Tailsitter with 6 rotors (or more)

ArduPlane VTOL Plane
1

Hi everyone

Tailsitter with 4 rotors seems to work but due to higher payload I would like to use 6 rotors.

How many rotors are supported ? Has anyone experience with such a setup ?

Thanks
John

2

you can split the same signal to multiple escs to keep the 4-rotor control, but using more motors. just make sure the motors bound to the same output are spinning the same direction.

i didnt build a plane, but i just built a copter with 8 motors, but using only quad config.

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3

The issue is if I move from 4 → 6 there will be asymmetry introduced.

x1          y1
x1          y2
x2          y2

x = CW
y = CCW

4

correct, I would just double the motor count.

arducopter supports 6 motors easily, not sure about arduplane.

5

Dude … you just saved my “week” … :slight_smile:

I just realized that “smaller” rotors obviously provide the same thrust but are cheaper (48v vs 24V).

Also as you described, “duplication” of 4 engines is working better then having only 6.

→ thx a lot !

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6

another thing for the initial tuning (if you use that) to consider is the nominal prop size. I use the equivalent area to calculate the new nominal prop size, e.g. using 8 x 10" diameter rotors in a quad config, I would take the equivalent new diam for each rotor (14" diam rotor disk area ~ 2 x 10" diam rotor disk area). And I try to place the centroid of each rotor to where a propeller of the larger nominal size would have been placed, relative to the CG.

@dkemxr thoughts?

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