Onboard power generator...

[sausageroll]

Was gonna stick this in the batteries and chargers bit, then realised, its nothing to do with either...

Was doing pyro at the weekend, and was talking to a friend of mine about the quad and the short battery run times it has at the moment. Hes an engineer of all kinds, and he said 'You could make a little glow engine powered generator'

I wonder....

My quad would need max 80amps at 12v. Im guessing thats gonna need a reasonable size engine and generator to make that power, then theres fuel, a chassis to hold it together, plus a battery as backup. Im wondering if the ammount of power it could have would be worth it, as it could potentially hover for hours, depending how much fuel you could fit on it.

Then I thought, what about a turboshaft? They used to use turboshaft engines in trains to generate electric power (turboelectric) and GE make turbine powered shipping container generators that are very efficient. Turbines are nice and light too, and theres a few on the market that are engineered to fly.

Its also possible with a lipo on board, (or one of those bike batteries I mentioned) you could have the generator outputting normal running power of about 40 amps in my case, then the battery can cover those moments when your climbing fast and need the extra current. The battery could then recharge whilst its still on the quad. With this, its quite possible (im assuming/guessing) to produce this current reliably with a turbine, or probably even a glow engine...

One problem that keeps haunting me in my head, despite the enormous cost and possible failure, the engine would produce thrust, which for a quad would be a bit of a pain. The quad would have to constantly fight the thrust which wouldn't do it any good. I guess it could be ducted straight down which would help lift it, but would melt the camera underneath.

Some thought would need to be applied, but I think a turboelectric quadcopter could be a possibility and a good solution to long flight times, maybe 2-3 hours if it was a small engine on tickover....


Any thoughts?

[chipko]

Sorry for the short reply but lately I'm a night owl lately and this is early :P

Let me help you on your journey ...

GYROSCOOP Turbine Quadrotor

[sausageroll]

Aww what!! Someone beat me to it.

On to nuclear power then.

[Gaza07]

Im thinking that to generate the high amps needed the weight would be way to much, wouldnt a generator capable of such amperage be about the size of a wheel barrow,
There used to be a video about with a guy who made a multi rotor with a petrol engine with shaft drives to each prop the gyros would control the pitch of the prop instead of the speed, there is a version of multi wii for variable pitch props but I have never seen it used, maybe it would allow inverted flying with negative pitch 

Some of the heli guys with petrol engines (gassers) have used a small dynomo on the copter to top up the flight pack, not sure how well it works though 

[MadMax]

What we need are mini hydrogen cells so we just top our copters up with water  ::)

[Brian]

What we need are mini hydrogen cells so we just top our copters up with water  ::)

Yes! Someone get that invented now please! But you watch the price of water go up when its out!

Brian 

[Gaza07]

How about a bigger version of the cell used on this rc car 

http://youtu.be/S9UnqW6wrxI

[chipko]

you need to speak to Darpa aboout propane fuel cells :)

http://youtu.be/Tqwqnj-oGyo?t=14s