RC Solar Plane Flight Duration Test
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- čas přidán 21. 08. 2020
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Working as an engineer in a experimental solar technology department in Vilnius (Lithuania). I have full access to excess amounts of bifacial monocrystalline cells (152x152mm at 23%efficiency), regular polycrystalline cells (152x152mm at 16%efficiency) as well as solar film. It's efficiency is low at just 12%, but it barely weights anything, is sturdy to mechanical forces and is flexible (you can cover all the surfaces with it). Solar film is something me and my team are working hard on right now, I'd be happy to offer you all the extra we're expeced to have soon during launch of mass production. Have a great day!
When will the solar film go on sale?
Where can i buy your products?
@@natekwezi9242 Solar film is expected to be introduced by Valoe (that's us) in late 2021. But it's sketchy to predict anything for sure, so I'd stick to being pessimistic (realistic) if I were you.
@@michaelwithington5934 SoliTek cells (Vilnius) for bifacial monocrystalline and/or poly-cells. Film cells are currently on 2nd stage of process of launching manufacturing.
@@ParaglidingManiac Well I'll be very interested in these whenever they come out, I'm currently working on solar powered drones in my university, anyway to reduce the weight would helpful
home surveilance drone, each morning at 9am have it autonomously shoot out and circle your house with a continuously streaming camera feed all day, until night where it lands and waits for morning
lol DeSinc here :D
or you could just buy 4 cameras on the ground, with smaller solar panels, that don't need any maintenence. But having a plane circling your house sounds cooler.
Thas exactly what I was thinking. Fck who needs simpli safe when you got this drone circling your property sending you a live feed all day long
@marietto2008 if you hide them they won't be.
I don't see this being more effective than normal security cameras, but it sounds much cooler, so i think it's a great idea.
Also can't wait to see what you do with HL Alyx
As an aerospace engineer, most of what you said is actually pretty accurate. Reducing your aspect ratio will lead to more induced drag contributing to your drag coefficient, and as you go faster, "skin friction" drag increases with the square of velocity. At low speeds, the induced drag matters a lot because you need a relatively high angle of attack to maintain sufficient lift. As you speed up, your induced drag still exists, but the skin friction drag matters more because it is related to the square of velocity (a third component you did not mention was pressure drag, which also increases with the square of velocity, but since you have a pretty small cross-sectional area going into the wind, it should only be a small component of the drag). I think if you added some winglets, you could bring the induced drag you have down considerably and get a much more efficient plane. But sill, a very cool plane anyways. I'd love to see what else you make.
Ok teacher
Yes something like that
where can i read up more about what you just said?
Ate you a Brazilian??
@@urmum8540 ur mum's
So proud to see young folks with these amazing projects. The future is in good hands!
you must have been hit on the head as a child.....................................................................
Le* Author " I am no aerospace engineer" 5 mins later.... Discussing plots of every type of drag and AR for wing and structural airframe trade-offs. Classic rctestflight
Yeah, and he did discuss the plots like a not aerospace engineer indeed
Back in the day no-one was an aerospace engineer and no one plotted shit, there was no software, there wasn't even equations. It was all by feel.
@@whatilearnttoday5295 you don't need to get an engineering degree to become an engineer...
All you need is curiosity...💯
@@arshaqek1475 Until someone dies.
I'm not an engineer but
You need to do a long range flight with one of those !!!!!!
yea, like around an island or something!!
I was thinking the same thing!! Straight-line range test into the wind and back. I'd love to see a test with 3/4G mobile link if that was possible. I think a range test would allow people to imagine the power of this thing better
Josh Mutch yeah that’s excactly what I was thinking! Have you seen those parrot mambo planes I think that are modified with lte and do like 50km flights this would be so cool
Answer for long range feed
4G signal
@@anatoleh1 I was think around the world but whatever
"This is very dangerous"
@
Kicks swollen battery yelling "blow up already"
Tell me he picked it up and disposed of it properly after lobbing it across the field maan!
Nah, I'm sure he just left it in the field for the farmers mower to find it... If coarse he would have picked it up, this young fella is pretty good when it comes to the environment. He always picks up his crap, even other people's crap.
rctestflight : "I'll be glad if I never have to fly a plane for 9 hours straight ever again, it's not a great use of your time."
MS Flight Simulator player : "I don't get it..."
14:40 "You'll probably need to be streaming in HD"
Me: How dare you underestimate my neighbor's wifi.
🤣🤣🤣🤣
Stolen comment
It’s true. I think I actually use my naighbors wifi, and if I do it’s super good.
I was streaming in HD, but on my phone... Saw it on the left side just briefly.
@@slate1496 @Borko Could you be more specific? am I stole this comment from another comment on this video? No. Am I stole this from a random meme on the internet? you might be right, I use this meme template, to accurately describe my current situation for entertaining purposes, if you really think about it, everything is stolen, nothing original anymore, for example, your comment "stolen comment" I am sure there is another person already write that exact same thing down in the past, in another word are you stealing his/her comment? one last thing, Did you stole your profile picture from Tigen's Art on Tumblr without his permission? source from tigen.tumblr.com/image/179728069273 ?
In the footage from directly above the field you can not only see the solar plane, but also the solar rover and the figure 8 it made in the grass. :D
Well spotted!
Thanks Daniel. I really love being able to tag along and vicariously have these RC adventures (even though they're probably way more boring while you're filming them!)!
Thanks for the safe battery disposal tips
Brb gonna charge my battery
*flies plane *
Lmao
OMG a new solar plane video. YAAAY!!!!
I too share your enthusiasm
nealynealster I too share your enthusiasm
Bernal Boi I too share your enthusiasm
Irpan kalzz I too share your enthusiasm
Ghost I too share your enthousiasm
Each time I watch your videos, I remember when I was a young teen in the late 90's early 2000's, I was practicing RC planes piloting as a hobby (I should say as a religion lol). With my friends we were tinkering and building amateur RC planes with scrap and propelled them with small 2-strokes engines, sometimes RC engines, sometimes stolen from strimmers or little chain saws XD. There were no GPS modules, nor there was any sort of gyro stab or even more any fps cam, wifi, or whatever. Flying a RC plane truly was a pain in the butt in those times.
Amazing to see how far we've come from this era, with all the auto pilots, auto-stabilized drones, electronics modules, electric engines and all. This always amazes me.
Nice video dude, i've been highly impressed by such experiment of yours. Just recently planned to create and mount a solar powered water heating system for my summer shower (for any cloudy days), but for some reason i cannot engineer it. Those projects and channels like your seriously inspires people around the world such like me to learn a lot of new things. Good luck with this cute plane.
Those panels are a really nice shade of blue
@Pet your cats Yikes, talk about deduction.
"I'm glad I won't have to fly a plane 9 hours straight ever again. Not a great use of your time." *Flight simulator 2020 exists*
This would be reallt good fir search and rescue in the mountains
@@burntchickennugget191 mountain winds thi
@@CarlosAM1 true but if the craft if large enough and slippery you could do it. Its not impossible.
@@burntchickennugget191 yeah but still, gotta be careful
What a compelling use case for solar power. Seeing it replenish its own power constantly while in the air was simply magical.
thanks for the videos Daniel. Always enjoy your ideas and your thought process. So much information and easy to understand and follow.
Hey Daniel, you should take a look on an "Active Balancer Board". It's a little and lightweight PCB that you can attach to a battery pack and it'll balance the cells automatically and more efficiently than a regular BMS. The BMS burns the excess of energy from the cells while the active balancer transfers the excess to the other cells.
Also, you should be careful with the BMS because it will actually CUT THE POWER OFF when you overcharge and overdischarge the battery, which is not good when the battery is required to fly. What you need is a switch to disconnect the solar panels manually in the case of MPPT charger is not doing it's job.
Your project is great, keep it up! You can do an "infinite flyer" for sure. That's the next step.
You connect the solar panel wires to the charger input. When battery is full, bms disconnects the charger(solar). After some time when battery goes below threshold starts charging (solar).
I think he has the chops to tackle that type of (very cool project) but as no one is bankrolling him) he has speculated that the cost (time money) is just too high.
Nice, hadn't heard of the active balancer.
I'm using a BMS for the next flight, but bypassing it for discharge (ESC wired directly into the battery but the solar power passes through the BMS to prevent overcharging)
An active balancing board sounds like an unnecessary optimization. His problem isn't balancing, its overvoltage, and while he should have some basic protection, the real problem lies in the rest of the power management system, because the charger should never overcharge the battery in the first place.
Tech Obsessed an active balance board weights 20 grams and costs 10 bucks... There's no reason to not use it.
I'm not in the hobby but really love watching your videos for the iterative design and engineering involved. Thanks for making cool shit and putting it on the internet for the rest of us to enjoy!
Did you try rc plane use rain
I have zero RC experience but I am fascinated by your solar and autopilot videos. It'd be really neat to see as a next step in a series like this to have a plane fly around all day and have a camera track you as you move around. The applications for this could be for something like hands-free aerial footage of you dirtbiking or even playing airsoft if you could get it to stream the video to an Ipad. Whatever you choose to do, I guarantee I'll continue to watch it bc I love your content!
I keep watching this over and over. I love it
Genuinely my favorite project on CZcams. Keep it up man, it's super interesting seeing the progress
The solar plane series is great, really enjoyed the sketches and explanations! :-)
Love the in-flight commercial.
Love the solar plane serries, been following this progression for a while now.
DUDE that super high birdseye shot was my favorite! such a cool perspective.
Daniel, really like how you’ve done your homework here. Understanding that increasing the AR of a plane with constant weight, does not in all cases reduce induced drag is a key part of understand the total drag equation. I agree with your theory, although I would love to see the same aircraft (same weight and planform thus same wing-loading), with a larger span to see the increase in performance. I think you are on par with the average aerospace engineer. Good luck!
I just found my new FAVORITE channel! Usually it takes several videos for me to say that but this was enough to hook me!
Great video as usual, I'm always looking forward to the next solar plane vid!
Fun, engaging and super-interesting technical topic - as usual! 😁 Really appreciate sharing your *hours* in the field.
This is awesome! Ive been watching your channel since the OG days years ago!
That is SOME KINDA AWSOME!!! Well done, and kudos on the patience and endurance...you AND the plane. I experiment with new solar stuff, also. I'd be interested in the new solar film, mentioned by the OEM in comments. Keep flyin' (and keep yer girders up ...engineering talk). All the best...great vid !!!
I actually back spaced to like this video, love this kind of research, brilliant.
Dude. Make a kit. Id buy it!
I'd buy 2!
He must!!!
I would buy it too
"I'll take your entire stock"
Me too
The video I've been waiting for ALL SUMMER
Love your videos keep up doing them! And this video was uploaded on my birthday
id love to spend a day learning with someone like you this is an awesome video
Uses for this technology keep popping into my head.
A small, quiet drone with huge loiter times. Intelligent enough for it to fly a course without human input. Be it to reach a point & circle or fly point to point.
Fascinating video.
Fast to a new rctestflight vid nice!
Nice work, over the years. Nicely done.
Thats mental !! I didnt even knew it was possible.
The wing is very reminiscent of the B2 bomber wing... add a bit more span for more cells and lift...
Solar B2
The biggest Problem with HAPS (High Altitude Pseude Satelite) is the fact, that they fly really high (~20km). So the air is really thin which affects the lift generation and propulsion, hence the need for multiple propellers. This means those planes operate at quite a high lift coefficent resulting in a lot of induced draig. The only way to lower this drag is to have a long slim wing. As they are as light as possible, these planes are really elastic and can only safely operate in these hights where there's almost no wheater. A few were ripped apparat during ascent when they hit some turbulence (NASA Hale and Zephyr).
I do not agree around 6:06, you increase your induced drag dramatically because your aspect ratio is lower. Also i think the graph you showed only applies for one plane. If the same plane flies faster, it has to operate at a lower lift coefficient and thus decreases induced drag.
But i come to the same conclusion. Your plane workes well because it flies during the day. There it is more important to have enough surface area to power the propulsion. It can thrust through the increased drag.
But anyways, thanks for those cool videos. I love to watch them.
NASA's Helios was the solar flying wing that broke up from weather / turbulence, for those interested to read more.
Excellent
With my understanding, (At 6:06) if the aspect ratio is reduced, and the weight of the aircraft and airspeed is unchanged, then the lift-induced drag should stay the same. The wing will be producing the same amount of lift, so the lift-induced drag is not effected. Only the parasitic drag changes
@@rctestflightIf you look at a wing, you have lower pressure on the top and higher pressure on the bottom. This pressure difference will try to equalize at the wing tip and forms the so call tip vortice. This is induced drag. If you had an indefinetly long wing, you had no induced drag.
If you compare 2 wings with the same area, the wing with a lower aspect ratio will have a bigger vortice and thus have a higher induced drag. Here you can read more: www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k-12/airplane/induced.html#:~:text=This%20additional%20force%20is%20called,the%20lift%20of%20the%20wing.
I am not sure what happens to the parasitic drag though. I think it will stay the same (more or less).
@@SandFl0h What you're saying is true if you reduce the aspect ratio but maintain the same wing area (by decreasing the wing span). In my example, the aspect ratio is reduced but the wing area is doubled. This results in a lower angle of attack and the pressure difference on the top and bottom of the wing stays the same. The wing is doing the same amount of lifting work, and therefore has the same amount of lift-induced drag.
If the wing chord is doubled, the parasitic drag quadruples
I used to work at a thin film solar company where our primary target market was aerospace applications. Happy to talk with you about the concepts and how things work on large scale aircraft too. Conversation efficiency and packing factor becomes a big deal in relation to the design space.
What are the sizes that is available and how much does it cost?
@@Asa27-bd9lh that company closed years ago due to the Chinese owners defraud the employees.
Well done mate. You made a working 100% eco friendly day plane. 🥳
Could you also mount solar panels on the bottom of the wings to capture any reflected light from the ground (clouds for higher flying planes)? It would be interesting to see the effects over various surfaces and at various heights.
7:14 oh cool a 747 dreamlifter! Lucky
great video glad youre still working hard on this project
Very cool. Super impressive. Experiments like these lead to awesome future inventions.
Great project, to my eye your wing is actually more of a delta wing which has a different aerodynamic characteristic relying on creating vortices to achieve lift rather than traditional wings where long slender is better as you mentioned
I've had your issue with the Genasun. They explained it quite complexly...
It's more like this, the genasun is just a boost converter, which means when the battery is full, the mppt can still overcharge your battery is the voltage from your cells is higher than the battery voltage. It does not have an extra switch to enable overvoltage cutoff on the output.
On Ali there is an mppt based on the lt8490, that is a feature-rich chippy with buckboost power stage, way more safe.
Still get a bms though! :)
The Genasun I'm using here is the buck version, not the GV Boost.
Do you know of any good setup tutorials for the
@@rctestflight oh really! Damn then they really don't have their stuff in order 😳 maybe also go for a 3.9V/cell instead of 4.2xcellcount. The Ali lt8490 unfortunately has little to no documentation. If you are willing to spend a little bit more get the DC2069A dev module, that will have a full manual for you to set it up. It is only set for a 12V lead acid cell, you'll have to change an smd resistor somewhere. It's not easy sorry... 😅
Wow, very cool--I'm interested in seeing what comes of it!
We need a V5. All in!
7:25 what the...
same.
Maybe tmi.
@Pandacat 666 Ikr, it's so Mad Max :D
Subaru Withoutback 😂
Great job showing how possible this is
Race The Sun vibes... loving the concept!
Great video ! Since you're overcharging the battery you should test how high you can fly it by using the excess power to gain altitude !
Great idea, may as well burn that excess energy hard :)
You should send it on a super-long long-distance waypoint mission next.
I was just thinking that. Could probably make it 100-200 miles in a day
It would make a great competition, like the 24 hours of Le Mans race. Each team would compete to travel a 1000 mile course or something. That'd be awesome!
Went as we expected. Nice
Nice shot of the dreamlifter!
5:20 depending on where the plane works and how fast it can travel, it could maintain itself in an area of the planet that has more sunlight hours per day, like stayint in northern hemisphere in summer then southern hemisphere in summer
I’m wondering about the quad-copter designs that can go vertical for fixed wing. Could it land at night on its own and take off the next day for a long range trip.
"Oh you just wait, past Daniel" hahahaha
BTW, good videos, ty. I enjoy seeing how you work through problems based upon you initial question(s) and actual testing regarding RC’s. On the topic of AE design efficiency, ... if the outer layers of the wings were constructed of a translucent material enabling and aerodynamically efficient built-in-curve, then the airflow disruption by the solar cell structures problem is negated.
yes, arduplane sets home position at arming location. if you want it somewhere else, you must tell it, or re-write the auto mission and select Yes to load set home coordinates
10:15 "The compass didn't seem to be working" Daniel, you know how it says "Bad Compass health" on the screen there? Yeah, it shouldn't be saying that while you're flying...😂😆
Really cool plane though. Impressive that it flies the entire day.
Awesome aircraft. Being an Aerospace Engineer, I'd suggest a high aspect ratio wing but a straight wing configuration. Since this aircraft is travelling at low speeds, swept back won't generate as much lift as a straight wing would at same speeds. Also, swept back wings are generally used for aircraft that travel at higher speeds e.g passenger airliners. This is because at such speeds (mach 0.8), airflow over the wing surface easily accelerates to mach 1 (speed of sound) forming shockwaves. Therefore if you want to increase the efficiency of this aircraft model, go for a straight wing and if you really care about the induced drag throw in some winglets👍🏽
A flying wing like this one needs a swept wing so it can be stable. The rear part of the wing acts as the "tail" and the front acts as the "wing".
for the wider thinner concept, you could make the wings foldable and detachable using keying or hinges. combine the panels using a branched quick connector . maybe also shield those wires around the compass or use already properly shielded wires that would cross that compass.
most enjoyable - thanks for sharing.
Can thermals be "generated" with a dark tarp, or some surface like dark pavement?
The surface would need to be very large to affect an RC plane. The effect of something like a tarp would only be noticeable a short distance above it and would soon dissipate. To have a large, coherent, updraft you need something huge like a parking lot or a field.
@@matthewforan6397 Can a "blacktop" parking lot, and some nearby trees/non-blacktop area work? That or street, then non-street?
@@ericlotze7724 Sure. It just depends on the size of things and how high up you want to fly. You need a large enough ground area that the updraft will not be completely dissipated at the altitude you want to fly. On the other hand, if the ground area is too large it will probably become unstable and split into multiple smaller drafts. It depends a lot on your local geography and weather conditions. A good trick is to watch for birds soaring on the thermals. Large ones like hawks and vultures love to fly circular patterns over good thermals so they don't have to work hard while they're searching for prey. These birds will reveal the best places and weather conditions to catch a solid updraft.
@@ericlotze7724 pretty sure i remember my glider instructor talking about how he could usually feel bits of lift coming from large parking lots, so yes
Next flight....9 hours in one direction following in the car!
REALLY impressive! Good job!
You know what?, I watched this whole video. I enjoyed it, thank you for sharing
After a year of your every RC project its weight increase.....
Because of hot glue😂😂
Dang... If only I could get flexible solar paneling (solar fabric?) for my paramotor... Could run the wires from the glider through the carabiners! One day.
hi nice singer
Only four likes for 4.4 million followers. Sorry man
Solar efficiency is gonna have to come a long way for that, but an explicitly solar-powered human aircraft would be so awesome
Oh hell yes I've been waiting for this video!!
Nice video shot, well done, thank you for sharing it with us :)
That lipo gave me anxiety
I was wondering if there are any auto-thermal estimating/route planning software. ie automated use of thermals?
The biggest problem with auto thermals is that the best way to find them is visually. Thermals are primarily under clouds a moving visual target.
Ridge lift can be guessed at via terrain maps but is less useful up high where ideally a long duration solar plane wants to spend its time.
@@nocare Yeah i was thinking that would be the hardest part. Also does weather predictions/solar irradence + temp locally help data wise?
@@ericlotze7724 Well temp isnt so much of a concern as temp gradients. The problem with open air thermals is they are weak as the cooling effect is only due to altitude gain of the air.
If you don't care then staying low and over dark colored ground slightly down wind will always produce thermal lift. Thus circling over a spot down wind of a good thermal sight will let you soar all day on them. Assuming your plane is light enough to work on such thermals.
Still needs a bit of human planning and the code isnt quite already written but it wouldn't be hard.
If you are thermalling in order to gain altitude and lower batt consumption with the goal of using the extra altitude for a night flight then they need to be strong enough to help lift you thousands of feet in the air. Only cloud thermals will do that reliably.
@@nocare Another dumb question; can FLIR help, or no?
@@ericlotze7724 Yes im sure a good FLIR could I cant say for sure.
The bigger problem would be getting a computer to recognize what it needs from the imagery to fly to a proper location.
Thermal imagery is generally very short range without heavy and expensive magnification systems.
Great work love your videos!
i like how many of these videos there are where the rover is just simply vibing
Could you build an "auto thermaling device" for sailplanes? I think this would be super awesome :D
its called ardupilot
Ardusoar is already in the code so he could do that.
loved the sponsor skits XD
Perfect for a Farmer to monitor their fields from their mobile phone. Obviously only on good days but who knows as the system progresses it could offer night time security as well. Love it.
Cool plane mate. Very nice.
Could be fun with mobile internet on-board, fly all day anywhere there's cell signal.
All the 'telemetry' that he gets back from the plane could be saved on a micro SD card, and the plane already has some kind of autonomous control. It seems to me that it wouldn't need a cell phone link at all. There is also LoRaWan that can communicate over long distances line of sight.
Let it fly at/with the sun and see how far it can go
"At the Equator, under flat conditions (without obstructions like mountains), the Terminator Line moves at approximately 463 m/s." or 1030mph
@@gewizz2 Time to make a supersonic solar plane then.
That basically the inverse of the story of "Into the night "
So I'm watching this video for like the third time after 2 years, and what you said at 7:00 just made me realize you make a great point. I should totally build one of these.
I love that quick outro. :'D
Try some long range bombing runs on north Korea and launch from south Korea, just an idea🤷♂️
You made me want a simple safe just because of your ad for it
Thanks ! ! I enjoy learning from your productions. '73 Bob
THX for the wind protection. I love to see it :-)
There is nothing more annoying as the wind messing up a whole video
Great experimentation!
Excellent work. I think you can have a high aspect ratio wing with a low complexity only if you fan fit sufficiently slim batteries along the wing to avoid concentrated mass. That way there won't be a central mass to be supported by the wing. This would probably be simpler on a larger model where you could have a thicker wing.
FAB, Congratulations!!!
Wow, Big thanks for this video! specially the 14:46 view, it'S insane. Keep your good work!
I'll buy one of these for sure