Levitator 7 Best Dynamic Characteristics Yet!

[@thinkofwhy]

With the props at the ends of the blades they require minimal force to move the blades, but maximum energy is used. Moving them to 1/3 the length of the blade, or some magic number like 1.59, or a Fibonacci number, might be more optimal, more all around balanced.

[@amazingdiyprojects]

Great observation! The reason I went for this arrangement relates to the fact that I initially intended to use micro turbines or micro turboprop engines at the tip. With a micro turbine at the tip the engines would be more efficient the further out they are mounted. Also, I do like the idea of keeping everything clean and simple, so keeping the motors/propellers separated from the wing has the benefit of not introducing unknown dynamic interactions with potential difficulties and higher level of noise. I would also like to keep this light weight (off-the -shelf) direct drive system if I scale up the aircraft which starts to become an issue with propeller diameters above say 1.5-1.7 m or so which is the current full scale size of the 12" propellers mounted at the moment in this scale version. But never the less, great point, thanks! OK, Im writing this a week later than the text above. I have been spending some time with e-calc (online rc aircraft component matching tool) and must say that I (to my own surprise) have a hard time gaining efficiency by moving the motor/propeller further inboard of the wing regardless of prop size/pitch etc. I don't know why, but it does not seem to be a "low hanging fruit" sort of modification to gain efficiency. The best results I have come up with so far is to replace the original 12x12 prop in its original wing tip position and run a 12x16 propeller slower, resulting in 5%-ish lower power consumption at given wing tip speed (85km/h at the moment, 8 degree pitch on main wings).

[@fraserbuilds]

amazing work! and such beautiful footage! i love watching the levitator float between the mist and trees.

[@amazingdiyprojects]

Thanks appreciate it!

[@martin_mue]

The scenery with the fog and the autumn trees looks like an impressionist painting.

[@amazingdiyprojects]

I love these secretive and nature romantic early misty autumn mornings too!

[@MrPilotStunts]

He is Van Gogh, after all

[@insAneTunA]

You can reduce some substantial drag on the wing spars by giving them a tapered edge with some foam and tape, or glue. Or with 3D printed sleeves with a tapered edge that you can slide over the wing spars or that you can click on the wing spars, so that you can run your wires through it. Round pipes create a lot of drag. And considering the size from your design I expect to see substantial efficiency improvements with tapered edges.

[@OrenTirosh]

The big rotor and relatively big tangential propellers are a very efficient way provide the main lifting thrust, but they respond slowly to changes. Small diameter high speed rotors could be added for agility. They should be able to change their speed quickly enough to be modulated cyclically. This way you could translate horizontally with direct thrust rather than having to slowly tilt the main lifting thrust to provide a horizontal component and then tilting it back to stop.

[@DOCWHOK9]

I have 2 p werformance modifications for you to try. 1. Remove or Close the gap between your elevators and wing trailing edge - this gap causes a lot of drag. 2. Re-cover your wing surfaces with Mylar to reduce a lot of drag.

[@leuvenisaplace]

So you have an excellent test platform for exploring the characteristics of vortex ring state. Given the efficiency of your aircraft I wonder if you've got something that may reduce the costs and inefficiency of using helicopters to dry cherries and fight the onset of frost in sensitive crops.

[@miniphase]

really enjoying the progress on this fascinating project.... and beautiful autumnal footage!

[@jaapatedijkstra]

Wing warping is quite an old concept from the period of the Wright Flyer and shortly after. S.C Patel et al. did a study on morphing wings, in 2003 I think, that might be fun to look at/into.

[@ArnoldsDesign]

I've always been interested in aircraft like these, and it's interesting how your experiment has evolved. Since you already have ailerons in place, could they be used as flaps as well, in effect increasing the wing's aoa such as on a fixed wing craft? As in full span flaperons?

[@amazingdiyprojects]

Yes you could do that. At the moment I choose to prioritize attitude control though.

[@ArnoldsDesign]

@@amazingdiyprojects Understood. Great content.

[@macsterguy]

Absolutely amazing progress with your incremental changes and testing. Fun to watch!

[@Johow]

Love your videos and commentary. You do great work! How about adding a directly downward or upward facing motor to counteract the problem you are facing when letting the craft sink really fast and can’t regain rpm and lift. I know - it breaks the concept of a craft that is only flying with rotating wings. But just an idea.

[@mossm717]

You could set it up so all the wings have very low torsional stiffness, then use the elevators instead as trim tabs, for example were deflection down twists the entire wing up. Might add a fair bit of delay to your inputs though.

[@amazingdiyprojects]

I have been contemplating a control surface reversal setup as well, as a way to reduce servo power requirement in a larger scale version of this machine. Might try it out!

[@K3Flyguy]

You mentioned it now had perhaps glide characteristics, would drift characteristics be more accurate? I'm not nitpicking, just curious. Also, I think the idea of the variable attack pitch on the wings with the actuator is an excellent idea! I wish the best success for you! Thank you for sharing! Great video!

[@amazingdiyprojects]

Thanks, will try it out as soon as weather and time allows.

[@zenzen9131]

Excellent progress :) It flies so majestically :) Perhaps you could tilt the thrust motors up a little in the hover instead of increasing the wing angle of attack ?? That maybe easier :)

[@tgordon4881]

What a beautiful and graceful machine you have created!

[@mrln247]

Could you run the brace wire's in a loop keep the tension consistent but just actuating cable's servo could do it then. I can't remember the specifics of what you control where Vs what spins and what doesn't. Tension on and off with a spring also sounds like an elegantly simple arrangement for a strange craft.

[@amazingdiyprojects]

I have been thinking about a closed wire loop setup as well. Will need some pulleys etc but would be a neat solution.

[@mrln247]

@@amazingdiyprojects Don't know how much throw you need as pivot arms might do rather than pulleys. Keep having fun experimenting.

[@Graemecns]

Are you using the ailerons to control direction. Is it programmed in you controller or are you using a mechanical swash plate?

[@DrKnow65]

Instead of actuators use opposing servo's top and bottom in "winch" style where when one winds out the other winds in. 6 servo's must be less expensive than 6 linear actuators...

[@KonuralpBalcik]

I think you should cover the propellers with flexible solar energy ( Flexible Solar Cells Amorphous Silicon Foldable ) It is a very durable and waterproof product.

[@stephenhammond1656]

Hey, love your work, and all your fantastic ideas. When I first saw your three bladed hovering craft, I thought instead of propeller blades , at the end of each pole you could have a very simple aircraft. The attachment point would be at the c of p, with a limited degree of rotation, and with this arrangement the elevator would become like a trim tab for the main wing and the entire wing tip aircraft,engine and all. So with that you get some lift vectoring so You would not bother with helical twist of the main wing , yes you will loose some efficiency, but gain some efficiency from being able to fine tune the angle of attack. Just a thought. If I get some free time soon I'll try put one together myself, you and your machine are very inspirational . Thank you ,cheers Steve.

[@slimline5575]

Ailerons/flaps/elevators simply increase or decrease the angle of attack of a wing/tail-plane without physically altering the angle of incidence (ie. by altering the line drawn chord-wise from the airfoil leading edge to the altered position of the trailing edge). Maybe incorporate an additional control input to collectively vary the three control surfaces equally (collective pitch) instead of physically altering the angle of attack of the rotors on the centre support? There are helicopters which operate using similar control surfaces attached to the rotors.

[@AndyFromBeaverton]

Incredible improvements. I wonder how much more efficient it would be if the batter packs could operate from the stationary shaft and not be part of the spinning movement?

[@Lumibear.]

I’m not technically minded enough to appreciate this from that angle of interest but this is amazing and I love the joy in your voice.

[@senorjp21]

This thing needs a name. Unicopter? What about changing the # of blades?

[@ifell3]

This thing is awesome, it slices through the air. Revolutionary!!

[@goodghost6182]

its rpm are very low how it flyes ? is this a new invention ? any name of this ?

[@HunterOfChupacabras]

Such a beautiful machine! Looking forward to where you can take it.

[@TheSdheights]

Your best bet is to use those wings, but use two counter rotating ones with a central motor that moves slowly. Drop to props, that's where the waste comes from.

[@toolbaggers]

Your flying site looks like a screen saver, beautiful!

[@tobuslieven]

7:04 These shots are really amazing.

[@andrejna]

I just bought your book. I don't want a book, but I just give you a small donation. You have terrific projects! I really like your videos.

[@amazingdiyprojects]

Thank you!

[@motoflyte]

I like real people making real projects

[@murraymeadowfield3981]

Hello! Great project. Forgive me if this has been mentioned already, have you considered 'balancing' your control surfaces? It would reduce the strain on your servos and perhaps let you use lighter servos. Flutter too may be reduced. Cheers!

[@amazingdiyprojects]

Hi, It is a good idea. I considered it when enlarging the control surface size, but since I got away without a counter balancing weight, I just let it be as is although the current design surely load up the servos in a bad way.

[@flixmsncom]

First of all, thanks for this amazing KZbin channel.. Secondly, this might be a prototype for a life-size version at some point right? I was thinking, maybe its a good Idea to figure out a chair that can absorb a lot if G's in case of emergency. Something that breaks away and/or suspended in springs or something...

[@maxdurbin3033]

This has been so inspiring and fun to watch

[@mt841000]

Wow!!! this is a brilliant concept

[@Leomurguia]

Hello, have you thought to leave the AOA free and, and control each wing AOA with the trim tabs? Your control surfaces are like trim tabs. Is easier said than done but I think than it can work. Excellent work, thanks.

[@eckern0]

This is such an elegant machine. Nick Rehm's machine actually can change the AoA in-flight, and has done some performance numbers. I think you might need to make the wing area smaller if you want to realize the efficiency advantages of higher speed and lower AoA.

[@TrickyDickyP]

Nice job mate.. very nice indeed..!

[@simonl7784]

new control surface name: Roteron

[@KymHammond]

Very nice. If the motors all stopped would the wings continue to spin so that it would hover slowly to the ground rather than just drop? Would it make sense to have such a setting-up the default settings if you let go of the controls in flight?

[@maeanderdev]

Helicopters can land after an engine failure using autorotation. It's probably possible with this craft too

[@KymHammond]

@@maeanderdev that’s what I was asking, yes.

[@glennboyd939]

U should try to have the least mass spinning, even at the expense of a coupling loss.

[@glennboyd939]

The whole wing can rotate on a bearing, having all the batteries spin gives bad performance. Batteries are ballast, and should be mounted near the undercarriage, but not moving. Mounting them high creates imbalance, having them moving creates rotational precession.

[@BrightBlueJim]

That is some great progress!

[@Ploz5555]

It does look like a giant three blades boomerang, very majestic

[@Derrick6162]

The Levitator seems alot happier now. Thanks for sharing.

[@АртёмВорохобин]

Hi! This is a awesome project! Have question: don't you think, that obvious next step is adjustable pitch on the fly? Higher on hover and lower when going sideways. May be, using linear actuators with lightweight motors and worm gear?

[@АртёмВорохобин]

Oh! just wathed to the end. It's realy obvious))

[@studd7575]

Imagine the efficiency you can have if you have real sleek wing profiles without wires and with less drag instead of these windmill wings. Still very impressive though. Nice work. 😊

[@amazingdiyprojects]

Yeah, I know! But wrapping aluminum tubing with packing tape sure is a mighty simple DIY design which you do not need to feel any regrets Frankensteining (iterating aggressively). But yeah, sailplane-like wings would be EPIC! :-D

[@corresandberg]

Awesome stuff - never seen something quite like this. I'm a KZbin prowler - I think I would have seen it. However, could the wing covers or sheets be of light weight solar cells?

[@amazingdiyprojects]

Possibly!

[@antares2112L]

Magical

[@victorwidell9751]

How much can it lift? I imagine this design would be good for heavy cameras or cargo.

[@amazingdiyprojects]

4-5kg or so.

[@plouc9414]

Your buids are absolutey awesome! I watched all the serie of videos, but it is still something i m not sure i completely understood. Does the control surfaces on the wings serve the only purpose of controlling the horizontal translation movements? Or do they also serve the vertical translation by moving all together to dinamically change the pitch of the wings. A bit like flaps would change the lift of a fixed wing airplane? If not would it be an option?

[@amazingdiyprojects]

I tried to loosely couple the three control surfaces collectively loosely to the throttle via the flight controller, but abandoned that idea. They now only work with attitude control. Vertical control correspond only to motor rpm.

[@plouc9414]

Thanks for the update! The linear actuators will certainely works well and am really excited to see tbe result! Once again thanks a lot for sharing all theses elegants and out of the box designs. This levitator is as graceful as a dragonfly!

[@Pystro]

@@amazingdiyprojects I don't want to imply that I know more than you about your own creation, but how long has it been since you tried that? It must have been before I even started watching your videos. And in the mean time you made a bunch of changes to the craft that changed the flight characteristics quite a bit, for example cutting away the inner wing halves. My idea would be to introduce a new control (or maybe start out by having it be a parameter that is fixed for each flight instead) that changes flap pitch and motor speed in opposite directions. (While sharing the lift control between flaps and revs requires them both to change in the same direction.) In order to keep the lift constant, you'd have to go more aggressive on the flap pitch while going less aggressive with the motors; and for the opposite change you'd increase the motor speeds while collectively flattening out the flaps. Since this change is purely a software adjustment it should be way easier to test out than retrofitting the linear actuators into the physical structure. After going to 11° pitch for the main part of the blade, you just have to run one test with steeper collective flaps but slower revs (and see how close you get to the efficiency of a 14° blade pitch) and one test with more negative collective flap angles and higher speeds (and see how high that pushes the maximum sideways speed you can go without getting flapback). I don't _really_ expect it to have as much of an impact as changing the whole wing's pitch, but you won't know unless you try. An advantage of doing this over the linear actuators is that it can change between modes quite quickly. You are only limited by how quickly the rotation rate can change, and not also by how slowly the linear actuators change the pitch. Which means it would be easier to use this on the fly, as Артём Ворохобин suggested somewhere else in the comments: When going fast, automatically go into the fast-blades-low-pitch "traversal" mode, and while hovering in place or descending the software could automatically put the craft into high-pitch-slow-rotation "efficiency" mode.

[@climatebabes]

How is the height you can reach limited? Air density? Or you worry it blows away? I like to see a version that has a 100 meter diameter..Also a vertical propellor integrated in a duct in the middle?