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Tiny Clever Quadrotors Now on Kickstarter
- Baliw 14y agoI was expecting this to link to Kickstarted, not some blog. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/qfolabs/mimixtm-tilt-to-fly-controller-and-nanoqtm-copter http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/qfolabs/mimixtm-tilt-to-...
- R_Edward 14y agoSaw John demo one of these a couple weeks ago at my FIRST Robotics club. Cool product, but man, I wish the battery lasted longer than 10 minutes per charge. Also, it would be amazing if the IR dogfighting system included lasers to paint where the shots were landing, so you could visually adjust your aim. Gonna have to sign up for a sponsorship.
- quinndupont 14y agoAll small rotocopters only get about 10 minutes per charge. My cheap and tiny Ladybird gets about 8 mins. They charge quickly though.
- dchuk 14y agoisn't 10 minutes pretty standard for electric RC copters/planes? I don't think there's a battery that can last longer than that without being insanely expensive.
- Someone 14y agoI think weight is more the driving factor than cost.
- starpilot 14y agoYeah, this is the issue with electric aircraft. Fossil fuels are still much more energy dense than batteries (40 MJ/kg vs 2 MJ/kg [1]), plus burning fuel provides a nice weight reduction which increases range [2]. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density#Common_energy_densities http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density#Common_energy_de... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Range_(aircraft) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Range_(aircraft)
- gojomo 14y agoAre tiny combustion engines practical for RC aircraft?
- wmf 14y agoNot indoors, but most RC planes are using engines (or were 15 years ago when I stopped paying attention).
- bigiain 14y agoIf you're curious, it'll be enlightening to pay some attention to modern RC aircraft. Lipo batteries and inexpensive brushless motor controllers have changed the hobby dramatically since the '90s. Fuel powered RC aircraft are definitely no longer the majority.
- pyre 14y ago
- motters 14y agoI don't see how inverting the props is necessarily any more efficient.
- nathannecro 14y agoFrom the Kickstarter: "Why are your props upside down? The inverted props give an efficiency gain proportional to the amount of obstacles in the air column. We've found it varied between 10-20% depending on the frame and protection ring design. The inverted props also let us put the props right in the middle of the center of gravity for awesome control response. Even better, with the props on the bottom they keep spinning when you run up against the ceiling making flying indoors a breeze."
- sebbi 14y agoNo arms in downwash, closer together (when all copter electronic parts are on the topside of the frame) ... plus you might be more likely to hit the ceiling indoors than the floor.
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- marshallp 14y agoThere's some chinese comp selling $130 quadcops, linked to from diydrones
- quinndupont 14y agoYou can get small quadopters for $50, with control and everything. Look on banggood.com (they are lots of fun and worth the price)
- theevocater 14y agoGetting "Service Unavailable - DNS failure" from IEEE site. Did HN really just stomp spectrum? Maybe mods could change to link directly to kickstarter instead? http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/qfolabs/mimixtm-tilt-to-fly-controller-and-nanoqtm-copter http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/qfolabs/mimixtm-tilt-to-... EDIT working again
- joshuarrrr 14y agoThe IEEE's datacenter in New Jersey has been without power for days and eventually ran out of generator fuel. There were some intermittent DNS issues after Spectrum moved to backup servers in Arizona. I've been told they're resolved now.
- tomkinstinch 14y agoI'm glad to see they included $37k in the Kickstarter budget for regulatory certifications (CE, FCC, UL, etc.). Many hardware projects on Kickstarter include no mention of it, and it's a pricey thing to skip.