone
I made this 130 mile capable VTOL drone in only 90 days. It can fly
for 3 hours on a single charge. That would make it one of the
longest range and endurance 3D printed VTOLs in the world. This is
the thing I'm most proud of building to date! Before this project,
I was a total CAD, 3D printing and aerodynamic modeling beginner. I
had only built and flown one VTOL before. SPECS Wingspan: 3.9 ft
(1200 mm) Length: 2.5 ft (770 mm) Weight: 5.6 lb (2.55kg)
Airframe: foaming PLA (Bambu PLA-Aero) and PETG structural parts
printed on A1 printer, CFRP booms and spars Battery: Li-ion
silicon anode Amprius SA08 cells, 6s2p pack by Upgrade Energy
Motors: 2807 AOS for lift and cruise (unoptimized) Lifting ESCs: 4
in 1 Holybro Tekko32 F4 45A Cruise ESC: Flycolor Raptor 5 45A
Lifting and cruise props: 7042 Gemfan (unoptimized) Flight
controller: Speedybee F405 Wing GPS: M10 Firmware: Ardupilot 4.6.0
--- This video edit ended up shorter than I planned. Being my
first Youtube video with significant post production effort, I
underestimated the work required to make a longer in-depth video
with voiceover, edited footage, etc.
Author : tsungxu
Score : 389 points
Date : 2025-06-10 20:47 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.tsungxu.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.tsungxu.com)
| truetraveller wrote:
| Top speed?
| tsungxu wrote:
| Not tested! But minimum I would say 70 mph. If designing for
| speed, I'd be looking at a cruise motor and prop that maximizes
| the thrust output rather than cruise efficiency
|
| edit: at least 70 mph
| the__alchemist wrote:
| Probably significantly higher even? A normal quad will hit
| 100Mph +.
| tsungxu wrote:
| Could be right! Really depends because the quad motors on
| freestyle say have massive throttle upside they can tap but
| it increases power draw and reduces flight time by
| multiples.
| the__alchemist wrote:
| Yea def! You could also get into questions of cruise
| speed with level altitude vs in a dive etc, and you burn
| through batteries fast when max-performing quads!
| tsungxu wrote:
| Exactly! Didn't even mention cruise vs dive. But the
| latest WR for a quad doing 347mph I think, is just
| insane, even if drawing multi hundred amps for a few
| seconds only.
| aspenmayer wrote:
| Oh wow, that's even higher than this one I saw from last
| year @ 298 MPH for a quadcopter, but I'm not sure if this
| is the same criteria for the WR or build limitations etc?
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wThmg8Ezm9w
| tsungxu wrote:
| I saw that one too which was also incredible. This latest
| record was from a few days ago
| https://youtu.be/8p5eZ4ZRkfY?si=hSxTh5BeSyEwzpy8
| tonyarkles wrote:
| With how many minutes of battery life? :)
| bufferoverflow wrote:
| 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.
| the__alchemist wrote:
| Adding a tiltrotor mechanism is surely not worth the added
| complexity and weight, in this case. You're right though on the
| added weight and drag from having separate motors and props.
| tsungxu wrote:
| And also iteration cycles slow down, adds cost to development
| and qualification if making them in-house for larger
| prototypes.
| tsungxu wrote:
| It's actually not a terrible inefficiency.
|
| With this config, the cruise motors and prop are optimally
| sized for cruise - which gives non trivial gains to both eta
| for propulsive motor efficiency and prop efficiency.
|
| Vs a tiltrotor/wing/body in which the cruise motor has to do
| double duty as lifting motors. Given it takes anywhere from
| ~4-7x more power to hover (depending on disc loading) than to
| cruise, you can see how the motors are not in an optimal
| throttle/rpm band in this case. Archer's CTO Munoz has actually
| said this publicly.
| tsungxu wrote:
| And the weight (and drag) penalty is ~5% given the actuators
| and subassemblies for tilting don't come for free either.
|
| This is also the most the penalty will ever be as electric
| motors continue increasing in specific power, and quite rapidly
| this century so far.
| xnx wrote:
| Very similar design already used by Wing. I'm guessing they did
| a fair bit of analysis and modeling of the cost, range,
| complexity, safety, etc. etc. tradeoffs before settling on what
| they're using currently.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wing_Aviation#/media/File:Wing...
| tsungxu wrote:
| Two impressive things about Wing's design are 1) load paths
| are designed to break the airframe in controlled ways 2) the
| 4 blade props have alternating shorter and longer blades for
| quieter aeroacoustics
|
| Adam Savage did a video tour of their factory recently, worth
| a watch
| xnx wrote:
| > Adam Savage did a video tour of their factory recently,
| worth a watch
|
| Thanks! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BXm6dTHvY0
|
| I'm a big Waymo and Wing fan, but hadn't seen that.
| tsungxu wrote:
| It's great, check out the Slo Mo guys video from that
| same tour for the prop smoke vortex
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yaAFLpLmVg
| amstan wrote:
| 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.
| joha4270 wrote:
| 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.
| atemerev wrote:
| Looks like an autogyro. Which are quite efficient.
| btbuildem wrote:
| There are lots of DIY variations on the theme -- here's one:
| https://hackaday.com/2022/08/22/optimising-a-rc-tilt-rotor-v...
| georgel wrote:
| Very awesome! Have you tried to see how much payload it could
| hold in addition to the drone's own weight?
| tsungxu wrote:
| Thanks, I've not! But given the battery mass fraction is 53%
| for this build, rule of thumb is about 30% of a VTOL's weight
| for battery if you want to include payload. So I could just use
| a smaller 6S battery.
|
| Or I could probably add another ~0.5 lbs or a little more
| without issue. The lifting motors hover at 45% ish throttle so
| there is some headroom for more payload without reducing
| battery mass fraction.
| asadm wrote:
| Pretty impressive! what's the BOM here. That battery seems
| expensive (most expensive part?)
| tsungxu wrote:
| Thanks! Yes ~$700 without battery and I scored the Amprius pack
| on special for $700 but it is currently $1300.
| ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7 wrote:
| So, ~$2000 USD? Why not just say that?
| tsungxu wrote:
| Variability of price for the Amprius pack, anything from
| $700-$1350 at four price points.
| ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7 wrote:
| Yeah, can just take the max, like you did with the range
| calc.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| > That battery seems expensive (most expensive part?)
|
| At first, I was like "Nah, just looks like my RC car battery",
| but then I Googled it...and it's a whopping $1,305 [0].
|
| I looked closer at the specs and they're insane for a battery
| as small as it is. They have double the energy density as
| measured by both volume and mass compared to my RC car
| batteries [1].
|
| [0] https://www.upgradeenergytech.com/product-
| page/gold-v1-6s2p-...
|
| [1] https://www.amazon.com/Zeee-Connector-Vehicles-Helicopter-
| Ai...
| tsungxu wrote:
| Yep, to maximize range and flight time capability, you have
| to have the highest energy density batteries.
| owenversteeg wrote:
| 440.64 Wh, 21600 mAh/20.4V, 1250W/60A constant discharge,
| 170A burst for 10s, total pack weight 1332g-1335g depending
| on connectors which gets you to 360 Wh/kg cell density or 330
| Wh/kg pack density.
|
| Impressive, but not that far off from much cheaper mass-
| produced cells.
| the__alchemist wrote:
| I'm curious how this compares to foam-frame designs. Being able
| to customize it is obviously a big advantage, as is the non-
| solid-infill of 3d-printed parts. I think for stiffness,
| 3d-printed frames don't work well for quadcopters compared to
| carbon fiber, but they sound like a nice alternative to foam for
| fixed-wing. I think the stiffness concern comes up in quads
| mainly when they do high-performance maneuvers that aren't a
| concern for the takeoff and landing this device does in that
| mode. (e.g. high accelerations/manevers of racing-style drones)
|
| If anyone wants to try this: The parts he uses are all standard
| Chinese-made COTS you can buy on amazon and similar.
|
| The ArduPilot firmware he uses is very flexible and robust, but
| setting it up is one of the worst UXs I've experienced.
| Commercial UASs almost universally use PX4 instead.
| tsungxu wrote:
| Yes I used single wall foaming PLA which is much less impact
| resistant and more brittle vs any foam, even cheap foamcore and
| especially EPP or EPO. This has definitely been an issue with
| crashing and rebuilding.
|
| But my first and only other VTOL build was foamcore Readyboard
| and that took a 12 ft drop onto asphalt with only a slight
| compression in the fuselage. Never replaced it.
|
| I would add dovetails or other clips for printed sections if I
| did another printed build.
|
| Yes avionics and propulsion parts are COTS for speed, the
| Amprius pack is US manufactured but others are all made in
| China.
|
| I'm starting to see some more Ardupilot used commercially too
| but yes the UX is janky and unintuitive.
| the__alchemist wrote:
| Hopefully now that it's in a polished state, you don't need
| to worry as much about impact resistance as you did when
| designing/tuning.
| tsungxu wrote:
| Thanks, I did crash it again, and that's why it was half
| assembled on the wall at the end. But yeah foaming PLA is
| extremely soft, almost feels like tough, thin paper.
| stavros wrote:
| PLA is pretty bad compared to foam when it comes to planes, as
| it's very heavy and very brittle. Any semi-hard landing will
| break parts off, and heavy planes fly badly.
|
| The big advantage is that you can just print the part again,
| which almost makes PLA worth it.
|
| ABS would probably be better, as it's much more durable and
| lighter, but it's still much heavier than foam, and printing
| ABS isn't great.
| tsungxu wrote:
| I used single wall foaming PLA which has filament density of
| ~0.45 g/cm3 at 250 degree nozzle temp, about 64% lower than
| normal PLA. But it is even worse for impact resistance than
| normal PLA. Weight was the primary driver for this plane
| stavros wrote:
| 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.
| tsungxu wrote:
| 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.
| sandos wrote:
| Did I dream or is there even foaming TPU? TPU in general
| seems almost indestructible to me so should be good :)
| regularfry wrote:
| Colorfabb Varioshore, among others. It's extremely neat
| stuff.
| alvah wrote:
| Printing ABS is much improved with the later hobbyist-level
| 3D printers (Qidi and Bambu etc). My Qidi Plus 4 prints ABS
| as easily / well as PLA. Just remember to do it in a well-
| ventilated space.
| stavros wrote:
| Sorry, I meant about the ventilation, yeah. My Bambu
| doesn't care what material it is, they all print perfectly,
| but I hate the fumes.
| Karliss wrote:
| In case of commercial systems you are paying manufacturer to do
| the integration work and provide polished solution anyway, so
| setup UX not being user friendly isn't a major concern. In my
| opinion bigger factor for why most commercial UASs use PX4
| instead of ArduPilot is licensing and PX4 maintainer
| friendliness towards commercial solutions. ArduPilot is GPLv3
| and more geared towards community/hobbyists while PX4 is BSD.
| Commercial manufacturers don't want to disclose the source for
| their modified version of firmware with all the value added
| integrations they provide (or just deal with it even if their
| fork doesn't have anything interesting).
| snapetom wrote:
| As someone who has always been curious about building one but
| haven't dove into it, I'd love detailed plans and a beginner-
| oriented tutorial. I'd be happy to donate/patreon to an effort.
| tsungxu wrote:
| Appreciate that! It's just a _lot_ more effort making long
| videos with the voiceover /clips/etc.
| tonyhart7 wrote:
| damn, I would like built this too
|
| hope I can build mine 3d printer lab first
| tsungxu wrote:
| You should do it!
| aaroninsf wrote:
| Congratulations this is really fantastic and quite inspiring!
| tsungxu wrote:
| Thank you!
| protocolture wrote:
| Have you released the BOM/STLs anywhere?
| tsungxu wrote:
| Still tba if/what I open source
| gaudystead wrote:
| Would love it if you do! Also, you might get additional ideas
| if you post to the 3D printing subreddit as well.
|
| Either way, nice work!
| tsungxu wrote:
| Thanks a bunch! Good point, might share there as well
| ImageDeeply wrote:
| Very cool. Very impressive. I hope it inspires other to build
| things they're passionate about. "You can just do things. And
| learn things." No need to wait for permission, or classwork (much
| less a degree), or a guide/teacher.
| tsungxu wrote:
| Thanks and yes I'm glad you say that. Would love to see it.
| It's hard to convey how much faster and better your work will
| be if you are actually passionate about it.
| normie3000 wrote:
| This is incredibly impressive. I'd love to hear more about what
| relevant skills & knowledge you started with, and how you worked
| out what you'd need to know to complete the project.
|
| How much customisation did you need to make to Ardupilot? Is your
| drone's control unique, or somehow standardised?
| stavros wrote:
| It doesn't look like it required any AP customization, AP will
| do VTOL out of the box.
| tsungxu wrote:
| Yes, one of the challenges though is airframe structural
| integrity when building it yourself. Need to have good enough
| understanding of multicopter and fixed wing plane design
| hadlock wrote:
| Ardupilot is very, very mature software. A lot of the drone
| video coming out of Ukraine, the HUD overlay is likely from
| Ardupilot. If you can think of it, Arduipilot supports it.
| Airplanes, helicopter, VTOL, speedboat, even sailboats.
| tonyarkles wrote:
| As someone who works with ArduPilot professionally, I have
| very mixed feelings about it. It's mature, definitely. It
| supports all kinds of vehicles, like you say. It's
| beautifully modular and supports a crapload of flight control
| and sensor hardware. And there are definitely pieces of it
| that are aggravating and exceptionally janky.
|
| The HUD overlay you're referring to is technically Mission
| Planner (GCS software), not ArduPilot (flight control
| software). Mission Planner and ArduPilot both talk Mavlink,
| and they're both developed by the same community. MP is
| flexible. You can set it up to do almost anything you'd ever
| want. It's also terrible and exceptionally janky... but
| extremely powerful. And they're both free.
|
| I think the problem with both of them is that they're good
| enough that there isn't likely to be a huge critical mass
| developing a better alternative. On the GCS side there is
| also QGroundControl and APM Planner 2 (which was a fork or
| reimplementation of Mission Planner). Both of them have their
| own upsides and downsides, but neither one of them is as
| mature or as powerful/flexible as Mission Planner. PX4 on the
| flight controller side is popular commercially because it's
| BSD-licensed instead of GPL, but the net result is that it
| has nowhere near as many features as ArduPilot because
| companies build proprietary features and don't push them back
| upstream.
|
| This stuff is definitely in the worse-is-better domain.
| ArduPilot is free, ArduPilot is amazing and ArduPilot sucks.
| :)
|
| Anyway, off to bed. I'm in a long test campaign right now and
| we've got to be up at 0430 to fly the ArduPilot-based
| aircraft again before the weather goes sideways.
| tsungxu wrote:
| Thanks! I'm using the standard Ardupilot control systems for
| hover, transition and cruise flight. On the firmware side, it's
| just some parameters and tuning that is customized.
|
| What I started with - Had built one VTOL before from foamboard,
| not 3D printed. - Familiar with Ardupilot from that project and
| assembling a multicopter and COTS VTOL. - So I had a little
| experience building a structurally sound airframe for VTOL
| loads, but 3D printing was a wrinkle. - How I worked it out is
| a hard question. But it was being focused with design, flight
| testing and troubleshooting. LLMs, Youtube, forums, etc for
| help when needed. - Building in public helped paradoxically. It
| actually saves me time to build in public because of the
| motivation boost that helps me move faster and to share
| progress sooner. Even though there's a higher lift to document
| and share.
| 3x3m3 wrote:
| How far can it be remote controlled?
| stavros wrote:
| If you use ELRS, probably 100ish km.
| tsungxu wrote:
| Yes it really depends on the transmitter protocol. I was using
| SBUS, simple, cheap, familiar from my previous project. But
| limited to < 1 mile or so I believe, but ELRS and other
| protocols allow tens of miles or more.
| Karliss wrote:
| Isn't SBUS receiver<->autopilot electrical/data protocol
| instead of transmitter<->receiver radio protocol?
| tsungxu wrote:
| Yes, you're right, I meant ACCST not SBUS
| mlsu wrote:
| This is the first I've heard of foaming PLA, definitely have to
| check that out.
|
| Did you do the whole airplane with a small printer like the A1 /
| A1 mini? I would love to print airfoils but I'm struggling to
| imagine a way to link individual prints together in a way that
| preserves stiffness. My 100cm wing would need 10x (10x10cm)
| printed parts somehow attached to one another.
|
| Until I figure this out it's foamboard building for the type of
| airplanes I want to build (glider)
| tsungxu wrote:
| A1, 256 x 256 mm lets me print these wings in four sections
| (including a double walled thin section for the boom mounts).
| With a high AR glider you'd probably need a few more. Carbon
| fiber spars + CA glue will do the trick for attaching them
| tonyarkles wrote:
| 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.
| tsungxu wrote:
| 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
| tonyarkles wrote:
| 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.
| michaelhoney wrote:
| Awesome work OP, great to see your journey.
| tsungxu wrote:
| Thank you!
| energywut wrote:
| 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
| continuously (unfortunately, even with a quad-charger, I cannot
| fully sustain this.)
|
| I would LOVE to have a fixed wing drone that could fly over the
| area and snap close-to-nadir photos as it did so, but the
| complexity of building and programming a hand built drone seems
| so much higher than deploying an off the shelf DJI drone.
| Additionally, the land is steep, with a 1,000+ foot elevation
| difference, and rugged, and the neighboring land is airspace I
| cannot fly within, so I couldn't use it to perform my turns.
|
| Author, or others, any thoughts on whether it's worth pursuing a
| fixed wing aircraft to perform this mapping mission? Or is the
| best bang for my buck to just buy enough batteries to fly the
| mission continuously on an off the shelf quadcopter?
| tsungxu wrote:
| Great question! I don't think there's any sub $5k VTOL you can
| just buy COTS that can get close to 3 hours of range. Also,
| nothing is as plug and play as DJI. If you're motivated enough
| to do a little DIY and learn how to use Ardupilot or PX4
| (easier), you can buy a kit like the Heewing T2 VTOL and
| assemble yourself. But I don't think that will do more than two
| hours flight time, even with a similarly high energy density
| battery pack to what I used.
| cyanydeez wrote:
| 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 flight planning using Mission Planning:
| https://ardupilot.org/planner/ and custom json tweaking
| following MavLink protocol:
| https://ardupilot.org/dev/docs/mavlink-routing-in-ardupilot....
|
| The open source flight controllers and systems are
| https://ardupilot.org/copter/docs/common-autopilots.html#ope...
| a good place to start. There's a few orgs building the full
| experience, but you'll of course pay for fully integrated, but
| still open source, hardware+software.
|
| The scenario you describe is exactly what a VTOL or normal play
| is for; quad copters simply do not cover enough ground.
|
| Also consider the camera. DJI typically ship with really low
| quality cameras, but
| https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1785754-REG/sony_ilx_...
| would get you a much higher pixel density so if you're more
| interested in the imaging, you can flight higher, near the
| licensed ceiling, completing more ground faster.
|
| I've also found AI models know how to calculate pixel
| densities, so it's pretty easy to mock out a flight plan even
| if you dont have the actual drone available.
| cyanydeez wrote:
| for processing, I setup opendronemap:
| https://www.opendronemap.org/
|
| There really is a full open source hardware/software path,
| which is heartening.
| tsungxu wrote:
| This actually has decent flight time! Could probably push
| close to 3 hours if using higher energy density (and cost)
| battery cells like the silicon anode ones I used.
| LargoLasskhyfv wrote:
| 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)
| cyanydeez wrote:
| If you use ground control points, GPS accuracy isnt a bog
| deal, but im willing to bet the standard GPS puck still
| gets better.
|
| I dont know much about the weights involved, but hardware
| surgery was not interesting to me.
|
| Keepbin mind tge guys starting at DJI and youre proposing
| stripping dowm a camera
| digdugdirk wrote:
| 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?
| bagels wrote:
| Instead of one drone, buy 10, and send them out in parallel,
| and charge them all simultaneously.
| psadri wrote:
| Horizontal scaling. I love this out of the box thinking.
| energywut wrote:
| The FAA does not permit this, by default. You are allowed to
| remote pilot in command one drone at a time. I could apply
| for an FAA waiver (I have one to fly beyond VLOS). I've
| genuinely considered doing so, but I don't know how I could
| convince the FAA that I could safely monitor multiple drones
| simultaneously.
| Baeocystin wrote:
| 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.
| nathan_f77 wrote:
| You could look into paying a satellite imagery company to take
| the photos: https://skyfi.com/en/pricing
| energywut wrote:
| The thing this doesn't do well, as far as I'm aware, is
| provide SFM data that can generate heightmaps or point
| clouds. Maybe I'm wrong!
| froj wrote:
| I think this fixed wing drone
| https://ageagle.com/drones/ebee-x/ would fit your usecase.
| arijun wrote:
| How much is it? The pricing section is blank for me
| hhh wrote:
| Like $20k.
| energywut wrote:
| This is the challenge. I spent <$2k on my setup.
| Daviey wrote:
| 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.
| aa-jv wrote:
| 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...
| tsungxu wrote:
| Aesthetics follows function in this case. And agreed VTOL is
| not beneficial at hobbyist scale for most because of the ease
| and short distances required to hand/runway launch and land
| an RC plane
| yapyap wrote:
| How often do you need to do this mapping? if it's every day it
| would definitely be worth it to look for another solution, if
| it's every 6 months or so this seems tedious but doable.
| energywut wrote:
| I map quarterly! I just deal with it for now. :D
| abrbhat wrote:
| 200 acres should not take 4 hours. It should be coverable
| within 20-25 minutes with 75-65 overlap, flying height 120m
| with something like Mavic 3 getting a GSD of 3.5cm/px. Look at
| optimizing your flight overlaps and height.
| lazide wrote:
| It depends a lot on the terrain type - highly repetitive
| terrain requires higher overlap. It does sound like they have
| some broken setting somewhere though.
| energywut wrote:
| It's heavily pine forested mountain areas. With a 65-75%
| overlap, the SFM algorithms struggle to produce sufficient
| details. Additionally, because of the verticality of the
| terrain and very tall pine trees there's a need to have
| multiple angles to generate a good orthophoto. So the grid
| is denser than other environments for a reason. I'm
| continuously updating my flight plan based on the results
| generated -- squeezing density up/down based on observed
| results.
|
| The 4 hours is an overestimate, it's probably genuinely
| closer to 3 hours flight time.
| lazide wrote:
| I have a similar situation with a smaller plot of
| timberland. Sometimes even with 90% overlap it can't
| stitch. I get your pain.
| yard2010 wrote:
| If you want and have time you can enter the world of FPV,
| building a drone yourself. You can change the frame, motors,
| ESCs, controllers etc. You have much more control compared to
| what you have with a DJI. It's very rewarding, too. But it
| takes time so it might not be the economic option.
| debbiedowner wrote:
| Better camera on the drone to fly faster and higher.
| energywut wrote:
| I am limited in height I can fly by the FAA (400 feet AGL).
| thedays wrote:
| Nice work! This is very impressive and you've shown real
| resilience and perseverance to work through the challenges you
| encountered while building this.
| tsungxu wrote:
| Thank you, appreciate that!
| cwmoore wrote:
| """ 'A century ago, you needed at least a brother and a bicycle
| shop to pioneer flight. Today, you just need the right
| toolchain...'
|
| Incredibly humbling! """
|
| The imagination to reality loop is most rapidly well-tuned for
| categories that exist.
| mystraline wrote:
| Happen to have the BoM and the 3d parts available in a repo?
|
| Would love to try my hand at reproducing the work you did!
| tamimio wrote:
| 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?
| tsungxu wrote:
| Thanks! On the normal jobs point though, see Peter Ryseck's
| build which got him hired by Joby
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd2N_lyO_SQ
| atemerev wrote:
| 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.
| guiolmar wrote:
| Nice work! It's incredible, it looks super robust.
| tsungxu wrote:
| Thanks! Not robust exactly because the filament I used is has
| really poor impact and UV resistance. But that's the tradeoff
| with lightweighting
| throw14082020 wrote:
| Ardupilot is really cool, and a lot of people use Mission Planner
| with it. What do people think of Mission Planner, and are there
| any other software options people enjoy using?
|
| https://ardupilot.org/planner/ - the website seems down right now
| though.
| aesbetic wrote:
| Mission Planner is an alright GCS but awful for configuration.
| Use this instead
| https://github.com/ArduPilot/MethodicConfigurator.
|
| And if you're looking for other ground controls, you could try
| out QGroundControl or Mavproxy (terminal based).
| tsungxu wrote:
| This is neat! It seems like it could help with set up speed
| generally and also simplicity for beginners
| jojohohanon wrote:
| I'm curious about the control surfaces. Since you have the four
| quadcopter motors, you could potentially just induce all three of
| yaw pitch and roll by powering those up.
|
| I wonder if the reduction in weight from the now unneeded servos
| would pay for the extra battery drain.
| kulhur wrote:
| How would you get yaw?
| jojohohanon wrote:
| Same way you get it in a quadcopter. You increase rpm in the
| (say) clockwise rotating props and decrease it in the counter
| clockwise rotors.
|
| Net effect is yaw counter clockwise, but zero net change in
| lift.
| tsungxu wrote:
| Great question, but spinning lifting motors in cruise draws
| more power than it's worth for efficiency.
|
| There's ways to use differential thrust for multiple cruise
| motors to roll if not positioned at spanwise Cg (e.g. wing
| mounted like in a commercial jet), but again, usually not
| efficient. Servos are a small mass fraction relative to other
| components.
| 93po wrote:
| Love this! This is what HN is for.
| tsungxu wrote:
| Thanks, really appreciate that
| rytis wrote:
| For anyone not familiar with acronyms (like me), VTOL stands for
| "Vertical Take-Off and Landing".
| rpigab wrote:
| Funny nitpick, this definition applies to most drones, because
| most drones sold are x-copters and do not have wings, they
| always take-off and land vertically.
|
| This should be "a 3D printed winged VTOL drone"
| tsungxu wrote:
| Yeah it's a strange term because it probably originated
| relative to fixed wing planes. Ie a VTOL plane. But now
| multicopters are the predominant species so VTOL can sound
| redundant to most drone builders today.
| NoSalt wrote:
| OP is now on the FBI watch list.
| ideashower wrote:
| What's the weight on the batteries alone?
| joshua_yang wrote:
| Can we have a followup video testing the 130 mile range, or
| optimizing it? I would like to see the limits this could push
| dsrtslnd23 wrote:
| what caught my eye are the SOTA battery cells used (Amprius SA08)
| - with pack costs of USD 1300. As you can see here:
| https://www.batemo.com/products/batemo-cell-explorer/?mode=n... -
| this is by far the best gravimetric energy density on the market.
| xnx wrote:
| Very impressive. How important are control surfaces with a
| multimotor design?
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