So - This is a version of a P38 Lightning, except i've only got a single prop on it
at the front, rather than twin engines. I did try twin 615 cordless motors
but it doesn't seem to have enough thrust for sustained flight, so I've now got a an 8 x 20mm motor and
it's powered by two 10 Farad super capacitors and I have a little charging port and switch on it.
I've been trimming it out this morning and it's seems to be flying reasonably well.
I've got my charging box here. I've got an 18 volt battery going into a little chinese circuit that
gives me a regulated power supply so I charge this up to about 3.2 volts. Just plug that in
and a little voltmeter on there tells me how much charge, how much voltage, I've got in the batteries
Currently up at 1.5v, so I'll take it up to 3.2v which is
probably slightly more than the recommended for the 2.7 volt capacitors but
they're very cheap, these capacitors, not a problem if they have a short life.
It's up to 2.8v
Charge rate is starting to drop a wee bit now.
It starts off at 0.8 of an amp regulated at that and then
drops, tapers off, once it gets near the target voltage. The target voltage set about 3.2v
Should be a little blue light comes on in the charger. There it is! - fully charged.
Right let's see how this goes
Climbing quite steeply
Leveling out in flight now
and it's down. A steep rate of climb when the motor has got its full battery
voltage and then it starts to tail off rapidly the voltage and
the prop speed drops and it goes into a cruise and then plummets to the ground!
Here we're doing three volts
3.19v
3.2v - Eventually a little blue light will come on down round about my thumb here
There it goes - that's the full charge.
Riding on the prop a bit too much there. I have to trim the tail
The motor tends to stall when it hits the ground because it stops the prop turning but there's not
much voltage left in the battery by that time thankfully, because these cordless motors, if you
stop the props, at the full voltage, the windings will probably burn out in a couple of seconds.
Right
Recharge again
There's also the little green LED that comes on when this gets charged up.
This little board came from one of these Chinese £6, capacitor powered gliders.
That's the LED lighting up now
I'm still only about three volts so I want to take it up to about 3.2v
Somebody on microlight over there, behind the trees. "Flying lawnmower" - wouldn't catch me up in one of them!
Yes - nice height that time.
Just over the fence. These super capacitors charge quickly and discharge very quickly.
They don't have a very high capacity either. As you can see, enough for a 20 to 30 second flight
That's fully charged.
Chasing the sheep again! Thanks for watching. Please Like & Subscribe if you like these videos.