All articles are based on
electric flying machines.
|
Design Knowledge |
Design tools |
Foam cutting |
Alternate
materials | Electronics |
Electric motors |
Radio noise |
For some of us, are new in this
process.... So.... Where to find help?
It all depends on your interest and what type of
concept you have
dreamed up.
About EDF Jets By Carl Tulanko An article given to me That
helped me understand some basic requirements for EDF (Electric Duct Fan)
aircrafts. This article addresses the characteristics of flying electric
jets and some suggestions for suitable power plants.
Radio Control Model Aircraft For Everyone
Model aircraft design
course you may want to look into.
See How It Flies
A great source on how a plane flies.
Handley Innovations
An incredible source on aerodynamics with all sorts of design tool software.
Tips worth trying
Great site
full of tips and tools for designing
Alan's Hobby, Model & RC Web Links
A large source of links that may help with your design process.
ThirtyThousandFeet.com
A large collection of links for different topics on R/C planes
The
Wright Brothers Aeroplane Company and Museum of Pioneer Aviation
is a forum for
early aviation historians and enthusiasts, a living document that grows and
evolves. Here you will find drawing of the Wright brothers planes and
the basics..
More KNOLEDGE
Advance
Dan's Page of Radio Control Model Aircraft
Building hints and tips
for R/C. Structures, composites, foam wings and the modification of engines,
and his personal experiences with R/C flying

It all starts with an idea and conceptualized onto paper with pencil, ruler
and eraser. Or....
CAD Programs - Are the tools
for the modern builder, see my page on
design tools.
For viewing drawings only you may be able to
access free viewers to view the CAD drawings. these are supplied by the
software companies. Also an other alternative is PDF. Have some one convert
the file to PDF for you.
MAD
(Model Aircraft Designer) shareware a simple CAD
program to assist in designing airplanes
ELECTRO FLIGHT DESIGN (WINDOWS
DUCTED FAN PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS
by Kress Jets software
PROP MODEL DESIGN 1.0 MS/DOS GW BASIC
Air Foil plotting program
Free
Profili 2
An
airfoil program to assist you with wing design
NACAGEN
NACA 4 & 5 digit foil Generator
MotorCal
Electric flight performance
prediction system for the hobbyist
WINGS 2.11 CAD software to design models planes and sailplanes
Alan Tong Hobby, Model & RC Web Links A large collection of links
on any topic
Static Thrust Calculator Ever wanted to know how much
thrust your engines giving ?

Foam cutting
Some may find that foam planes are easier to
build and quicker to assemble. With all the new materials available this is
possible. I'm not an expert in this field, but have learned some
valuable trick. Now a complete airplane can be created from these materials.
What I like the best is the resiliency (invincibility) of the craft. How
often can you crash a plane and make quick repairs and fly again? With
basal build-up this is not often possible. When I go to a flying field I
would like to put in as many flights as possible, and this is only achieved
with my foam planes.
A good source for ready made tools is Feather/cut and Compufoil,
by
SoarSoft Software.
The Compufoil is a good source of airfoils. You can also buy additional
airfoils. It can also help you with your wing designs. There is also a
tutorial on how to cut foam, making templates, and
more.
FoamFly.com
is THE place to find out anything you could
want to know about BlueCor, Fan-Fold, Foam-Core, Depron, you-name-it foam,
for building radio-control aircraft. This material is not available in
CANADA, however you can order it with a link provide by this site.
This type of construction is unique and resilient to being damaged with a
great potential for new designs.
The Ductling II is
built from DEPRON, interesting results and findings.
DEPRON now becoming a favorite with building model planes because of
it's unique properties, however it is not readily available in North
America, it has to be imported.
Foam cutter details
A
good article on how to build a foam cutter and power supply

Alternate
materials
I have encounter an
individual with the same interest in building processes and discovered a new
source of materials readily from a most unlikely source, yet common and
similar hobby. "Rocketry" The nose cones of rockets are a
perfect example. I will let you think of the possibilities you could use
them for.

I have
found in the pass a valuable lesson to treat your batteries with care.
-
Not to overcharge them, for
this will over heat them and possibly explode.
-
For Nickle-Cadium let them run the full duration
of the charge. (discharge them completely before recharging) This will
reduce the possibility of forming a memory allowance.
-
You may want to log your
flight durations, to have a benchmark of your battery performance. This
will help with maintenance.
-
If battery pack is showing
signs of decreasing duration. This may be caused by poor charging habits
or bad cells. A recycling process is can determine if it is memory
allowance problem. If not then a bad cell is the cause.
-
Consider a good investment in
purchasing a digital charger with dual power source AC/DC,
charge/discharge, multiple battery pack configurations, fast/slow
charging, and most of all indestructible and reliable....
Below are some topics I found
interesting.
A
new source of power up-coming Using
micro fuel cells.
The focus on providing up to 100 watts of power. This has
potentials for electric
flight.
Read
this....By Gregg Keizer, TechWeb
News
Taking care of your batteries.
By Ultimatecharger.com
LiPo Wiring By Common sense RC a very comprehensive tool
with diagrams to wiring you LiPo
The Battery Clinic
Specializing in R/C
Battery systems.
Something on managing electrical current
Desktop Power Supply from a PC converting power supplies for the
purpose of driving field chargers
Tech Talk : Maintaining Your Batteries
Tester for NiCad's
This is a electronic building
project witch connects to the parallel port of your PC and with the included
software makes it possible to measure the capacity of your transmitter and
receiver battery
The Battery Directory.com
What About All Those NiCads? by Tony Van
Roon An understanding the mechanics of batteries.
Ultimate Guide to Lithium Polymer Batteries

My knowledge of motors is
limited, however there are many good resources I have found that help me
understand better.
I am interested is using brushless motors with duct fan units as a more
efficiently power source.
I discovered this site in the effort to work with DEPRON and found this:
HOW TO BUILD A BRUSHLESS ELECTRIC MOTOR
Using modified CD-Rom motor for RC models
A Brushless Motor You Can Build
With all the new RF towers
sprouting up around us you may want to consider this option for protection.
A solution to minimizing motors
generated radio noise in smaller planes with tight fuselage compartments is
to ensure the electronic speed control (ESC) is located away from your
receiver as far apart from each other and that all wire leads are twisted
(braided) to help with isolating the radio frequencies. This some time
is all that is required to do.
Motors generate radio noise
which can interfere with your receiver and cause problems. A solution is to
filter the noise by using capacitors and a Schottky diode. Two .10uF (104)
and one .047uF (473) non-polarized, ceramic capacitors. These capacitors
should be used at all times, and on every motor to help reduce the radio
noise generated by the motor and prevent possible damage to your electronic
speed control (ESC).
The Schottky diode will provide a slight increase in the ESC efficiency and
reduce its operating temperature. The Schottky diode must be installed
correctly. Installing it backward will destroy it.

Correct installation of the
Schottky diode:
|