New Mk. II Design

This summer has seen a flurry of activity involving our Electric Variable Pitch Rotors. With the basic technology tested out, it was time to polish the design to get closer to a final product and a new Mk. II rotor is being designed. The Mk. II rotors feature three major upgrades.

Power Supply

The batteries on-board the rotor work well, but are only rated to last 20 mins. #Goliath - A Gas Powered Quadcopter  and Titan are both designed to fly for an hour, so more capacity was needed. An axial flux generator was previously researched and would likely work, but would require a large design effort and several iterations. Instead brushes will be used to transfer power from the main vehicle to the rotors and the batteries will serve as a backup to the main vehicle power.

New Gear Drive

The drive system was re-geared to increase the torque from 1.67: 1 to 3:1. This increases the torque which will be needed for the new 42" rotors, increases the angular resolution and the gears are now all off the shelf, so no more custom made gears.

Custom Electronics

The previous electronics, were based around the Huzzah32, a great board, but a custom power supply and other desired capabilities led to the need for a custom board. @Georges Oates Larsen is currently designing that board which we hope to unveil sometime in September.

As the design progresses, we'll have logs which will go into the details of each aspect of the new design, so stay tuned.

Also, if you're in the Pacific Northwest, be sure to check out thePortland Maker Faire, Sept 7-8. We'll have a booth there again, showing off the EVPR, Goliath and our new prototype, Titan!