Wooden props V CF or plastic.

[Ross]

Any thoughts on this (apart from CF and plastic being like rotating razor blades) :laugh

[teslahed]

Start with half decent plastic props whilst you are learning - you';ll crash and break them often so it';s not worth buying expensive props unless you are made of money. The giantshark counter rotating plastic props are the best ones i';ve found;

http://www.giantshark.co.uk/counter-rotating-props-c-77_316.html

I upgraded to carbon fibre props after flying for a few months and found they worked much better.I do a lot of stunt flying rather than aerial photography and found carbon fibre props worked much better - i got better stability, control and power. I assume this is because the carbon fibre props have almost no flex so the shape doesn';t distort under load (whilst flipping for example);

http://www.rctimer.com/index.php?gOo=goods_search_list.dwt&gcat=184

Carbon fibre props are also quite light, especially compared to wood, which makes the quadcopter feel more responsive. I had to lower my gyro settings by a few points when i swapped to carbon fibre from plastic as the bendy plastic props were acting as dampers on the system and absorbing some of the responsiveness. Carbon fibre doesn';t flex as much so effectively you';ve got a more direct connection between the motors and flight controller / gyros and the props producing the lift and stability.

Wooden props are also much stiffer but weigh a lot more. I suspect they work very well for aerial photography with larger more powerful multirotors as the weight and momentum might help keep the quadcopter flying smoothly, but not as good for fun or stunt flying becuase the increased weight would make them less responsive to changes in motor speed (more rotational momentum to overcome).

There was some discussion of the issue here;

http://www.multi-rotor.co.uk/index.php?topic=938.0

There are a lot of plastic props that are totally rubbish - too bendy, badly balanced and badly machined - the rctimer plastic and ';carbon reinforced'; props are all rubbish and i wouldn';t recomend them.

[Ross]

Thanks for the headup. 
I have some wooden jobs (had ';em for ages so might as well see how they go)....they balance out to within 1/2 gram of each other!  Stunt flying?...mmmm...don';t think so...could prove even more expensiv for me