I think a little more detail (on how) could be put into the build, Hopefully Tom will have a follow up with the code part too.. i can't believe this actually works..
I was about to go through the comments but then I saw the bps.space logo as the top comment and I was instantly happy. It's always awesome too see an awesome RUclips channel commenting on an other awesome RUclips channel.
Me too, and yes I am amazed that a helicopter flies but I understand how that works, this is electronic voodoo, and hats of to the the guys who came up with this in the first place albeit less aesthetically pleasing
It's crazy that brushless motors/motor controllers themselves have enough precision to work. Each motor phase is getting pulsed many times per revolution in a trapezoidal or sinusoidal pattern. Tom "just" needed to overlay an increase and decrease throttle command each revolution phased in the direction of desired cyclic input. Crazy stuff! My first RC plane was a Graupner UHU back in the early 90's. It had basically a DC drill motor activated with an on/off relay switch and NiCad batteries. It might as well have been a brick with cardboard wings when compared with today's marvels!
This is awesome. This is easily one of the best drone projects I've seen on RUclips. It's accessible, direct, detailed, and actually explores something new. And it works!.
but i dont think that this is a efficient way of a helicopter. But very interesting and if it was combined with a capacitor storing the energy of the rotor when its speed should be decreased, then it could be efficient, too.
The ESC achieved rapid slow down by applying regenerative braking, @@neutronenstern.. This means the ESC is sending power back to the source, a LiPo battery. Your concern of inefficiency is still present by the fact that there's a rapidly changing speed motor, and that wastes quite some power in form of heat on the motor because any acceleration and deceleration on electric motor waste power as some of the energy in form of magnetic flux doesn't get converted into mechanical energy, thus heat.
@@neutronenstern. the esc has capacitors on it, that store energy. Though they normally work on a per-commutation scale, not per revolution...the lipo battery stores some of the energy as well. The problem, why his motor gets hot is the constant acceleration deceleration. That's literally the best way, to kill your quadcopters motors...
@@neutronenstern. you're right, my dude. the motor having to both accelerate and decelerate means it'll roughly drawn in twice as much power than a conventional design. also, because the blades can swing up and down the helicopter becomes very unstable when making pitch or roll maneuvers because then the girosopic precession will yank the rotors with a far greater force than the aerial drag can induce, resulting in an instant total loss of control 04:31
Outside?! Did you just write, he did not do any research for this project? Please call anything within reach of his hands his Personal Research Environment.
amazing video! you could explore the "rigid rotor" configuration. Lockheed Martin used it on it's Cheyenne. It use a "flywheel" inertia to actuate its blades
Helicopter pilot from Fl, USA. Well done. This is a very interesting concept. Problems with larger scale vehicles would be vibration. The tail rotor must be constantly accelerating and decelerating to compensate for a continuous changing torque output from the motor.
when you explained the concept I was straight up not believing that it would ever work in practice. I'm still kinda in disbelief. it seems like this technique could be used to make RC helicopters much more mechanically simple and cheap to produce, right?
I was just illustrating the relatively low costs. I meant YOU could pick up a micro controller for $5, on a diy friendly breakout board like an arduino. The controller itself is likely less than a dollar, and I guarantee those $15 helicopters already contain at least one
I'm literally amazed!!! So good job! I've been trying this technique for a lot of time now and couldn't achieve a good sine control of the brushless motor. U use a double H bridge for control or a customized ESC? Will you share the software somewhere? Once again, so good work! :)
Thanks man! I used a t-motor F30A esc and communicated with Oneshote125. Here is a brief run through of the setup: ruclips.net/video/Y31BhQToh_U/видео.html
Just thinking that adding some reduction gearing between motor and rotor could make the control easier since the acceleration/deceleration could be over several motor revolutions. Obviously the motor would have to be running faster overall though.
@@ferrumignis that could offer a bunch of other benefits too, good call. A small geared motor or belt driven could be pretty awesome and possibly make it easier to miniaturize
@@ferrumignis True, the motor would have to spin faster. But this has been used in many, many toy helicopters. It takes a bunch of load off the motor, and increasing the RPM is easy when the motor doesn't have to work as hard.
Another staggering piece of back yard engineering from Tom. It warms my heart to see young people doing serious engineering like this. Its where the truly great innovations are born. well done Tom - another outstanding piece of work and very well presented.
@@calebsherman886 The guy that came up with that design used to post on RCGroups, the original versions actually used a swashplate, just the smallest, most unusual looking one youve ever seen. Not sure if theyve changed to this rather amazing technique or not since then, but both are pretty freakin amazing!
Wow! Very nice! Very educational! Thanks for sharing your engineering, thoughts and ideas! My parents bought me a 5 in 1 water pump kit back in the late 70’s. Was probably the best gift ever for a 12 year old! It probably has much to do with why I often can understand and troubleshoot a hydraulic system so quick and accurately while others stand and give blank stares.
Unbelievable, as an avid helicopter and drone builder for decades, I’m trueky amazed that you even attempted this, and that you made it work is incredible
Your explanations and the use of the high speed video make this complex feat understandable. I am inspired by your need to do something just because you think it can be done.
OMG!!! This ModLab paper is one of my favorites. Like you, ever since I found it I’ve wanted to replicate it. Great work Tom. I love following your projects. You are inspiring!!!
But he explained it first, so you knew what was coming in that slow motion footage. Lack of imagination, perhaps? How old are you? And how flexible? I'm a bit worried. No, just kidding, he must be very smart and he knows a thing or two, too. This project IS amazing.
I fly helis, this is impressive But I think that the connection between the rotor and the rotor head is under way to much stress to be reliably After all, you are wobbling the entire rotor blade 3000 times a minute
That is true with it being 3D printed, however an actual helicopter rotor head pivots every rotation too. So there's no reason an aluminium rotor head with bearings won't work well. Thanks!
@@ichbrauchmehrkaffee5785 There is a youtube channel called CNC Kitchen that might interest you, he has made a lot of videos about stress-testing printed parts and usually he can record hard numerical values using his testing rigs and makes very informative little graphs.
Ifound you through the suggested videos 1 year ago still enjoying your videos. your videos are also very informative. I just made a RUclips channel so I'm definitely doing my research on how to do these builds. Thanks for all your awesome videos. Please keep it up!
@@TomStantonEngineering I've been waiting for this for literally 20 years. The "Piccolo" was the smallest electric heli back in the day. Now with this design, the heli might even outperform 4 motor drones for simplicity and control (current pure 2 motor helis have very little control obviously).
I found this idea just as fascinating the first time I saw it, glad you actually went out and made it into a helicopter! Unfortunately I don't think it's very easily scalable due to the fatigue induced at the 45° hinges, but on small-scale DIY helicopters it certainly brings the theoretical cost down. Of course, off-the-shelf swashplates exist... but this is fully able to be self-fabricated, compared to the swashplates.
I really love how BPS.space, Joel creates, Practical Engineering, and probably several other tech/DIY/maker channels are also here. Love this community of youtubers
I had homemade electric scooter with 3D printed pulley from PETG and it lasted > 200km (and is actually still OK though I've abandoned the project for now). Tom has similar but quite bigger 3D printed pulley on his bike : ruclips.net/video/1pm1RtCuE3A/видео.html . PETG is actually very strong and when printed with 100% infill it usually break *randomly* into sharp shiny pieces similar to glass.
buddy, as a developer aspire I got to kuddos to your perseverance, when I saw the helicopter flapping around with the wrong frequency I wanted to lay on my side and cry just thinking on the debugging that would take.
Nope, for autorotation you would need tot add power to the rotors. This is done by trading altitude for rotor speed. The blades will speed up as the helicopter descents. By controlling the collective pitch of the blades you can produce lift to flair the landing. The power stored in the rotor will provide lift until.
Tom... You are brilliant! Fantastic work on this. What is interesting is that this is some what like a teetering rotor system, similar to what is on the robinson helicopter. Other helicopters use a little more complex system of being fully articulated. One of the key limits of a helicopter is retreating blade stall. As the heilcopter airspeed increased the blade that is moving away from the direciton of travel, the blade needs to flap upwards to account for the loss of airspeed over the rotor blade. (Rotational speed - airspeed). Likewise, the opposite is happening on the advancing blade. Once the retreating blade stalls, the aircraft pitches up violently, loses tail rotor authority and the aircraft will rotate opposite the direction that the blades are rotating. (It is ugly). So, there are a few helicopers that use coaxial rotor systems, Kman and the Sikorsky Commanche. So my question is this... Could it be possible to take to counter rotating blades and then use a pusher proper ; then adjust the rotor RPM to control yaw? This would not likely bank or roll very well... but in terms of a stable platform on to which to mount sensors, it might be more power efficient allowing it to remain aloft longer. Might such as system negated retreating blade stall? Either way... Excellent work here. Cheers... John Hall (Prior USCG helicopter pilot)
Hope the guy who discovered this gets a very good offer to some big companies. Imagine seeng drones or real life helicopters with no swashplate which leaves less mechanical moving parts
It's clever, very much so, but probably not very practical. First it only works because the drivetrain is an brushless electric motor and secondly it comes with cost of extra vibration. Which probably makes it a no-sell for full size helicopters. For small drones, quadcopters have already won out in all practical aspects because they are even simpler than that mechanically. It can probably work to make cheaper toy helicopters and there is good business in that, but I doubt it will offer any benefit outside of that narrow sector.
That's actually pretty genius. I wonder if the vibration from acceleration and deceleration is much of a problem for the aircraft itself and potential gear, like cameras etc.
I absolutely flunked my aerospace final exam today because I couldn't write how a helicopter rotor blade moves I needed this video 24 hours earlier god dammit lmao
@Digadogup you fail to account for the fact that different people learn more easily in different ways. Just because the information is available doesn't mean it is available in a form that is easily understood and internalized by everyone. Maybe for some, but not everyone. I know that it took me way longer to teach myself how helicopter rotors work when I was just reading textbooks and papers than if I had access to a resource like this video. I'll give you that there are also other youtube channels who do a good job explaining it too, so in some ways your point still stands, but i also thought it was important to include the point about learning style differences as well. cheers.
@@illusivec Could maybe work if you had half gears in a gearbox to achieve this. But I do not imagine that would be very good for the gearbox in the longrun.
@@lukehinch3441 I don't think this would work though. Oblong gears produce a fixed oscillation that can only vary in speed, but to control this helicopter you need to be able to change the oscillation to steer as you would like. In stationary flight you would not need an oscillation for example.
"Now do an inverted, tail down funnel with it, Jimmy!" 😂 Also, great work on the heli, but a minor correction: CCPM helis can't control each blade individually as the CCPM swash mixing is programmed in such a way that whenever cyclic is applied, whatever happens to one blade will be inversely mirrored on the other blade. I think what you meant was that collective and cyclic pitch can be applied independently of one another, which is something your frankenheli cannot do.
One question: how does this accelerating and deaccelerating affect the power consumtion? If that would be a problem, one could implement something like a resonance circuit that could store and release the energy in the right moment to make it more efficient. But since the frequency of the rotor depends on thrust that would be quite tricky to adjust the resonance frequency of the circuit, it would maybe also need to be variable? 🤔
I was amazed by your garden and the beautiful silence behind. Very nice place for you've made! Nice. Concept you've shown at 0:38 exists since the inventing of helicopter, indeed even earlier. Existed also only with 2 same propellers horizontal, many times easier for manoeuvring, controlling and speed. Same as today drones but with 2. But as always a rule: "why people to make simple when can complicated". :)
This is an awesome little project, I never knew how the swash plate worked. Great information and an excellent electronic conversion from mechanical means. I am sure one could figure out with the use of a flight controller some algorithms to react to conditions like wind and inputs. Its a thinker
Although this would never “fly” as a real helicopter, I believe this still has potential in certain applications, where a “standard” model helicopter is needed. Such application would be a disposable delivery drone, where low costs and complexity would be a key factor in the application. Well done!
Items: - Swashplate - Bearing Swashplate - Belt - Main gear - Secundary gear - 3 servos - 5 Links - Anti rotate - Money - Headache + New cheap and simple control system + Fun
This is incredibly cool :) It's remarkable how much acceleration those little motors can achieve. I'm guessing the virtual swashplate is difficult to scale up to larger helicopters, due to the larger momentum of all the components making it more difficult to accelerate/decelerate?
![Noob To Max With DRAGON REWORK In Blox Fruits [FULL MOVIE]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/LnBMOinoOvA/mqdefault.jpg)
This is crazy. You breezed over the concept so effortlessly, I would almost believe it was easy...
Practical engineering comments but gets 16 likes? What has happened to RUclips?
i completely agree
I think a little more detail (on how) could be put into the build, Hopefully Tom will have a follow up with the code part too.. i can't believe this actually works..
Hey (practical engineering) I watch your channel as well maybe you guys should collaborate.
@@jmac1099 second channel linked in the description
Gonna have to pick my jaw up off the floor... Incredible work as always, Tom!
literally was watching the spirit test flight 8 before this video. I am so glad that i have such amazing youtubers in my youtube feed !!!
Nice work on that sprint rocket Joe!
I was about to go through the comments but then I saw the bps.space logo as the top comment and I was instantly happy. It's always awesome too see an awesome RUclips channel commenting on an other awesome RUclips channel.
I so want you two do collab on a project !
Tom, Tom, Tom, Tom only last night I forgot your name on our hangout but mentioned how clever you were and then you drop this. Outstanding work.
this is where you realize Tom is an actual aeronautics engineer not just a kid goofing off in his yard
I think many engineers started as kids goofing in their backyard :)
When you realize your hobbies/projects contain enough information for a PhD
science is goofing off but with data and statistics.
I don't think the average aeronautics engineer could pull this off. Sheer talent at work here.
@@alexkram Huh? Why would you think that? Was Tom the absolute top of his class at one of the best universities in the world or something?
this is honestly the most impressive thing i've seen helicopter related
Tareq Alsaadi flying a helicopter isn’t impressive to you?
Me too, and yes I am amazed that a helicopter flies but I understand how that works, this is electronic voodoo, and hats of to the the guys who came up with this in the first place albeit less aesthetically pleasing
@@adeetard2545 bro this guy literally made this by himself also stop hating and being negative
@@maxonmathew4557
No
It’s crazy that these motors can be controlled on such a small time scale with enough precision for this to work.
It's crazy that brushless motors/motor controllers themselves have enough precision to work. Each motor phase is getting pulsed many times per revolution in a trapezoidal or sinusoidal pattern. Tom "just" needed to overlay an increase and decrease throttle command each revolution phased in the direction of desired cyclic input. Crazy stuff! My first RC plane was a Graupner UHU back in the early 90's. It had basically a DC drill motor activated with an on/off relay switch and NiCad batteries. It might as well have been a brick with cardboard wings when compared with today's marvels!
Brushless motor: Fuck my life, I didn’t sign for that abuse
Guy builds and refines a never seen before kind of aircraft and brushes it off as a fun weekend project. What an incredible world we live in.
incredible *time
Its pretty amazing, but tbh, it does not seem really hard to build.
@@adryncharn1910 Hard to build, no, hard to balance and control, yes.
I love this! Using software to eliminate hardware. Amazing!
Nice seeing you around Jeremy! Looking forward to your next project!
That’s a smart way to see it
pretty much as flybars were killed by 3d gyros
But it will never be able to do 3D.
@@superskullmaster You meant 8D? Typo?
Yeah the design is cool, but I came here to see Tom wink at me in slow motion ;)
New video When!?
How dare Tom not reply his wink ;) also here 1:53
@@blendertestguy5728 not sure, juggling a few ideas!
Michael reeves wishes he was you Joel
This is awesome. This is easily one of the best drone projects I've seen on RUclips. It's accessible, direct, detailed, and actually explores something new. And it works!.
_Learn how this man eliminates the need of active actuation on his helicopter. Servo manufacturers hate him!_
but i dont think that this is a efficient way of a helicopter. But very interesting and if it was combined with a capacitor storing the energy of the rotor when its speed should be decreased, then it could be efficient, too.
The ESC achieved rapid slow down by applying regenerative braking, @@neutronenstern.. This means the ESC is sending power back to the source, a LiPo battery. Your concern of inefficiency is still present by the fact that there's a rapidly changing speed motor, and that wastes quite some power in form of heat on the motor because any acceleration and deceleration on electric motor waste power as some of the energy in form of magnetic flux doesn't get converted into mechanical energy, thus heat.
@@neutronenstern. the esc has capacitors on it, that store energy. Though they normally work on a per-commutation scale, not per revolution...the lipo battery stores some of the energy as well.
The problem, why his motor gets hot is the constant acceleration deceleration. That's literally the best way, to kill your quadcopters motors...
These are interesting ideas for rc/unmanned. But if I'm in it, I'll be flying it.
@@neutronenstern. you're right, my dude. the motor having to both accelerate and decelerate means it'll roughly drawn in twice as much power than a conventional design. also, because the blades can swing up and down the helicopter becomes very unstable when making pitch or roll maneuvers because then the girosopic precession will yank the rotors with a far greater force than the aerial drag can induce, resulting in an instant total loss of control 04:31
So good! It's great to see this kind of stuff is possible outside of a research environment
Keep doing what you're doing Daniel. We love watching you guys innovate and make badass stuff.
Two of my fav RUclips channels for sure!
You both are my fav.. Hehe..
Woah! 3 of my favorite RUclipsrs commenting! Wow!
Outside?! Did you just write, he did not do any research for this project?
Please call anything within reach of his hands his Personal Research Environment.
amazing video! you could explore the "rigid rotor" configuration. Lockheed Martin used it on it's Cheyenne. It use a "flywheel" inertia to actuate its blades
2:33 -- That's never gonna wor.....
5:38 -- My god!
took you 3 minutes to finish the sentence?
After 10 crashes: "I thiiiink I might have to make some changes to the code." Well done dude! This is awesome!
He is trying to show that he is qualified to work at Boeing
If going_to_crash == True
Don't()
Endif
He sounds like Elon Musk.
I thought that was funny too. I think we've all been there lol.
@@pedram.mp4 HA!
You have thoroughly impressed this helicopter pilot. This is amazing.
Thank you for your service
ya what adam100a said
Incredible! Who would have thought that was possible. Good job.
Will Prowse!! 🙌...my best DIY solar power RUclipsr.
Stunning. You can learn something new every day - in a most enjoyable way.
Thanks Grandad!
That is true
@@TomStantonEngineering what?!?
@@greatnate3816 They share the same surname, so it's not a far stretch
@@simeondermaats .......
I’m here for the grass. That grass is amazing. It’s so green and perfectly mown. I love the stripes.
hahahaha
It is very nice grass.
I wonder what kind of grass is it
I think you just hit on your grass with yo Pipe. 🥴
Hi dad lol
I don't think some people are understanding just how insane this actually is. It's like a helicopter, but not at all... I love this so much
Yes. I figured it was just going to be a fixed pitch helicopter not a swash plate alternative
Sometimes I really wish I haven't gone down the helicopter rabbit hole. This is not one of these times.
Rest assured Tom, that nearly seamless transition from wide to macro at 3:04 has not gone unappreciated. 😎
Like, vidit me please
Helicopter pilot from Fl, USA. Well done. This is a very interesting concept. Problems with larger scale vehicles would be vibration. The tail rotor must be constantly accelerating and decelerating to compensate for a continuous changing torque output from the motor.
when you explained the concept I was straight up not believing that it would ever work in practice. I'm still kinda in disbelief. it seems like this technique could be used to make RC helicopters much more mechanically simple and cheap to produce, right?
woah didnt expect you here
Possibly, however the cost of the ultra fast electronics would probably outweigh the savings
@@Mireaze you can pick up a microcontroller capable of this for about 5 bucks
@@Jakedasnake1066 a small toy helicopter is only 15
I was just illustrating the relatively low costs. I meant YOU could pick up a micro controller for $5, on a diy friendly breakout board like an arduino. The controller itself is likely less than a dollar, and I guarantee those $15 helicopters already contain at least one
I'm literally amazed!!! So good job! I've been trying this technique for a lot of time now and couldn't achieve a good sine control of the brushless motor. U use a double H bridge for control or a customized ESC? Will you share the software somewhere? Once again, so good work! :)
Thanks man! I used a t-motor F30A esc and communicated with Oneshote125. Here is a brief run through of the setup: ruclips.net/video/Y31BhQToh_U/видео.html
@@TomStantonEngineering thanks! I'll give it a good look.
Just thinking that adding some reduction gearing between motor and rotor could make the control easier since the acceleration/deceleration could be over several motor revolutions. Obviously the motor would have to be running faster overall though.
@@ferrumignis that could offer a bunch of other benefits too, good call. A small geared motor or belt driven could be pretty awesome and possibly make it easier to miniaturize
@@ferrumignis True, the motor would have to spin faster. But this has been used in many, many toy helicopters. It takes a bunch of load off the motor, and increasing the RPM is easy when the motor doesn't have to work as hard.
Another staggering piece of back yard engineering from Tom. It warms my heart to see young people doing serious engineering like this. Its where the truly great innovations are born. well done Tom - another outstanding piece of work and very well presented.
Hey bud you just did the "impossible." A very big congratulations and cudo's from Las Vegas, NV - Aerospace Engineer
Where are the aliens
Chances are he knows there is about 3 places in Vegas where you'd work as a AE and 3 of them have to do with that@@DrGreerIsRight
US Gov't: We'll take your ENTIRE STOCK
They already have something like this I think
Look up "FLIR Black hornet"
@@calebsherman886 The guy that came up with that design used to post on RCGroups, the original versions actually used a swashplate, just the smallest, most unusual looking one youve ever seen. Not sure if theyve changed to this rather amazing technique or not since then, but both are pretty freakin amazing!
@@calebsherman886 Yeah, if you find confirmation that Black hornet uses this method, I'd be curious. I've looked at images, but am not sure.
lol.. NO !
they will probably choose a 15k $ rc helicopter instead of a simmilarly capable normal 200 $ rc heli with an 100$ camera
Wow! Very nice! Very educational! Thanks for sharing your engineering, thoughts and ideas! My parents bought me a 5 in 1 water pump kit back in the late 70’s. Was probably the best gift ever for a 12 year old! It probably has much to do with why I often can understand and troubleshoot a hydraulic system so quick and accurately while others stand and give blank stares.
...you wouldn't happen to know where I could get that kit would you
Wow, that's really incredible. Your persistence is admirable.
Tom, just wanted to join in and say: Amazing work, this was truly impressive. Did not think something like this would be possible
Unbelievable, as an avid helicopter and drone builder for decades, I’m trueky amazed that you even attempted this, and that you made it work is incredible
Tom is perfect example of practice makes man perfect 👍
I just don´t know, if the word "genius" is good enough for him.
He has spent time in properly learning the fundamentals hands on from a young age. I believe that is his secret sauce.
Not enough syllables
@@karthick86c that's secret everyone sauce.
@@karthick86c indeed🔥
Einstein's reincarnation perhaps?
Your explanations and the use of the high speed video make this complex feat understandable. I am inspired by your need to do something just because you think it can be done.
OMG!!! This ModLab paper is one of my favorites. Like you, ever since I found it I’ve wanted to replicate it. Great work Tom. I love following your projects. You are inspiring!!!
The refinement process must have earned you the nickname of "Blade Ruiner".
I am so beguiled by the huge helicopter build, all those shiny parts!
When you said Drone Helicopter Hybrid I assumed it would be a drone with helicopter style props.
Me too
well this does exists already and has a glow version too, it's crazy, recommend checking out, it calls stingray 500
I do too, and straight thinking why would you make something simple to a more complex thing?
The worst of both worlds :D But I would totally love to see it
but that's going backwards bro
Dude. Next level. I can't believe how well this worked. This is going to put the helicopters in my next video to utter shame! 😂
Looking forward to your video mate!!!
Haha same
I literally said "Thats incredible" out loud when you showed the slow motion of the simple helicopter changing blade angles.
But he explained it first, so you knew what was coming in that slow motion footage. Lack of imagination, perhaps? How old are you? And how flexible? I'm a bit worried.
No, just kidding, he must be very smart and he knows a thing or two, too. This project IS amazing.
I fly helis, this is impressive
But I think that the connection between the rotor and the rotor head is under way to much stress to be reliably
After all, you are wobbling the entire rotor blade 3000 times a minute
Reliability can be tuned. No worries.
That is true with it being 3D printed, however an actual helicopter rotor head pivots every rotation too. So there's no reason an aluminium rotor head with bearings won't work well. Thanks!
Has anyone ever done any studies about dynamic strength of 3D-printed parts with various printing methods? This is something I'd be very curious about
@@ichbrauchmehrkaffee5785 There is a youtube channel called CNC Kitchen that might interest you, he has made a lot of videos about stress-testing printed parts and usually he can record hard numerical values using his testing rigs and makes very informative little graphs.
@@truepennytv I second that. CNC kitchen is the way to go.
Ifound you through the suggested videos 1 year ago still enjoying your videos. your videos are also very
informative. I just made a RUclips channel so I'm definitely doing my research on how to do these builds.
Thanks for all your awesome videos. Please keep it up!
I just built a drone so Im also doing research.
@@VoltageGuy2000 sounds great keep it up😁
@@Builditathome-Restoration Thanks! You too!
@@Builditathome-Restoration I just checked out your RUclips channel, you have some great videos! ill definitely be watching some of them.
@@VoltageGuy2000 awesome man😃 really appreciate that
The test flights reminded me of learing to fly my Honey Bee FP all those years ago. Nice video Tom!
Honey Bee Fap? Strange name. What is a fap? I've seen bees before, most are called drones. Do bees fap their wings? Got no glue.
This is awesome as always dude! Never came across that, really interesting control mechanism :)
Yeah I've been wanting to do it for ages! Thanks mate
@@TomStantonEngineering I've been waiting for this for literally 20 years. The "Piccolo" was the smallest electric heli back in the day. Now with this design, the heli might even outperform 4 motor drones for simplicity and control (current pure 2 motor helis have very little control obviously).
Wow, no words. I can’t imagine how much time you spent trying to work out the controller program
I found this idea just as fascinating the first time I saw it, glad you actually went out and made it into a helicopter! Unfortunately I don't think it's very easily scalable due to the fatigue induced at the 45° hinges, but on small-scale DIY helicopters it certainly brings the theoretical cost down. Of course, off-the-shelf swashplates exist... but this is fully able to be self-fabricated, compared to the swashplates.
6:58
Tom: ok camera, time for an outro
Camera: LEAVES
Tom: ...?
Camera: I FOCUS LEAVES
I really love how BPS.space, Joel creates, Practical Engineering, and probably several other tech/DIY/maker channels are also here. Love this community of youtubers
Great job dude. now you can sell the code and get millionaire :D
*get a millionaire*
@@harukinoobie5966 he'll get so rich he will buy a millionaire.
Why must everything be about profit
@@isetta4083 King said: I have a dream. And the rich kept on dreaming of being richer. Who cares for people?!
@@isetta4083 For a person like him more money means more funds for bigger projects. Nothing wrong with that.
Nice one.. I love when you get that "AH-HA" moment from something like this..
Im honestly just amazed at how quiet it is
Pretty much any small electric direct drive heli is quite like this. Particularly when not running insanely high head speeds that sport pilots do.
what amazed me most was how the 3d-printed middle-pieces held up O.O
I had homemade electric scooter with 3D printed pulley from PETG and it lasted > 200km (and is actually still OK though I've abandoned the project for now). Tom has similar but quite bigger 3D printed pulley on his bike : ruclips.net/video/1pm1RtCuE3A/видео.html . PETG is actually very strong and when printed with 100% infill it usually break *randomly* into sharp shiny pieces similar to glass.
That's absolutely mind blowing! I never thought a helicopter could be so simple
This is incredible, I can't believe it's possible
I look forward to buying one of these off aliexpress in about 2 weeks.
Very impressive! 👏
When he said "virtual swashplate" this is when I realized skynet had become self aware.
Bruh, imagine if every school graduate was this smart and enthusiastic, mankind would have transcended years ago
Well done on getting it working!!! Well done bro!
Amazing, the virtual swash plate is an engineering marvel! Good work
Kiwi Co seems like the perfect advertiser for this channel.
Brilliant. Deserves recognition. I hope Tom’s vast potential is fully realised.
This is amazing you were able to get it to work when I first started watching I was like there is no way
That Tom, is really well done! I'm continually impressed with your dedication and patience to the stuff you make. Keep up the great work!
buddy, as a developer aspire I got to kuddos to your perseverance, when I saw the helicopter flapping around with the wrong frequency I wanted to lay on my side and cry just thinking on the debugging that would take.
If this was scaled up, would there be any means of autorotation if the motor failed or power got cut off?
No, don't think so - it has no collective pitch control.
If this was scaled up it would break before its first flight
Ah thanks for pointing out auto-rotation! That would be achilles heel of this implementation.
Nope, for autorotation you would need tot add power to the rotors. This is done by trading altitude for rotor speed. The blades will speed up as the helicopter descents. By controlling the collective pitch of the blades you can produce lift to flair the landing. The power stored in the rotor will provide lift until.
If there was an electronically controlled brake on the rotor, it would be able to. Not as well I don’t believe, but it would work.
That is legitimately one of the most amazing ideas I've seen come to fruition
Crazy mad skills this guy has. You made my head spin with all your casual engineering lingo. Really man, WOW!
That was literally mind-blowing how simple it is and it does actually fly! Thanks for sharing and explaining this amazing concept!
Tom Stanton you have already inspired me. That's why I'm getting a 3d printer ;)
Tom...
You are brilliant! Fantastic work on this. What is interesting is that this is some what like a teetering rotor system, similar to what is on the robinson helicopter. Other helicopters use a little more complex system of being fully articulated.
One of the key limits of a helicopter is retreating blade stall. As the heilcopter airspeed increased the blade that is moving away from the direciton of travel, the blade needs to flap upwards to account for the loss of airspeed over the rotor blade. (Rotational speed - airspeed). Likewise, the opposite is happening on the advancing blade. Once the retreating blade stalls, the aircraft pitches up violently, loses tail rotor authority and the aircraft will rotate opposite the direction that the blades are rotating. (It is ugly).
So, there are a few helicopers that use coaxial rotor systems, Kman and the Sikorsky Commanche.
So my question is this...
Could it be possible to take to counter rotating blades and then use a pusher proper ; then adjust the rotor RPM to control yaw? This would not likely bank or roll very well... but in terms of a stable platform on to which to mount sensors, it might be more power efficient allowing it to remain aloft longer. Might such as system negated retreating blade stall?
Either way...
Excellent work here.
Cheers...
John Hall (Prior USCG helicopter pilot)
Hope the guy who discovered this gets a very good offer to some big companies.
Imagine seeng drones or real life helicopters with no swashplate which leaves less mechanical moving parts
It's clever, very much so, but probably not very practical. First it only works because the drivetrain is an brushless electric motor and secondly it comes with cost of extra vibration. Which probably makes it a no-sell for full size helicopters. For small drones, quadcopters have already won out in all practical aspects because they are even simpler than that mechanically. It can probably work to make cheaper toy helicopters and there is good business in that, but I doubt it will offer any benefit outside of that narrow sector.
thats really crazy
I thought so too!
This is brilliant. As a heli flyer and a drone flyer, I would absolutely buy this if it was dialed in and had parts support.
That's actually pretty genius. I wonder if the vibration from acceleration and deceleration is much of a problem for the aircraft itself and potential gear, like cameras etc.
Vibration is certainly very much an issue. The motor is literally vibrating multiple times per revolution.
It's incredible how much you can achieve just by giving a weird shape to the current graph
Thomas . It's really a next level of thinking dude. Hats off for this great information....
4:14 Looks like every time I try to fly a toy helicopter
Very Relatable haha!
This is amazing! Could you imagine a full scale version of this ever having a viable application?
that would be frustrating
@@Kang38290 epic*
No, because of the increase in energy consumption and decrease in control.
Ignored the video when it first came out. Jumped right back when I came across "Rotor Flapping" phenomenon. Amazingly put together!
I absolutely flunked my aerospace final exam today because I couldn't write how a helicopter rotor blade moves
I needed this video 24 hours earlier god dammit lmao
@Digadogup damn, you did him like that. This is true though, haha.
@Digadogup you fail to account for the fact that different people learn more easily in different ways. Just because the information is available doesn't mean it is available in a form that is easily understood and internalized by everyone. Maybe for some, but not everyone. I know that it took me way longer to teach myself how helicopter rotors work when I was just reading textbooks and papers than if I had access to a resource like this video. I'll give you that there are also other youtube channels who do a good job explaining it too, so in some ways your point still stands, but i also thought it was important to include the point about learning style differences as well. cheers.
You have to develop this as an actual heli, this would rip and also be very cheap to manufacture.
Except first you have to make electric helicopter a thing. This won't work on IC engine.
@@illusivec
Could maybe work if you had half gears in a gearbox to achieve this.
But I do not imagine that would be very good for the gearbox in the longrun.
@@illusivec You could have some weirdly shaped gears
@@matth23e2 like an oblong gear found on some mtb's
@@lukehinch3441 I don't think this would work though. Oblong gears produce a fixed oscillation that can only vary in speed, but to control this helicopter you need to be able to change the oscillation to steer as you would like. In stationary flight you would not need an oscillation for example.
I am awe struck. I am convinced that getting this man 10 million subscribers will make the world a better place.
"Now do an inverted, tail down funnel with it, Jimmy!" 😂
Also, great work on the heli, but a minor correction: CCPM helis can't control each blade individually as the CCPM swash mixing is programmed in such a way that whenever cyclic is applied, whatever happens to one blade will be inversely mirrored on the other blade.
I think what you meant was that collective and cyclic pitch can be applied independently of one another, which is something your frankenheli cannot do.
Lol Frankenheli. Its not even a good frankenheli. Nope.
One question: how does this accelerating and deaccelerating affect the power consumtion? If that would be a problem, one could implement something like a resonance circuit that could store and release the energy in the right moment to make it more efficient. But since the frequency of the rotor depends on thrust that would be quite tricky to adjust the resonance frequency of the circuit, it would maybe also need to be variable? 🤔
I was amazed by your garden and the beautiful silence behind. Very nice place for you've made! Nice.
Concept you've shown at 0:38 exists since the inventing of helicopter, indeed even earlier.
Existed also only with 2 same propellers horizontal, many times easier for manoeuvring, controlling and speed. Same as today drones but with 2.
But as always a rule: "why people to make simple when can complicated". :)
This is an awesome little project, I never knew how the swash plate worked. Great information and an excellent electronic conversion from mechanical means. I am sure one could figure out with the use of a flight controller some algorithms to react to conditions like wind and inputs. Its a thinker
Although this would never “fly” as a real helicopter, I believe this still has potential in certain applications, where a “standard” model helicopter is needed. Such application would be a disposable delivery drone, where low costs and complexity would be a key factor in the application. Well done!
DikoMan yeah maybe not disposable but certainly cheap and reliable
I love that, during the initial launches, as the helidrone gets more altitude precrash, the camera makes noticable moves further away
This is sort of like watching something revolutionary. If perfected, it could greatly reduce the complexity and cost of helicopters.
Items:
- Swashplate
- Bearing Swashplate
- Belt
- Main gear
- Secundary gear
- 3 servos
- 5 Links
- Anti rotate
- Money
- Headache
+ New cheap and simple control system
+ Fun
C h e a p
I cannot believe how well this works! I've seen a lot of your videos and to see you pull something like this off is a huge!
2:05 I swear I was back in 95' connecting to AOL dial-up or smth.
"are a RUclipsr that makes things?"
-Yes, what do y"WE ARE KIWICO AND ARE YOU INTERESTED IN A SPONSORSHIP DEAL?"
awesome man! I love all these prototypes ideas and the thinking behind it. Thanks for showing one and explaining the other!
Found another channel as cool as Mark Rober, Smarter everyday and Turnah81 ❤️
I wonder how long before we start seeing something like this on cheap toy RC helicopters
Changing the blade angle just through the rotation of the motor, that is crazy.
This is a whole new kind of concept.
This is incredibly cool :) It's remarkable how much acceleration those little motors can achieve.
I'm guessing the virtual swashplate is difficult to scale up to larger helicopters, due to the larger momentum of all the components making it more difficult to accelerate/decelerate?
Gotta use liquid nitrogen to cool down the motor, like CPUs, LOL
Will you share the cad and code, and also a parts list, I would love to replicate this
That blew my mind. You sir are a genius.