Powered R/C glider without batteries!? | Capacitor plane hack
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- Опубликовано: 13 окт 2024
- Capacitor Planes: goo.gl/DY7QkQ
Alex is intrigued by a listing on our updated store and experiments with the mysterious capacitor...
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a battery produces electricity from a chemical reaction, a capacitor stores charge through electrical attraction
Bcikablam the flux capacitor
arent these super capacitors?
fast charge slow discharge?
Capacitor stores electricity in an electrostatic field, and a battery produces electricity through a chemical reaction.
Yes it's cool but capacitors slowly discharge
I would suggest looking for a bigger capacitor for the motor
I've seen electric go-karts use large capacitors in addition to their batteries, in much the same way a gas engine uses NOS. They discharge the capacitors for a speed boost, and ten seconds later, you get another boost. It's like turbo's in a video game. I wonder if that setup could be applied to an EDF jet or some other fast plane.
That sounds awesome!!
WEB:
I know you can buy a boost system designed for 1/10th cars off hobbyking
i wonder if u could just use a bunch and have them all be time delayed burstflight3.2
I know they use "caps" on R/C drag cars. It's like having a NOS shot. There's a good project for that other little channel, the little channel that DO......
You know, a Traxxas on road car, or maybe one of those Vaterra on road cars. Those are likely not going to be available much longer since Horizon bought another R/C car company. Might get a Vaterra very reasonable $$. DO you know why or how capacitors are used in speed run R/C cars? I bet you DO.
Then it could also be used as military power in a FT warbird.
Look into super capacitors. You might be able to build a much larger plane with a much bigger motor. One piece of advice have a separate capacitor bank for the electronics.
Thease caps can deal with electric starting motor ? Or you talking about older motorcycle which has kick starter ? Interesting project you made, I`m curious :)
@@Wrublos212 there are a number of guys that has replaced their acid lead starter batteries with Super capacitors. They are about 1-3 V per capacitor, so he have a couple of them in serial to get the voltage right. They are sencible to over charge, so they need to be enough numbers so they will take all voltage from the charger (14.4 V or more).
And yes, they don't charge as much energy as a lead battery, but you can take out that current needed for a short time. But they don't degrade with the number of charges. And they carge fast.
@@DrewLSsix that's definitely a possibility, get a 3S-4S (depending on the exact chemistery) lithium battery with a BMS (or a small 7AH AGM), and about 80 bucks of supercaps, and it's a lot cheaper over the long run and starts better. But it also can burn the starter faster on cars which have smaller ones (regular lead acid are limited to around 400Amps in short circuit, a supercap bank can deliver 2000A or more).
if you live in a cold climate, lithium+supercap works really well, as lithium only looses capacity vs not working at all.
an other option is a nickel iron battery, because they last a lot longer.
They can also add a step up converter which will hold the voltage at a stable high level no matter what is the voltage at the capacitors
Or surge protect the electronics with an inductor and varactor diodes
Congrats on the kiddo. Being a father is a really fun experiance. My little one is starting school Monday. So crazy! I can remember feeding her bottles and watching Josh, Josh, and Chad hosting FliteTest.
This is what Flite Test is ALL ABOUT. 🤙🏼😁🤙🏼
Yeah, but it would have been a lot more entertaining if the thing actually flew it's self like intended. Thats cool though. Good pilots and good designers rarely go hand in hand.
Now this what it's all about
It's by far one of the best RC channels to watch. Educational yet super fun at the same time, what a perfect combination. :)
I know right?,,! I wanna see more stuff like this and a little less foam builds
from what I've been taught doing physics this past year, a capacitor stores charge between two plates that are extremely close together. Hence why they will hold a charge till it is given somewhere to go, and can be repeatedly charged and discharged.
They also often have a special medium known as a "dielectric" between them to allow more charge to be stored, this allows more energy to be stored in a smaller space, something that is always desireable, for any energy storage medium.
There are a few other interesting things about capacitors we were taught, one of which is the manner in which they charge and discharge. If you plot a graph of voltage against time for a capacitor as it discharges, it will form a downward sloping curve, that looks similar to a half life curve. It also operates with a similar mechanic, using something specific to each capacitor known as a time constant. The time constant is the amount of time taken for the voltage of the capacitor to fall to about 63% of it's previous value. What this essentially results in, is that a capacitor's voltage will decrease more in the first time constant, than any more amount of time afterwards.
Interestingly, the inverse is true for a charging graph, and a charging graph produces an upward sloping curve, the exact opposite of the discharging graph. The capacitor's voltage will rise most, in the first few seconds of it being charged. (or the first time constant)
All of that, was just the fairly *I assume* dumbed down version we were given for A level physics.
You don't need capactiors in series, you can just charge the one you have to a higher voltage. A capacitors energy stored actually increases with the square of the voltage meaning 2x Voltage = 4x Energy. You just have to make sure that the capactior you are using is rated for the applied voltage or it WILL blow up!
Putting Capacitors in series only doubles the maximum voltage, not the actual voltage.
To do that you would also have to increase the charging voltage.
Also it halves the capacity.
Put them in Parallel so you will have double the capacity and thus half the voltage drop per ampdraw.
it does not halve the capasity, it just does not get doubled.
Yes it does ;)
See: www.allaboutcircuits.com/textbook/direct-current/chpt-13/series-and-parallel-capacitors/
What you said is true for batteries, but caps are special.
@@Ultrazaubererger no, they are not special. Just different. ;-)
CAPACITANCE! Sorry for shouting but nobody here seems to have heard of the correct term and instead say "capacity" which can lead to seriously twisted knickers. The Farad is a measure of capacitance. Put two 1F caps in series, you get half F. Put them in parallel you get 2F. The capacity for energy storage is double what you get with one alone, irrespective of how you connect them. Series: higher voltage, lower mAh. Parallel: lower voltage, higher mAh. As for the lower voltage drop from a parallel arrangement, well half of 16 is a drop of 8, and half of 8 is a drop of 4. And 4 is definitely smaller than 8. But in both cases the drop is 50%, so they are equal in that sense. Hope that didn't sound aggressive, it was meant in a friendly spirit.
Fredrick Nietzsche C times C over C plus C (quick way to calculate two capacitors of capacitance C in series) does in fact simplify to C/2
I love the weird engineering going on in this video. Please do more like this where you modify cheap plane kits!
Back in the day there was a little micro RTF called the Tommy AeroSoarer, living room flyer sized foam IR controlled plane with just rudder and throttle that was powered with a single small cap...charge it in about a minute, fly it for a couple, repeat. Good times!
I'm an experimenting type of guy. I give you an "A' for effort as I'm chuckling all the way through the last half of the video. Thanks for uploading
Congrats on the family addition Alex.
i would love to see a improved slightly larger version of the exact same idea. RUBBER BAND LAUNCHED, CHILLIN IN CHAIR, SHOOT AND FLY BACK DESIGN.
erik nulty, That sounds like a challenge! 😀
I found some little F15s at a Radio Shack close out a few years ago. Paid like $3 each for a couple them. My grandsons had alot of fun with them. We lost one in a thicket and the other was broken. I have the motor and capacitor from it.
The capacitor used has very high capacity but is only good for about 5volts. The charger uses three series connected 1.5v cells so the charge is limited to around 4.5v.
As you noticed, series connected capacitors didn't work, series connected capacitors increases the voltage rating but reduces the capacity by half (if using identical parts). The voltage rating increase is wasted because of your charger, controller and the need to balance the charge, kind of like lipos, to avoid over voltage.
These high capacity caps work well in these toys because they are simple to use when just powering a small motor. You can't over discharge them and they are not damaged by be left flat. The charge circuit is simple and you do not have the fire concerns of lipos. For more complex items you are better off with batteries. You can get higher energy density and a flatter voltage output curve.
I remember my first dealings with capacitors...was how the flash is powered on one of those old wind up disposable Kodak cameras from when I was a kid . Touched the contacts on a full charge and lit me up like a Christmas tree! It soon became a meathod of torture for my siblings ...
brendan burnham this is my exact life.
Sad life.
I dont know if has definitely been full a learning. And learning is pretty cool. It makes me happy
I was on the receiving end of a fairly large capacitor in High School. Everyone had a great laugh, me too on the outside. On the inside I was hurting!!!!!!!
Sure gained a lot of respect for stored electricity. Remember that when you are digging through the guts of old electronic devices.
working on an old 1940s shortwave radio in 80s an Oil filled Capacitor got me bad
Andres + Alex = the production of some of the best projects ever! When is the next Flitefest West?
*I* *have* *a* *7ft* *long* *surprise*
Lols haha
Great job! I really like seeing content like this. It’s great to get young minds engaged with builds like this. If you can add a little more education to go along. It would be even better for future videos!
When I was little, I was so fascinated with airhogs capacitor planes. This video was such a throwback! Nice work
I got one of the air hog airplane's for my son many years ago and it was a very cool concept but never did get the thing to fly.
Maybe you could use three 100F 2.5V capacitors in series in order to get an "equivalent" of a 2S Lipo for a DLG. The voltage of a capacitor is given by this formula: V = Vmax * e^{-[t/(R*C)} , and by assuming an average current draw of 500mA (I read that is close to the current draw of a 9g servo, but feel free to make any change) at 5V (the output of the BEC) we get a resistance of 10 ohms. That way, after 2 minutes, the voltage of the capacitors would be around 5.21V, not great it would be interesting to see what it can do... Maybe. Great video, keep it up guys.
A trio of 100F 2.5v supercaps weigh almost 2oz - That'd be a hard sell to install into a glider. From Mouser, the AVX-SCC-1018831 pdf datasheet.
You are right, I did forgot to check the weigh.
Capacitors don't have a set charge voltage. They aren't batteries. The have a maximum rated voltage but a capacitor's stored voltage depends solely on the voltage applied to it.
That is true, even though I didn´t said so, I used the maximum rated voltage for convenience, since a lower output voltage would decrease the energy/weight ratio.
biotronik414 that's all ok, I just thought you were repeating the same misconception. Also I'm pretty sure the 500mA servo load is at stall, they shouldn't use too much under normal load (maybe 100mA at most)
Guys this is New/Old technology. I remember being a little boy I had a racetrack set and you had to do this to the cars! You inserted the jack from the battery pack and pressed a little button and it charged the cars. You then put them down on the track and they would run on their own for a few mins. I would say this was early to mid 70's. Enjoy you guys videos keep doing what you're doing!
Joe Ziegler I used to have one of those race tracks.
*THAT'S A LOT OF CAPACITY*
Hrithik Yeah, And when that numb-skull shows up I’m out...
Und if it crashes: that's a lot of damage, but with Flex tape...😅
capacitors are mostly used as stabilisers, if you take AC power and rectify it to DC power, you will have a capacitor in parallel to stabilise the power output. The same happens with small DC motors that run on a PWM signal. The capacitor will charge till the peak power and then slowly discharge till the next peak where it will charge up again
Lets just randomly connect capacitors to things? What could go wrong.
What a weird thing to say. What is your point exactly?
New to Flite Test? ;)
Why would this be a bad thing?
Batteries explode much worse than capacitors do.
18 volts can't get through dry skin. This is only 4 volts. Capacitors blow from overvoltage, not from shorts or reverse polarity. Wool socks on carpet are more dangerous.
Justin Salazar I swear I thought capacitors could blow from shorts.
Maybe I am thinking of shorts when the capacitors are not the only source of power.
I had one that was similar about 15 years ago. It flew so high that it disappeared and i never saw it again... It was awesome! I immediately went and bought another... still have it.
This would be exceptionally cool for quick tricks. That and the more we use things like capacitors the more ways they can be innovated upon.
I can only imagine what Flitetest will look like in ten years. Should be fun.
Half way there!
you guys should use the capacitors to power the motor on a glider and then just use a tiny like 70mah one cell to power the receiver and servos so that you can have continuous control of the glider and then just use the capacitor powered motor to get the short flights over and over again
Good idea.
This is brilliant inspiration. We make and research supercapacitors at Loughborough university and this gives me an idea! I'll keep you posted!
Congrats on the New Kid!!!!
Quick tip about capacitors: although they have a voltage limit (check the rating written on the casing) they actually effectively don't have a charge or discharge current limit! Their current limit is nearly entirely due to the thickness of the leads.
Solar panel \capacitors combo for long endurance gliding. Parallel rows of super capacitors. with independent discharge sensors, to alternate between rows. I saw a vid of a quad flying on super caps and solar convo.
Hey guys, very cool vid as always. Alex congrats on your second kid!
Watching this video I can see you are on the same road we were on. My son and I love building small RC gliders like this because of the non-explodiness. We began with a simple rubber powered RC plane made from packaging foam from frozen pizzas. :) That was fun but we got tired of having to wind the rubber band up before each (short) flight and eventually just made it into a glider. The glider flew nicely but we knew we could make something better. A few revisions later we basically came up with a small 500mm span DLG foamie glider. Now we were hooked and wanted more!! A quick browse on the FT web site and the guys recommended the LightninBug DLG so we built one. The flights were very impressive, way better than our foamies. It flies for ages off a simple eye level hand toss and it will fly for 30+ seconds in dead air from a lazy DLG launch. After we hooked a thermal for the first time we were absolutely hooked!! We are having way too much fun with this glider and it has lead us down the very deep rabbit hole that is F3K and we are loving it!!
As always, keep up the great work. FT FTW!
edit: I posted the following, but it's all false (would be true if it was a battery):
capacity didn't change; the increase in volts, without changing the motor and prop, wanted to spin the prop faster, increased the load... which increased the current draw, which drained it faster down to the usual 2 volts that was normal load.
As engineer I feel obligated to correct:
capacitance in series: 1/( 1/Cap1 + 1/Cap2 + 1/Cap3 +... 1/CapN)
in other words: YES capacitance will divide if you put 2 same size capacitors in series. It will be worse if not same "size"(capacitance). However, this is done when it is required to double voltage range. In video you still charged capacitor with same voltage, capacitors were not charged to max potential. That's why performance of cap(s) decreased remarkably.
capacitance in parallel: Cap1 + Cap2 + Cap3 +... CapN
in this case there is not real downside (in this application). I could not see specs of caps, but expecting you charged them with same voltage, I expect them to be rated for higher voltage (typical super cap is 2.7V).
BTW. all modern receivers should still be operational on low voltage like 2V. MPUs now days work on 3.3 - 1.8V range due smaller circuitry, they have "transformer" build in.
oh, it's like resistors in parallel... that's so uncool. :)
Arron yup, but there's buck up voltage converters that can be had cheap!
@@modelnutty6503 problem is that they take power to operate. But it could be worth it.
One could also use a button battery to the servo and receiver and power motor with capacitors.
Then you still can charge fast, and run out all energy/voltage from the capacitor without loosing control over recievers.
Caps charge fast, and can bu uncharged to 0 volt without problems. Chargable batteries, not so much.
Congrats on the baby Alex!
congratz on the baby alex !!
They fly much better with a bit of dihedral. Flat wings only work if swept back.
What value capacitor are you using? I have a sheet of material which is dielectric with aluminium bonded either side. You could make a plane out of this, and use the material as a capacitor, ie the wings could be a top layer, bottom layer separated by an insulator to form a capacitor (like an aircraft having fuel in it's wings) Weight is the problem. Or you could put aluminium tape top and bottom of wing, but keep insulated to form a capacitor, hence using less weight than a dedicated capacitor. Keep me posted, This is fascinating, thanks
I'm surprised it hasn't been done before when there was a big wave of capacitor-batteries-for-cars videos surfacing 2-3 years ago on RUclips. Good job! Exciting stuff.
We need a tiny whoop
Where the frame is an inductor (coil)
Which powers off of capacitors
And you land on a pad to charge the capacitors wirelessly.
I'm just saying, a 30 second FPV flight with pit stops would allow you to fly FOREVER! I would do that all day!
Alex you said what a Capacitor does you said it perfectly! you can get really crazy on theory, but we need to keep it simple.
RC parachute jump from a kwad!
What did you use for servo/radio?
Amazing guys!! So awesome hanging out with you today!! It’s Jones by the way!! (;
Could you replace the capacitors with a 1s whoop battery to see how proformance compares?
defeats the super quick charging concept!
model nutty right, however it could be worth the extra charge time if the plane can be flown for longer. My guess is that the small lipo will be lighter, and will be able to provide more energy for longer. However I can't say for sure which is why I want them to try it.
@@kwadifyfpv8388 add super capacitors instead. They will manage to handel repeated chargers without the loss in charge capacity that chemical batteries get.
And you don't need to care about not use it under a certain voltage, you can totally discharge a capacitor. With a battery you will ruin it if you uncharge it under a certain voltage.
One nice use for this, assuming the capacitor isn't too heavy, might be as a launch boost for an actual glider. Scaled up, of course, but that would allow you to takeoff and then glide fully on the wind, with perhaps a standard smaller lipo running the radio and servos and nothing else. Kind of like an electric prop plane equivalent to a JATO module. Better yet if you could ditch it after takeoff to lose the weight entirely and have it drop down with a chute like a staged rocket booster. Might even be possible to set up solar panels along the wings if your servo/radio power usage could be dropped low enough and use a capacitor charged by them to run the gear. If so, you'd have an unlimited-range glider so long as you can find good thermals and it's sunny. Thanks for the idea, I've been looking at a few powered gliders recently (because I need to takeoff and while I PREFER the pure gliders... this might let me actually USE one without a secondary launch plan to drop them, putting it within my budget. (The idea is to have a 2-3+hr flight time that's as smooth and gentle as possible to do long-range nature flight videos over wilderness areas, covering hundreds of miles of wild swampland, for example. Also going to be a very slow-flying plane for that purpose.)
Congratulations, Alex’s family! Nice haircut also. Great episode as always, with everyone contributing.
Super Capacitors have some awesome characteristics. I know your glider was getting heavy, but if you would have put 4 caps. on (2 sets series, and put them in parallel) you could have gotten some AWESOME flite time out of the motor.
That’s awesome, it makes me want to go attempt to make a micro plane now!
Joe I commented to the pinned comment, maybe some good info for.
Because of weight the glider needs to have airfoil. Don’t forget the cookie and tea when you sit with your buddy!
Finally something my brother can fly.
Airhogs had these capacitor gliders when I was younger (probably still do) I loved that they flew better and longer than an elastic wind up glider (and took less time to "wind up/charge"), but I hated that I had no control of it while it was in flight and thought that I would be cool to hook up stuff to control it so I took it apart to do this, but the micro technology was not available at that time (that I was aware of), and so it sat in pieces :(
you sir, are onto something....this is perfect for the very young kid who wants to fly, and the Dad that wants to show him, and not have to wait hours for batteries to charge and then the kid also gets dis-interested waiting
Pro tip: Just use a battery. It will take longer to charge but is lighter for the same voltage and gives you more flight time
Until I invent ultraefficent graphene supercaps
In life there never seems to be a free lunch
@MajorLeague and capacitors doesn't lose storage capacity as the number of charging the device increases.
And capacitors can be totally discharged and then charged without any problems. Which is NOT the case with batteries. So, a super capacitor can be stored for years without problems. Batteries can't.
Can be. But still, if you discharge a battery to much, they can start burning if charging again. Capacitors doesn't have problems.
And yes, the problems with storing energy in capacitors, is it could easy leak and discharge in quite fast time (a couple of days). Batteries can store energy longer, but also take time to charge. That is why they use a SMALL lead battery to support super capacitors as starer batteries for cars.
Right? This is like putting a 2 gallon tank on a car and boasting that you can fill it faster.
@amorag59, no.
Keep in mind that electrolytic caps have a polarity. If they are put on backwards they might pop.
If you guys are thinking of scaling this up... make sure to use precautions on how to safely discharge the caps... shorting a battery might weld the cables together. shorting caps might vaporize the cable in your hand.
interesting... but... why, for the love of all that is holy would you put something on your store that is less than stellar? Now, I love you guys. I have been with you for 6 years... ordering parts, planes and gear... before the reduex of the store, you guys basically vetted everything at your store yourselves. I realize you are growing beyond being able to do that...
geoker55 idk it seemed to do what it was meant to do
Well it seemed to do pretty well when used as intended.
It's 12 bucks and makes people smile, even giggle from what I've seen here.
@@krtf4ucorsair if it did what it was supposed to do they wouldn't have taken it apart and rebuilt it.
A capacitor in series with another capacitor divides the capacity to store power. In parallel they add to the total storage.
Okay, take your idea there, but scale it up. I know it will take longer to charge, but still less time than a full on battery pack. Try using a flying wing so that you can store everything inside, and but a capacitor bank in each wing. Do 4 capacitors in series for each bank, or however much voltage you need, but tie the two banks in parallel to give you more capacity. or you can just go crazy and make some flying barge thing. That would be funny actually, having a flying barge that dumps trash through a set of doors.
Drake Tamer no need in connecting them in series if you buy capacitors that are rated at the voltage you need, then you connect them all in parallel
U can charge capacitor rly fast,just need more current.
YTHC yep. You could charge a 25v capacitor with a 4 cell lips and it would be close to fully charged within seconds, capacitors have an exponential curve when they charge so they would take forever to "fully charge", but they would be as good as fully charge within seconds with high current
If capacitors in series have less capacity, as the guy said, they need to just buy 4 volt capacitors. Then the banks can be entirely in parrallell, and they get more capacity out of the weight.
@@caleb186 hope I can clarify. He should have said capacitance rather than capacity. The latter usually refers to the amount of energy stored. Two caps of the same value will store twice as much energy irrespective of whether you connect them in series or parallel. If you connect in series the capacitance (Farads) is halved. If you have two books and put one on top of the other the height (voltage) is doubled but the number of pages is the same as when they're side by side (ie in parallel).
Nice video. Have a look at EDLC capacitors (supercapacitors). I suspect they're being utilized in this aircraft. Now, if you can get larger ones, measured in farads, you could probably pull off a larger model.
Who's that new dude with that sweet hair do? ;) Looking good my friend!
ProjectAir Yoo james!!! ;)
Congratulations Alex!!❤️
The flux capacitor is what makes time travel possible
congrats on the baby alex!!
So we have a vape here... 😆😆
Grackle FPV vaping is now good for planes
It's a mod plane!! xD
Now this is a highly charged project, love it! Imagine you could connect more caps up for more power, and limit the output.
Just think of capacitors as warehouses that store energy.
hi ive been using capacitors for years now. by putting a cap on your recever ,
it can stop brown outs and servo jitter its really good to use a cap when you have a bec thats not powerfull and each time you move more than one servo its browns out , put a good size cap on the +and- of your recever to stop the brown outs
one capacitor directly to the motor no speed control.One to the controls for the servos.
the point was that the all in one controller needed 4V+ to power on, which you couldn't get with a single 2.2V capacitor
Slipped, yes you can, with a cheap little buck up voltage converter.
@@modelnutty6503 which will take power to operate, which will be taken from the capacitor, and thus flight time.
That guy with the red shorts... hmmm OMG .. nice throw dude. A little off track but just had to comment. Anyhow, great stuff.
I made a Blinky light
From my knowledge, when you wire a capacitor in series, it adds the voltage and leaves the discharge rate. When you do it in parallel, it is the same voltage but adds the discharge rate and capacity. So when you wire 2 capacitors together in series, it will NOT cut the flight time in half.
Actually, you don't have a discharge rate. You have energy in capacitors.
So each capacitor store the same energy. If you put in serie, you get the same current, but more voltage.
If you put the, in parallel, you get the same voltage, but more current.
How fast you discharge, depends on the load (the resistance, to not make it too complicated).
A capacitor can without problems be discharged to 0 V, a battery can't.
A capacitor can be "instantly" charged up to it's max voltage, a battery can't.
Batteries can currently store more energy per weight. So that has to be checked. But as I know it, weight is not a factor for the current manufacturers of super capacitors.
So, fly a capacitor powered plane for a short time, but after some seconds of charge time, you can fly again.
Sorry if you knew all this, but yes. Capacitors have its advantages compared to batteries.
When he said running in series increases voltage and parallel increases capacity I cringed so hard.
That was cool AF!!
There is a lot of potential there. I hope you stick with it and see what you can come up with.
New Hair Cut!!!!! Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Which little all-in-one receiver servo dealy was that? It looks amazing!
a capacitor is a type of battery ahahha
no its not! but it basically can do the same thing (a battery produces electricity from a chemical reaction, a capacitor stores charge)
True, capacitors are mainly used in applications that need a big boost of current in a small amount of time, where as batteries give of current over a longer period of time depending on what the load draws.
Not really, a battery is a chemical store of electric, a capacitor is a physical store.
1 Thermopile.
A electrical battery source made of a large number of dissimilar metals (AKA thermocouples) which each generate some millivolts
I had something similar to this when I was a kid, around 35 years ago. Mine looked like a Cessna though and it flew brilliantly.
1st
Jason Q second
Capacitors are electrical components that store electrons on plates that are separated by a material that doesn’t allow charge through . Now I want you to visualise something.Imagine a circuit with a battery/power supply with wires that are connected to a capacitor (which is two metal plates connected by a material that doesn’t allow charge through)that completes the circuit. When you turn the battery/power supply on the electrons flow around the circuit but when they reach the plate they are stopped by the material that doesn’t allow charge through. There is then a variation of charge on the capacitor because there are now more electrons on one side of the capacitor than the other.But the natural state of a capacitor is to be neutral which means it wants to have the same amount of electrons on both plates. This means that when the power supply is removed and the circuit is connected, the capacitor will then cause the charge to flow to opposite way and eventually it will stop when the capacitor has the same amount of electrons on both plates again. I hope this clears things up regarding how a capacitor works and functions.
All sorts of cool applications coming with these. Maybe a new FAI self-launch class?
Please do more videos like this one. I miss the VLOGS, and I like seeing the more "unscripted" videos.
Will you guys have a big indoor warehouse at the new FT location, for doing ultralight RC stuff without the wind interfering? Would be great for RC blimps, tiny gliders and planes / drones, etc
Somebody called Power Up sells a super capacitor power unit to stick in a fold-up paper airplane. Like yours the charger uses three AA cells, or something like 4.5 volts. It charges very quickly, but the downside is the capacitor is only rated for 2.7 volts, and if you hold the charger on too long you damage the capacitor. If you're experimenting with multiple capacitors you probably should think about regulating the charging voltage and current. Capacitors are very different from batteries. Batteries' discharge curve drops off a little right away and then stays at about the same voltage for most of discharge and then drops off at the end. Capacitors are much more linear. When you are halfway discharged you are at half of peak voltage ,which means if you power a receiver with it, it will drop out from low voltage much sooner than it would with battery power.
Haircut looking fresh Austin!
If you want to get the most out of a pair of capacitors, charge them in parallel, and then switch their connections to series for discharge into the motor / electronics. That way you'll get the higher voltage you need AND the full capacity of both caps.
Love the ingenuity! I couldn’t tell, at the end, if you guys were turning red from laughing or sunburned from sitting out there so long until you had “the success” flight
Capacitors have a voltage rating. You probably already know this and that voltage rating has to be above the max voltage you will be applying to it. However, having a voltage rating very much above that rating adds weight, most likely without adding any advantage. Like you said these airframes are so low adding even extra glue is “dead weight”. That applies to the extra voltage rating of the capacitor.
I’m impressed with this “flite test”.
@Flite Test Great video and application. I suggest try super capacitor as well. You gonna love them.
How about using an FT Tiny Trainer in glider config with larger capacitors and solar panels covering the wings? Just a thought. Also, congrats on the new baby Alex!
the e glider video made me want exactly this, i hate waiting and id love something i could mess with for a few minutes like this. i hope you keep working on it, mabey a capacitor kit in the future?
Capacitors can be also used to "Smooth" DC power when being transformed into from AC to DC. Such as in your power brick in your phone
This is a great idea for a micro sail plane! The caps could give a quick burst to a small motor to give it some altitude. Then a tiny lipo for control.
definitely, rubber launched with power assist too has some real potential.
A capacitor can act as a battery and extend the flight time by adding a resistor to the circuit so that the cap discharges at a lower power, but for longer. A capacitor can be made from laminations such as aluminum foil and plastic, and if you make sheets this way, you can cut out the airplane parts from them, then have the entire airplane store the energy.
Those are super capacitors, which are basically half way between classical capacitor and battery.
Brushed f3 flight controllers work well. You can actually control the servos from the input pin on the fet. I have a small foamboard wing with two 8x20mm motors and two servos. Its surprising how well it works.
You need to look into more super capacitors, voltage, size, current output (usually good with bigger super caps, even been used to star cars). Biggest warning, the charging voltage used. If they blow that can take you buy surprise, temperature usually not an issue. But it’s possible. Burger the caps the longer to charge, but then once you understand them you could use a Rc LiPo pack for charging fast again.
Its simple,batterys have a high amount of internal resistance and cannot discharge all in one but the capacitors have a really low amont of internal resistance so it could push electrons instantly but still a battery can delivere 10 times the energy of a single capacitor and the theory depends on a capacitance of the capacitor and the battery,if you wanna get more flight time use a super capacitor because they have huge amont of capacity for example 500farad (normaly) long story short capacitors work like a water tank it stores energy,(mostly) it been used as a filter for rectified voltage,there are many types of capacitors out there,finnaly the capacitor type you are using in this video is a electrolytic capacitor.
We used to buy those rubber band launched balsa gliders for $0.10 back in the mid ‘60s.
Wiring capacitors in series doesn't decrease overall "capacity" it decreased overall capacitance. This may sound stupid but if you're measuring "capacity" as overall energy stored, then the two in series will increase capacity. Capacitance however is the ratio of a capacitor's total charge divided by it's change in voltage. Lower capacitance means the same change in voltage (to the one or two capacitor series) can occur with a smaller addition of charge than with one capacitor alone.
There are super capacitors that store much more power than the older ones. Older capacitors just had enough for a quick spark. Now they can power stuff for a few sec to a min depending on the load.
"For a moment there I just saw all my hopes and dreams swirl'n down the old toilet." >.< :D
You'd have had the same capacity if you put 4 capacitors on yr plane. The 2 in series came in at half their capacity but double the voltage so to get the capacity back, you need another 2 in series but connected in parallel to the first two. That would work out at about the same weight as 4 AAA batteries So you might still be ok? The capacitors you have there are Super Caps. They have a maximum charge voltage each of 2.7V so the series connection should be ok with 4 dry cells (5.4v) they would pull the voltage of the dry cells down a bit so they shouldn't blow up. Fun video though. Thanks for putting it up.
Those plans are like the old school air hoggs that were made of foam and looked like jet fighters and stuff. they were so fun and you could bend the flaps to control it
Gotta put one of those micro board on an airhog and make it rc