Progressing with overall structure and wiring testing over the weekend we came with an idea to measure some performance values. Test list ended up having following points:
- Structure weight
- All gimbals thrust upwards
- All gimbals thrust downwards
- Full power forward + power readings
Our blimp structure changed & grown quite a bit lately so weighing it per-partes is no longer an option. So thinking about how to get some value we installed a pulley and hanged it under the carport.
To get the measurement itself we acquired a SCA Digital Scale – Hand Held from SuperCheap Auto, which seems to be a good value for $13.
Weighing was fun, long story short we ended up on nice 9.4kgs.
Next stage was to measure downward, upward and forward thrust. Unfortunately one of the ESCs given up (the last & old 35A one) so that needed to be replaced so no dramas. More difficult was when one of the propellers quenched in a gimbal, which needed more elaborate & time consuming solution. So we did those test with 3 out of 4 gimbals only and while we measured something I wasn’t too happy about it.
I took following videos, but someone still need to reinterpret what’s there – or even better wait for all gimbals when we’ll repeat it in proper manner.
The final one was to demonstrate and measure maximum forward thrust, so we did it. Again with a disclaimer that while both main thrusters were going well, just 3 out of 4 gimbals joined. Still, god I love that sound of a jet plane! 🙂
The last bit was to repeat the test while measuring maximum power consumption.
If I am reading it properly at the peak we’ve reached 1239W! Not bad at all. Well, we still need to repeat it with all engines going, but we have some initial value to work with.
H2Use 
no to mÄ› poser
LikeLike