A Tale of Two Quadplanes

Alexander,

If you haven’t already, try flashing the older v1.9 firmware to see if that works. I use that as I have never been able to get v1.13 to work. I know Darrell uses the v1.13 firmware however. If you have tried that without any success, it may be worth your time to just use the 3.7.1 rather than the beta 6, at least until any bugs are sorted out in the firmware.

Thanks @evanp18 for your response. Purpose for Beta 6 was for the “fix” on Octa QuadPlanes. I guess at the end, it fixed the Octa QuadPlane issue but now a connection issues has arise. I was doing some further reading, and from past experience, it might not be a FW issue but more Mission Planner. There was another occasion that an earlier build of Mission Planner created an issue with an RFDu. I’ll try give 1.9 another try and see what happens. Thank you for taking the time to help and trouble shoot.

Thank you so much for this information. I am building vtol X8 and can I find wing extensions online for the same?
I was also wondering what would be the optimum CG location for this build to get efficient flight?

Where should be the location of the CG. Is there anything else I should take care of?
Thank you in advance.

I thought Vertical Technologies who sells the DeltaQuad were going to offer the wing extensions separately but so far no news. I don’t think anyone makes them. It’s a DIY project for now.

The CG of the Skywalker is normally 440mm back from the nose. If you extend the wings it will move forward a bit. I have mine set at 420mm which works well for me.

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thank you @darrell for quick reply. much appreciated :blush::+1:. People like you make this industry and hobby interesting.

Darrell,

I’m building an X8 Quadplane for a research laboratory at my university.
Thank you so much for documenting your build so carefully. I could have a million questions, but I will restrain myself.

I know that in previous posts you changed the power, motor, and prop configurations and I believe switched to 6s for the quad motors. What did you eventually decide on and learn from your testing with that? Did your TOW change at all?

Also, what, if anything, did you do to reinforce the length of the wing?

Thanks!

I ended up where I started oddly enough with T-Motor 3520-11 motors and 16" carbon fiber props and 6S for the vertical motors and 4S for the forward motor. I did have some success with smaller SunnySky motors with 14" props and 4S but in the end the best results were with the T-Motor motors.

I have wing tape on both the top and bottom of the wings and then I wrapped them with vinyl wrap such as they use on cars. It really helps to stiffen up the wings.

My motivation in trying other configurations was the very successful DeltaQuad which uses custom made smaller motors with 4S batteries. But after a year of working on this I just don’t understand why they used 4S batteries on a single circuit. The current is so high and if you run all motors off the same circuit it’s hard to monitor power and you run the risk of not having power to land with. The maker of the DeltaQuad is very helpful and does answer questions if you want to check in with him. I just love the DeltaQuad and I’m looking forward to one coming to Australia so I can see it. I’d love to fly one.

A friend of mine has a hot wire CNC foam cutter and recently cut some new wing extensions for me. I’m planning on embedding the ESCs in the wing extension for better cooling. It’s a good time to do some building given current conditions.

Have fun with the build.

Thank you so much for the quick reply. I’ve been in debate for motor options for a while now. I have narrowed it down to two options, however, bother are the smaller SunnySky you had mentioned earlier:

I’m also debating between 4s an 6s aiming for ~2:1 thrust to weight ratio.
760kv - 14.8V - 14x7 prop produces 3350g thrust at 51.2 amps
585kn -22.2V - 12x6.5 prop produces 3550g thrust at 41.6 amps

There is also a SunnySky motor the same as your T-motor, but unless i want 4000g/motor it doesn’t seem to be a significant improvement over the 585 kv previously mentioned except the running temperature is significantly less. Is that an issue here? if not I would gladly go with the 3520, same debate over 4s vs 6s however.

Thank you very much!