woodsturning Registered User Thread OP

Other testing, modifications and observations Other testing, modifications and observations

This section will be reserved for performance testing results and personal observations that cannot be necessarily obtained with technical measurements. Modifications that do not fall into a specific section will also be included here. Much of the motor/prop performance testing will fall into the post related to that particular motor/prop size. There are however other factors such as the effect of frame size, effect of motor holder orientation, prop balance vs. thrust, COG vs. agility,….. that may not fall into a particular section or be tough to quantify.



Effect of prop wash / prop orientation

The effect propeller to boom distance and the motor/prop orientation has on thrust is often discussed. After reading some of .





With motivation from the encouraging bench test it didn't take long to construct the following:



After flying this quad a handful of times I am finding it more durable than expected but still not as durable as a conventional setup. Some side by side performance testing against the same components in a conventional setup is needed. Until that is completed I will include a video attempting to show it's potential. I find the change in prop sound quite surprising.

Blade nQX controlled micro pusher prop quadcopter flying aggressively with flips rolls and tricks (4 min 31 sec)



patricklupo used a similar configuration for an FPV setup shown below from





Going on a diet, removing & reducing components for even lighter weight:

If reducing the weight of your quad is of interest on top of using the lightest components, below are a few modifications to try.

An inspirational thread dedicated to making the smallest/lightest quad possible started by Dave1993 can be found



Removing canopy: This is rather obvious and typically very easy, but can yield surprising weight savings and also noticeably reduce wind resistance. Post number 8 includes some canopy weights for reference.



Shortening motor wires: Some slack should be left in motor wires, however some motors are supplies with wires significantly longer than needed for a particular quad. Below is a picture showing how much wire was removed from 4 Syma X1 motors while still having enough length to construct a micro quad.





Removing motor wire plugs: This will require soldering, however a consistent weight savings of ~0.4g can be gained by removing the motor wire plugs on the FC board and motor wires. This is using the small connectors on the nQX FC board. Other boards may use more and/or larger plugs allowing for even greater weight savings.



Ditch the screws: Metal is heavy and not really needed for securing things on a 1s micro or mini quad.



Hot glue and other adhesives are your friend: I personally use tiny amounts of hot glue to secure any loose motor mounts and thin strips cut from double sided foam adhesive to secure the FC board to the frame. 3M super weather strip adhesive was recommend by Siriuflier as show in



Rubber bands as battery holders: Allowing you battery to move in a crash can really add to the durability of your quad. This is especially true when the battery makes up approximately 1/3 of the flying weight of a quad . Additional strain relief is recommended on battery wires as they will be moving more in a crash.



Eliminating a separate main frame component:

This requires using Velcro, rubber band or other method of securing the battery but can result in a lighter and very rigid one piece frame. An image is provided showing how I've constructed mine so far. It's a pretty straight forward concept but figure a few images and a bit of explaining may be worthwhile. Basically the frame starts with 2 square sections of CF tubing (95mm v959 booms shown). A notch is made in the center of each as shown in #1. For this one must take care to avoid breathing any dust if using CF. A ~3mm wide piece of wood wrapped in sand paper was used to file away the notches shown while held under running water. A slightly sloppy fit is okay here. The frame is then squared up and tape is used to temporary hold the squaring. The assembly is then flipped over, crevices are filled with baking soda and flooded with CA glue. Once dry the taps is removed and the other side gets the same treatment. Thread is then tightly wound around the joint and covered in more CA glue to keep things secure. FC boards can be secured to double sided tape which gets hot glued to the frame/booms. Results in a pretty light one piece frame. Obviously other securing methods are possible and I'll post any more suggested/shown.





Removing/reducing motor holders:

Stock motor holders are not particularly heavy (as light as ~0.4g for Hisky FF120) however these motor holders can typically be reduced further for even greater weight savings and still remain functional. See the image below to see how the Hisky FF120 motor holder can be reduced down to below 0.2g each. The lightened motor holders seem to be slightly less durable, however they are very inexpensive and seem to perform just as well when in the air.



Micro brushed motors can also be mounted other ways using material and methods available at home. While these methods are not as durable as readily available motor holders, they can offer worthwhile weight savings to those willing to make some durability sacrifices.

Direct side mount: Super glue and thread can be used to secure motors as pictured



Direct base mount: As suggested by Flying-llama the base of each motor can be secured directly to each boom using hot glue. CA glue was used to secure each motor and then reinforced with hot glue as pictured. Unfortunately this method did not turn out to be very durable for me and I ended up with the second image pretty quickly. Additional hot glue may have stopped this, however any potential weight saving (vs. a cut down motor holder) will be lost if too much glue is used. Others may be more successful with this method.





Removing motor covers: This mainly applies to Gear drive quads but can provide surprising weight savings on certain quads. Typically motors stay in place without these covers or can be secured using much lighter materials. See the motor covers in post 8 to get an idea of the weight savings possible.



Cut down landing skids: This also mainly applies to geared quads as well and can lead to further but minimal weight reduction (<1g total). These landing skids typically raise the gear assemblies of these geared quads off the ground a bit so gear drive components may wear faster if the quad isn't kept in the air.



Modifying propellers to fit on different size shafts:

0.7-0.8mm propeller hole onto 1mm shaft:

1mm propeller hole onto 0.7-0.8mm shaft: Video Coming soon

GWS 5443 on Syma X1/X3 hex shaped shaft: Installing GWS 5443 propellers on a Syma X1 or X3 quadcopter drive train (4 min 1 sec)



Changing the gear ratio on a gear driven quad:

More details will be provided in the future, however here is a video on removing a pinion from a micro coreless motor for now.

Removing a pinion from a coreless micro brushed motor (0 min 45 sec) This section will be reserved for performance testing results and personal observations that cannot be necessarily obtained with technical measurements. Modifications that do not fall into a specific section will also be included here. Much of the motor/prop performance testing will fall into the post related to that particular motor/prop size. There are however other factors such as the effect of frame size, effect of motor holder orientation, prop balance vs. thrust, COG vs. agility,….. that may not fall into a particular section or be tough to quantify.The effect propeller to boom distance and the motor/prop orientation has on thrust is often discussed. After reading some of this thread I got inspired to do a couple of tests to see the effects these factors have on micro quad thrust using my little test setup. I put together an image showing the 4 orientations tested. For the last 2 orientations I had to use a ccw propeller on a CW motor and also had to drill the prop hole all the way through to orient the prop upside down. All testing was completed using a Syma X1 motor with a Hubsan X4 prop. The graph below shows the results, labeled as indicated in the image. In a conventional setup, moving the prop away from the boom arm increased the maximum thrust by approximately 4%. Placing the propeller below the boom arm increased the thrust by approximately 8% more. The prop to boom distance had much less of an effect when configured like this. It looks like I am going to have to try to make a pusher/inverted style quad now tooWith motivation from the encouraging bench test it didn't take long to construct the following:After flying this quad a handful of times I am finding it more durable than expected but still not as durable as a conventional setup. Some side by side performance testing against the same components in a conventional setup is needed. Until that is completed I will include a video attempting to show it's potential. I find the change in prop sound quite surprising.patricklupo used a similar configuration for an FPV setup shown below from this post. The setup also features a micro landing skid which looks pretty nice.If reducing the weight of your quad is of interest on top of using the lightest components, below are a few modifications to try.An inspirational thread dedicated to making the smallest/lightest quad possible started by Dave1993 can be found here . Additionally a very lightweight quad using the Hubsan X4 FC by RDaDDiCT! can be found here , and a very lightweight quad using the nQX FC by Derk can be found here This is rather obvious and typically very easy, but can yield surprising weight savings and also noticeably reduce wind resistance. Post number 8 includes some canopy weights for reference.Some slack should be left in motor wires, however some motors are supplies with wires significantly longer than needed for a particular quad. Below is a picture showing how much wire was removed from 4 Syma X1 motors while still having enough length to construct a micro quad.This will require soldering, however a consistent weight savings of ~0.4g can be gained by removing the motor wire plugs on the FC board and motor wires. This is using the small connectors on the nQX FC board. Other boards may use more and/or larger plugs allowing for even greater weight savings.Metal is heavy and not really needed for securing things on a 1s micro or mini quad.I personally use tiny amounts of hot glue to secure any loose motor mounts and thin strips cut from double sided foam adhesive to secure the FC board to the frame. 3M super weather strip adhesive was recommend by Siriuflier as show in this post and Jesolins mentions use of a few other adhesives in this post.Allowing you battery to move in a crash can really add to the durability of your quad. This is especially true when the battery makes up approximately 1/3 of the flying weight of a quad. Additional strain relief is recommended on battery wires as they will be moving more in a crash.This requires using Velcro, rubber band or other method of securing the battery but can result in a lighter and very rigid one piece frame. An image is provided showing how I've constructed mine so far. It's a pretty straight forward concept but figure a few images and a bit of explaining may be worthwhile. Basically the frame starts with 2 square sections of CF tubing (95mm v959 booms shown). A notch is made in the center of each as shown in #1. For this one must take care to avoid breathing any dust if using CF. A ~3mm wide piece of wood wrapped in sand paper was used to file away the notches shown while held under running water. A slightly sloppy fit is okay here. The frame is then squared up and tape is used to temporary hold the squaring. The assembly is then flipped over, crevices are filled with baking soda and flooded with CA glue. Once dry the taps is removed and the other side gets the same treatment. Thread is then tightly wound around the joint and covered in more CA glue to keep things secure. FC boards can be secured to double sided tape which gets hot glued to the frame/booms. Results in a pretty light one piece frame. Obviously other securing methods are possible and I'll post any more suggested/shown.Stock motor holders are not particularly heavy (as light as ~0.4g for Hisky FF120) however these motor holders can typically be reduced further for even greater weight savings and still remain functional. See the image below to see how the Hisky FF120 motor holder can be reduced down to below 0.2g each. The lightened motor holders seem to be slightly less durable, however they are very inexpensive and seem to perform just as well when in the air.Micro brushed motors can also be mounted other ways using material and methods available at home. While these methods are not as durable as readily available motor holders, they can offer worthwhile weight savings to those willing to make some durability sacrifices.Direct side mount: Super glue and thread can be used to secure motors as picturedDirect base mount: As suggested by Flying-llama the base of each motor can be secured directly to each boom using hot glue. CA glue was used to secure each motor and then reinforced with hot glue as pictured. Unfortunately this method did not turn out to be very durable for me and I ended up with the second image pretty quickly. Additional hot glue may have stopped this, however any potential weight saving (vs. a cut down motor holder) will be lost if too much glue is used. Others may be more successful with this method.This mainly applies to Gear drive quads but can provide surprising weight savings on certain quads. Typically motors stay in place without these covers or can be secured using much lighter materials. See the motor covers in post 8 to get an idea of the weight savings possible.This also mainly applies to geared quads as well and can lead to further but minimal weight reduction (<1g total). These landing skids typically raise the gear assemblies of these geared quads off the ground a bit so gear drive components may wear faster if the quad isn't kept in the air.0.7-0.8mm propeller hole onto 1mm shaft:1mm propeller hole onto 0.7-0.8mm shaft: Video Coming soonGWS 5443 on Syma X1/X3 hex shaped shaft:More details will be provided in the future, however here is a video on removing a pinion from a micro coreless motor for now.