Quadcopter, decisions decisions...

Hello everybody,

Forgive me if the information is already out there, well... the information IS out there but its a near impossible task for the human mind of a newbie (such as myself) to be able to piece it all together. The actual terminology of everything is a task in its own!

Anyhow, id like to build a quadcopter. Should it be big/small, heavy/light, fast/slow, efficient/inefficient... the list goes on, it seems that to know the answer to these questions, you would have to know the weight of everything, how much power it uses, etc.

So, i have decided, that out of all the variables, i would like my quadcopter to be able to fly 1.2miles, take a photo or video, turn around and then fly back.

Time = Distance/Speed;

I know the distance is around 3 miles, however, i don't know how fast these things go, therfore i can't figure out how efficient it needs to be for the battery to last.

Im not looking for someone to suggest a particular setup for me, (although it would be helpful) but rather am looking for someone to teach me how to be able to figure this out on my own.

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Permalink Reply by Ruwan on February 2, 2012 at 10:25pm

Well, do you think a quad could do the entire 3 mile flight below 20min (average time, I've seen a quad flying time in the forum)? I honestly don't know, may be someone more experienced could give an insight on this..

regards,

Ruwan. 

Permalink Reply by Michael on February 4, 2012 at 6:40am

If it could fly at 12mph, it would do the journey in 15minutes. However, i cannot figure out how to work out groundspeed of these things. When it moves forward, i assume the two rear motors speed up, so then it would tilt forward, but how does it know how far to tilt before stalling or flipping? Does it maintain the same altitude?

Permalink Reply by Richard Neville on February 5, 2012 at 1:44pm

I am designing my first quad also, so I don't know that much but I'll try. There should be a way to log ground speed using the gps, but it depends on your setup. It knows how far to tilt due to either gyro or accelerometer (not sure which).And If you use the ArduPilot then you can tell it to hold altitude.

Hope I helped even if just a little.

Richard 

Permalink Reply by Dave on February 6, 2012 at 5:59am

You might be coming at the design from the wrong direction.

One of the important things you've said is that the quad must carry a load - your camera of choice and any associated gear (e.g. transmitter for FPV).  So, size and weight of that needs to be considered.

Of your criteria, you should build big enough for your load, light (consistent with strength / crash resistance) and efficient. 

The maximum range is really up to battery capacity.  The faster you go, the more battery power will be used but the quicker you'll get there.

For example, my home-made Tricopter (which is nothing special) does a guesstimated 60 kph max.  With the 3S 2450mAh battery, it would have a max flight time of about 5 mins at full forward, if I had the space / FPV to do that.  That works out to a max range of about 5 km - close enough to 3 miles.

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