2.6M FPV Glider with Solar Cells on Wing

[@adrianjohnson555]

You may already be aware but solar cells act as a current source, so if you connect directly to a battery the voltage will drop to whatever the battery is and will increase as the battery is charged, up to the maximum voltage the cells can produce. A simple way to try and get more efficiency would be to add a buck converter between the cells and battery, this may allow the cells to 'sit' at a more efficient (higher) voltage and produce more power. If the cells can't produce enough power then the buck converter will basically act as a direct connection between cells and battery anyway. A positive side effect of using a buck converter is that you set the voltage you want, so you can prevent over-volting your batteries and effectively go into the CV part of the charge cycle, for 2S you could set for 8.4V (as long as the batteries have been balanced beforehand). There are 2-3A buck converters out there (ebay, banggood etc.) that may suit your scenario. Of course all of this is dependent on the solar cells producing a max. voltage higher than your battery's - thought I'd mention it anyway! Thanks for the videos dude, always enjoyable!

[@Ender_Wiggin]

I recommend the Pololu ones. They are small and light and work very well.

[@timvanneijenhoff7529]

Adrian Johnson I agree with you. Though there is a big difference between the open ciruit voltage and the maximum power voltage. usualy the UMP i believe its called (maximum power voltage) is about 20% below the open circuit voltage.

[@adrianjohnson555]

Tim van Neijenhoff you make a good point! Maybe the scale of this plane is a bit small for a buck converter to be worth while...

[@forrestallison1879]

this would be cheap and work very well

[@forrestallison1879]

a lot of them are pretty tiny. It eally isnt much current

[@NWOization]

Love the HD tail perspective. I would watch an hour of you flying around like that alone with no narration, awesome job man.

[@nickrojas2041]

you should upload more

[@deanbeach1828]

I agree

[@josiahnilsen2323]

Yeah she was she was a gem good relationships are hard to come by god bless have a good one brotha

[@Hyprmtr]

Thank you for getting back on what most of your subscribers are interested in. Keep the great RC/FPV video coming. Thank you.

[@billflynn6903]

Nice work and interesting findings. A couple of things, a diode in series will insure the battery doesn't also try to power the solar panels. There is a slight voltage drop, so a highr operating voltage will help that effort. It will also reduce the current required.

[@tommuhlemanjr.3871]

Keep up the good work Daniel. You are an inspiration to many other people that would love to be doing this stuff, but can't for whatever reason. Regardless, your videos are and have always been a joy to watch.

[@AmpHibious]

cool build and awesome flight spot, like some of the other comments said, if you put a diode or capacitor between the solar circuit and the motor you should get a more consistent voltage. it could be the same for charging the battery as well. but a buck converter like Adrian said would get you a more accurate voltage out. i hope you do more with this set up, I'd like to build a solar glider eventually. no motor though.

[@BrianPhillipsRC]

Another awesome video! You do some really cool stuff. I'm so jealous of your environment there with Mountains and hills...you actually have something to film!!! Keep up the great work!

[@hilldaflyer4593]

Always fun watching your progress

[@Reth_Hard]

This is super cool! Solar cells technology is almost good enough for unlimited flight time! I can't wait to see what we'll be able to do in like 10 years or so...

[@SmithHayward]

I'm out here in ALWAYS SUNNY Arizona and I had been following your other project, but now that I've seen this one I might need to see what I can do here. I'll have to learn all about the solar cells, but it would be amazing to have a plane or glider that will fly with only a small backup battery and just go for "days". Thanks for adding another project to the ever expanding list... HAHA

[@Fpvfreaky]

rctestflight thanks for posting mate I really like your videos, I've got a Phoenix 6ft glider I might do something like this soon. Thanks for sharing dude👍🏽look forward to your next one now😉🤘

[@dl8cy]

You are living in an awesome landscape - so nice !

[@BlackPixxelDE]

The footage of the foxeer cam looks really good, gread dynamic range!

[@alltheflyingthings1075]

Don't get me wrong but I like fpv flight videos with crash at the end or battery running out. It makes fpv flight video much more interesting.

[@MikeDesertHunterHale]

When they were building that highway I saved some Aspen from the graders. They are still in my yard, do well. It appears that the 2.4 is a great system, no interference with Dragon

[@sipplix]

Two things I love... solar power and gliding, brilliant!😎

[@dustintravis8791]

You just reminded me I need to fly my foamie minimoa. Neat project, keep at it and happy flying!

[@chrispychickin]

The drag of all the various equipment hanging off the airframe may be part of why this took as much current as it did to maintain level flight. It looks like a pretty clean aircraft otherwise. Very interested in seeing how this project progresses though, I've always thought a solar glider would be a super cool project

[@ronwade5433]

I like when the USAF makes it clear they own and you can not fly anything around their base and, they landed your plane for you with no explosives or damage... To your rap sheet.

[@nikimarkieren7848]

If you try to connect the cells directly you might try a small group of capacitors to get a small watt tank and let the motor grab a bit more current or voltage than the Solar system can give at that moment ,and that might perhaps with a small regulator , keep the current even enough to run directly from the Solar System.anyhow hope this helps and keep the videos coming as I have a keen interest in this very project for myself! So thank for the test info it will be invaluable to me...cheers JC in Auz

[@knutneumann7311]

You obviously didn't realise at the time how much a rotating acts like an airbrake. Thermalling just about impossible, unless in thermals where bricks will fly. Thanks for posting.

[@peteabc1]

When the cells are connected in series and one is broken or shaded, it'll limit the current. The open circuit voltage will be high, like if nothing happened. Bypass diodes are used to prevent this.

[@NackDSP]

1) That camera circuit board has almost as much drag as the whole plane. Get it mounted mounted under a clear canopy and it will drop your cruise power required. 2) look at using a maximum power point tracking converter for the solar array. It can get you 20% improvement.

[@tohaklim]

Amazing system. I wish we had something similar in the consumer space

[@troxmo]

Love the Foxeer Footage! I have no idea about building RC planes, but I love your channel :)

[@EnglishTurbines]

Interesting Video as usual, didn't look like a thermal rich area though...Like to see more stuff like this....Not bad for a 2 cell setup.

[@matt060383]

Would be cool to add a current sensor in line with motor and battery. Fly for as long as you can then charge and see how much amps go back into the battery. Total amps used from the osd readout minus what your charger says and you got how much milli amps your solar cells produced during flight. Cool project, keep it up.

[@AdamPotts]

Cracked me up when you said one is really puffy, and the other has overcharged written on it

[@toad731]

I don't know much about planes or gliders but from what I know of solar you may want to keep the batteries, any sort of shadow even from an antennae or something will effect them even dust, and any time you bank away from the sun or something you'll lose power without a way to store the charge, also they need to have a higher voltage output than the batteries to charge them

[@A3Kr0n]

Thumbs up for crash balancing props!

[@Godscountry2732]

Great job on the video,the video is amazing,great job on the narration,it really kept me watching.

[@airgliderz]

I have the same plane, I programmed my stock ESC to include breaking, breaking is possible and easy to program.

[@kartherton]

This is all very interesting. Keep up the good work. 👍

[@Rando104854]

Love these kind of videos!!... Thanks for sharing. Really enjoy watching your videos. would love to see more videos.

[@MasterYota1]

Bro you nailed it with this video . Thanks for the details

[@bar1721]

You can check current by adding small resistor in series with cells. I=U/R. It will slightly decrease output power, but its really cheap and you dont have to change OSD.

[@skuula]

Great vid. You can increase solar efficiency dramatically by loading the cells with the optimum impedance, ie. find the current draw that maximizes V_sol * I_sol. This should be easy to do experimentally (on the ground) with a multimeter or 2, and a bunch of various resistors. Typically (says a datasheet of mine) that happens where the V_sol is at 70-80% of the open circuit (I_sol=0) value. You can use the throttle to prevent overcharge :) Could be a fun story to have to choose between a flyaway and a flaming battery :)

[@crenn6977]

I'd probably recommend having a buck/boost charging controller with an MPPT between the cells and the battery/motor, partially to prevent discharging through the solar cells when a cell is getting less light than the others. Also the film over the cells are definitely reducing the efficiency of those cells, which is why even in direct sunlight, they're not producing as might light as you might expect. Personally if I was going to try this type of thing, I'd have micro boost converters on every cell so even if one or 2 cells aren't generating enough voltage, you should be getting a stable and consistent voltage, just with less current. One problem with using boost or even buck converters, is you need high efficiency converts for your purpose.

[@schr4nz]

Hey man, this is awesome, I love your solar RC experiments, I'm thinking of creating something like this and creating some autonomous flight drones for the purpose of creating an automatic delivery system... long story but I think I could convince my federal government in Australia to fund an initiative for our Pacific island neighbours, in particular Papua New Guinea, who's shipping costs are insane even for small items because people have to ferry stuff by boat between islands. RC gliders seem like a cheaper, more efficient means of doing this than using something like a boat, which would no doubt get battered around by the ocean. I know there's a lot of complexities I'm not considering but I'm willing to work through those and videos like these are certainly inspiring

[@schr4nz]

Ah, also I just realised, did you have a diode for current blocking on your charge circuit? If you didn't it could be the reason your amperage was so low, you were getting reversed current bleed.

[@hforhattumies6077]

Love fps commentary videos. Keep them coming 👍

[@themegasalad]

I see new video, I like. Now time to watch.

[@recklessroges]

Solar cells are usually more efficient if they are cold/cooled. If they are stuck onto insulation, (foam/expanded polystyrene) then they will not output at peek performance. Looks like they need some sort of air-cooling under them.

[@mentuemhet]

very good. i can't wait till you can fly all day with it, both your planes.

[@TheAxm22]

if you have a thermal camera or access to one you can use it to determine if there are any issues within the solar cells.

[@ahaveland]

The differential between the open circuit cell voltage and the battery is too small to be able to get much current out, so definitely needs some form of charge controller or dc-dc converter to get optimum current from the cells while also preventing overcharging. Another couple of cells might help!

[@cinarsinan]

All we looking for Solar plane episode 7 You said I will try at summer and it arrived :)

[@bigwood493]

I would recognize the stack at the beginning of this video anywhere ,Welcome to Utah :)

[@TravisFisher]

Hey! That's Emigration Canyon and Little Dell Reservoir!

[@ddegn]

Very interesting. Thanks for sharing your work.

[@KaffiFlight]

I read about a rotating powerless prop produces the same amount of drag like it would be a solid disc. I don´t believe it´s that bad, but it´s bad. It most certainly prevents you from using the potential of that airframe.

[@captbuscemi]

Yep, it's a really big factor, it is indeed like a disc. Using prop brake would make a huge difference.

[@NationFirstGreenville22]

correct. this is why auto-rotating helicopters (in an emergency situation ) is a thing.

[@ausintune9014]

it's actually much worse, that's why most planes with props can feather them so that they dont spin and dont cause drag.

[@TravisAviation]

Consider getting a Neutral Density Filter to put over your POV camera behind the propeller. I do this on my gopro when doing real world flying. It should eliminate seeing the prop blades and creating a blur IF the image light sensor is automatic. Also, most solar cells have falsely advertised numbers : ( I suggest (depending on price) getting a new set and testing like you did at the end of the video without the solar cells attached to anything.

[@williammchugh4361]

I would have just added 1 additional solar cell to each wing to make it 9 volts open and made sure a blocking diode was installed between the cells and the battery. If not, the solar cells would drain the battery when shaded (like by a cloud). Not the best solution by a long shot, a buck converter would have been better but it would be the easiest and cheapest method. a 2 cell lipo is around 8.4 volts when charged, you had 16 cells which only equaled 8 volts. Not enough voltage to charge the lipo unless it was almost dead. By then, it didn't matter. Even adding 1 volt would have made a big difference.

[@camaro92026]

The Max voltage would only be 8 volts the battery would have to be a 2s or less any thing higher in voltage and the cells would pull the battery down. The cells are still under the required amps to keep up so you would need double the cells in series and in parallel. This would require a wider or longer wing

[@LA6UOA]

Great project! Nice plane :-)

[@NunoFlyer]

Awesome, I will think put flex cells in my soaring glider.

[@alessandromoschetti8139]

Hi, thank you for sharing with us this beautiful video. Would you mind sharing with us the specifics of the whole FPV system? thanks

[@Totial]

Nice job!! did you read about MPPT or Maximum Power Point TRacking? Solar cells deliver maximum power at a certain current and a certain Voltage. So if they did not perform as you expected its maybe because the Voltage wasn't correct. you should read the cells specs where u can find the details. On the video there is also a lot of cloudy places. Solar cells perform very bad under clouds. Hope this recommendations help you to improve the flight time ;)

[@gonefishingtwo]

Very nice flight :)

[@GiovanniCarloIglina]

Just as a suggestion, you really need to put a diode between the solar cell and the lipo, to prevent the battery to discharg into the cells when they aren't under solar light.

[@brenj]

Been waiting for this for awhile. Thanks :D

[@csis-]

Awesome flights

[@grancanariaaeromodelismo3880]

Great video, quite interesting, congratulations!!

[@internet155]

I'm not sure on the power looses, but a boost/buck converter can output a set voltage into the batteries even if the solar panels drop or put out too much voltage.

[@spacetraveler3286]

Awsome idea. Cool video 👍

[@JustaPoke]

The Robbe Arcus Sport is basicly the same airframe, but with different electronics.

[@HarryL2020]

it's the dirt on the solar cells, you would be surprised how much it affects it.

[@66tbird1]

Those solar cells just can't do the watts to make any real benefit in duration after the weight/drag trade. Cudos to a cool project and hands on learning. Wish more would do it.

[@antongazaryan2532]

Def Need brake on ESC

[@66tbird1]

Yes, to say that's a major source of drag would be an understatement.

[@hockeyguy820]

ESC braking just puts a low impedance across the motor windings when throttle is off. In this state there is no draw of power from the motor battery.

[@Bulgie]

Max creates more drag

[@66tbird1]

Braking stops the prop, That's what frees up drag. If you try and turn a braked prop the ESC trys to stop that, but once it's stopped the power drain is negligible. I've been flying F5J sailplanes for 15 years, trust me, turn on the brake.

[@66tbird1]

The prop will fold back, and most of the time surprisingly fast. There is a rubber band trick using bands for braces. that is normally only used on tight prop to hub bolts that need parts to be well secured. I've never used rubber bands and run a floppy prop (loose castle nutted bolt) on a 400 watt 11x7 setup doing 14K rpm.

[@47chester]

Just a thought, how about a 'launch' battery, that you can parachute down after take off, then have a very small second motor / prop ( on a pod ) that continuously running on solar only...

[@andyca07]

great vid keep up the great work

[@mec3490]

Yes u brought this back:)

[@joshuawfinn]

You need to program your esc brake. That freewheeling prop literally doubles your glide sink rate.

[@crazystuffproduction]

I've alwasy wanted to do this - please keep us update if you get a nice glider solar setup! - idealy i would beable to go all day

[@samiant5199]

awesome as usual

[@call911forcookies2]

Yea the tail cam was the best!

[@locouk]

Great video. 👍

[@SWAYDRIFTAWAY]

Damn love that landscape, is there a way to regenerate power from the prop spinning on its own. Similar to regenerative braking. Just a thought

[@MichelPASTOR]

It is better to use ESC braking on stop and a folding prop for efficiency. You can't regenerate as much energy as you lose with the drag generated by the prop if it doesn't fold back.

[@AmpHibious]

the mass of the plane really isn't enough to counteract the drag to make it worth it specially when it comes to foam gliders. if he had ESC breaking he might have had very different results.

[@Powershotknecht]

cool works wow!

[@slodays1158]

the view from the tail was awesome!

[@F6FHellcat5]

Where did you fly this? That scenery is super cool.

[@immodxxb3]

hi rctestflight really nice job done ! it definitely increases the flight time - could you post the link where u bought the solar cells on the wing cause there are so many different ones and yours seems to work well in combination of the weight these have - thx and happy flying

[@mrglasecki]

Look into buck converters run it all in series to maximize Over voltage and Stabilize your power management for camera's

[@blackmennewstyle]

This is the way i like this channel

[@callumrose9605]

Can u upload a video showing and explaining how to connect the solar panels to the battery. I am doing a same kind of project.

[@Ethanshankar]

Awww, what happened to the dedicated solar plane you built a while back?

[@__gavin__]

11:14

[@elijahf111]

that was for long endurance where this is for slopeing

[@Ethanshankar]

Whoops, didn't catch that, sorry.

[@deathcoder]

man you know how much drag that propeller creates if not folding? great video tho!

[@TheClearchoice18]

Add the pitch and tilt for your camera. 👍

[@dominiczouras8979]

i recommend that you use folding props to get better camera footage.

[@waleswideman1]

use a rubber band to hold the props back when you cut the throttle if you don't have esc breaking

[@wyomingoutdoors]

Wales Wideman how does that work?

[@ypsonar]

Very good work sir, what is the weight of that plane, which motor you used, and propeller size please . .

[@xdanmercerx]

i think without a charge controller or at least a diode when in darker times power will go to the solar cells, draining the battery and possibly damaging the cells. and charge controllers should be able to maintain output voltage properly, so even 4v 1a (4w) could go back into 8v .5a (4w) or 12v 6a would go to 8v 9a... i'd believe its important controllers are set for battery voltages.... at home i have a 12v (deep cycle) setup with 200w of solar panels are rated 18.5v 11a, open circuit 22v. then i've seen my controller say 14a at 14.4v.. maybe you do need higher voltage and a controller.... then wire a current meter between the controller and battery, and one between battery and everything else. i doubt that clear film on the cells degrades any efficiency. ..ive got that same osd, my gps works but its 40 miles off so it too is just voltage.... now i want to fly fixed wing lol, nice flight!!

[@jamesandonian7829]

leave it in the sun for 12 hours for 1.2 mins of flight. lol and the added weight means it'll consume more electricity so you might actually getting shorter run times instead of longer

[@oliverg98]

You can programme the ESC to break

[@astrutt2002]

Good Stuff.

[@dedasdude]

HOL Y SHEET that view on the new camera!

[@liquidmasl]

if you replace the batterie with some light capacitors, maybe the reduced weight make even longer flights possible?

[@jboycs5483]

I'd be surprised if the brake wasn't just off by default. should be able to turn it on.

[@mdrocketry]

Eyyyy You're in Utah. Oh shit waddup

[@elijahf111]

all the possible sloping places near me suck, there flat cliffs