20
votes
Why do most drones have upward facing motors?
One practical advantage is increased ground clearance, reducing the likelihood of a prop strike on landing or take-off.
Aerodynamically, a pusher1 design can be less efficient because the propeller ...
- 5,996
17
votes
Why do most drones have upward facing motors?
Expanding on @Kralc's answer:
Here's a study (unfortunately behind a paywall) that I'm going to copy key parts of below:
The hexacopter was mounted on a load cell test stand, and data were collected ...
- 762
12
votes
Accepted
Why do drone propellers have blades with thin chords?
Overview
The most efficient propeller is single bladed, has infinitely narrow chord, has infinitely thin airfoil, has an infinitely long blade, spins infinitely slowly, and requires infinite torque. ...
- 1,912
10
votes
Accepted
What is the difference between FPV or LOS, angle or acro drones?
So FPV and LOS are ways to fly the drone, with FPV being First Person View and LOS being Line Of Sight.
In FPV, one generally has a fixed camera on the aircraft and controls the aircraft’s movements ...
- 4,412
7
votes
Why is an MPU6000 more well suited for drones than an ICM IMU?
There has been a good deal of discussion on this topic, and it has been no small source of conflict between several of the main firmware players in the high-performance DIY drone flight controller ...
- 1,200
7
votes
Why is an MPU6000 more well suited for drones than an ICM IMU?
It's not superior, it's just good enough, cheap enough and may be more noise resistant than ICM20602.
There's a bunch of flight controllers with dual IMUs onboard. For example, Lumenier Lux F7 has ...
- 71
6
votes
Accepted
Does the performance of a brushless motor decrease over time?
Like most things, it depends on how you treat it.
As far as I know, you should never need to worry about a brushless motor wearing out, especially for our purposes where we will likely demolish them ...
- 4,412
5
votes
Accepted
How are Hall effect gimbals different than standard gimbals?
The difference is in how the gimbal position is sensed and reported to the processor in the transmitter. The two main types are potentiometer and hall effect gimbals, but in both types, the ...
- 5,948
5
votes
Accepted
Why do brushless drone motors tend to be more expensive than brushed?
Brushless motors are typically CNC machined for a large part of their manufacturing process. The top part of the bell and bearing race are machined from aluminum. The shafts typically steel or a ...
- 1,200
5
votes
Why do drone propellers have blades with thin chords?
As is explained briefly here on Aviation.SE and here on Physics.SE, the differences in chord length (and other properties of the propellers like diameter and pitch) are mostly derived from the fact ...
- 5,948
4
votes
Accepted
What is the performance difference between a brushless motor with a wider vs taller stator?
The simple answer is "more width equals more torque".
More torque let's you drive a higher pitch or larger diameter prop effectively. Given the same size prop, it will drive it with more ...
- 525
4
votes
Pros/cons of using a BEC in traditional nitro plane?
If you use a BEC you get a few advantages:
Input voltage doesn't matter (usually it has to be at least a few Volts above the output voltage), you can probably use the LiPo you already have.
The ...
- 171
3
votes
Accepted
Vertical Flight Paths
There is a software called UgCS which I believe should fit your requirements. It allows you to create waypoints with precise location and altitude. There are options like terrain following which ...
- 5,642
3
votes
Why do most drones have upward facing motors?
The DJI Matrice RTK has rotors on the bottom. I believe this is to avoid impact when flying upward for inspections. (Under side of a bridge for example).
I'm not sure about the aerodynamic effects, ...
- 31
3
votes
What is the difference between FPV or LOS, angle or acro drones?
FPV stands for First Person View and refers to drones where there is an on-board camera giving a 'pilots eye' view.
LOS means Line Of Sight and refers to a drone being flown by the pilot looking at ...
- 5,996
3
votes
What is the performance difference between a brushless motor with a wider vs taller stator?
To simplify this discussion, it's easiest to focus on a single size class for these motors - 22XX-24XX motors on 3.5-6g propellers (5"-6"). It is also incredibly difficult to decouple effects of ...
- 846
3
votes
Accepted
What is the difference between a patch and helical antenna?
tl;dr: In terms of radio performance, they're almost identical if you compare similar-gain models, so choose based on dimensions, durability, maintainability and other practical considerations. If you'...
- 2,957
3
votes
What is the difference between a patch and helical antenna?
It is my understanding that in general a helical antenna will perform better than a patch antenna. I should really find a source for that though. However a patch antenna is flat or nearly flat and ...
- 1,130
3
votes
What are the advantages or buying a small drone vs a larger drone?
The first thing you should consider is what you have room for. A larger drone will normally need more space to fly and can cause more damage if crashed. I would recommend a small drone if you are just ...
- 5,642
3
votes
Accepted
Difference between XM and XM+ receivers?
According to Oscar Liang, the XM+:
Is larger and heavier than XM (21.5 x 12 x 3.5 mm – 1.6 g)
Has diversity antennae, unlike XM
Has solder pads in addition to pin headers
Doesn't support Smart Port ...
- 5,948
2
votes
Difference between XM and XM+ receivers?
As far as I know, they are almost the same.
The only difference is that the XM+ has a diversity receiver so will be more reliable. It also weighs slightly more and is slightly larger (though it’s a ...
- 4,412
2
votes
How are Hall effect gimbals different than standard gimbals?
Hall effect gimbals use a hall effect sensor which is an electronic component that measures magnetic fields. In the gimbal a magnet passes over the sensor and it measures the magnetic field and that ...
- 619
2
votes
Will wiring two batteries in parallel fry my drone?
TLDR; The drone will work the same
Given that weight is not an issue here (which might be the biggest concern in the real world), the only things we need to take into account are voltage and current.
...
- 5,642
1
vote
Vertical Flight Paths
If I understand your question correctly, you can do what you want with iNav, if you have a drone with a compatible flight controller that is. So you won't be able to use a DJI drone for example, and ...
- 2,644
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