StephenCarlson / MiniHawk-VTOL

Artwork for the MiniHawk VTOL, a 3D-Printed Tricopter/Fixed-wing hybrid aircraft.
213 stars 38 forks source link

Center of Mass Issues: Lengthen Nose by 22.5mm #8

Closed StephenCarlson closed 3 years ago

StephenCarlson commented 3 years ago

The v1.0.x flight test vehicle is rather tail-heavy. 60 to 80 grams of ballast were added to the nose, which could be reduced by increasing nose length. This would also make the mounting holes for the battery tray and flight-controller tray be on the same 50mm grid. Doing this however obviously tampers with the vehicle OML, and should merit incrementing to v2.0.x.

StephenCarlson commented 3 years ago

Solved in ede11e9, and is the primary change to the OML. The nose was stretched much further than the suggested 22.5mm. The new configuration has stanchions all aligned to 50mm pitch spacing (the previous design had an awkward arbitrary gap between two 50mm-pitch domains), with the grid aligned to 30mm behind the front leading edge of the wing. There is an "odd" spare stanchion included for future use, such as reverting from the new positioning of battery and flight controller back to the original configuration.

image

Shown below, the battery is now located ahead of the flight controller. This is necessary to get the vehicle to balance at or before 30mm back from the wing leading edge. This is also beneficial to the flight controller, as coriolis forces are reduced to negligable by being located near the Center of Mass. Lead ballast can still be placed in the nose for fine-tuning the balance.

image (Note that the PixRacer model seen here is not the PixRacerPro, and that 6 output pins is not sufficient for flying this vehicle. The model is only used as a representation for whatever flight controller is used.)