19 Comments
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annie's avatar

Very impressive!

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Tim Upchurch's avatar

Awesome! Have really enjoyed following this build.

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Tsung Xu's avatar

thank you!

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Handle's avatar

Terrific work!

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Oregonian's avatar

I so stoked this got re-tweeted by Reid! Congratulations on your move to the SF area! You have inspired me to mimic your learning and production process with my teenage children. Can you share more about what you learned, how you got started, from software and design to CAD and 3-D printing? This is clearly the future, but it is not something available in most high schools….

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Tsung Xu's avatar

Basically just starting with the most challenging and interesting projects I could handle. See my first and only multicopter build in my blog for example.

For your kids, I would suggest easy to start tutorials like Joshua Bardwell for drones, and Mark Roper offers some tinkering kits for kids

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Maxx Yung's avatar

Been following your progress over the past 3 months, absolutely blown away by the progress!

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Tsung Xu's avatar

Thanks Maxx, onwards and upwards!

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Jian's avatar

Great 👍

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Gai's avatar

Avg military drone development exp :)

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Aaron Ximm's avatar

This may be addressed in the video, which I'm about to watch,

but what sort of payload could this carry? Is a DSLR or similar with a battery pack conceivable? :D

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Tsung Xu's avatar

It is not in the video, but on the edge of possible with lighter DSLRs. If the DSLR and gimbal could weigh <1.5 lbs it would be possible with a range penalty and a smaller battery

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Aaron Ximm's avatar

<looks at GoPro style camera specs...>

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William J. Jackson's avatar

ethanol or hydrogen fuel cells have even higher range

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Handle's avatar

Can you provide a link to or example of a practical off-the-shelf direct ethanol fuel cell power source?

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Handle's avatar

Some print questions if it's not a bother. What kind of foaming PLA did you use? Any particular ideal settings for it, or lessons learned about how to use it well, including treatments connections and adhesives? About what was the weight ratio between foaming-PLA and PETG? What do you figure the marginal electronics and materials cost is for an additional build now that you have the design and software worked out? What do you think might change in the overall design as it scales up?

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Tsung Xu's avatar

Bambu's PLA Aero

Weight ratio? Foaming PLA has 0.45 g/cm3 density vs PLA/PETG around 1.25 g/cm3

BOM cost is ~$700 ex battery, which right now is $1300! But Using a $200 6s pack would get about 2/3 of the range.

Many design changes will happen, but can't share yet

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Handle's avatar

Ah, my bad for not being clear about the weight ratio. I mean, for the printed parts for the airframe, about what % of that total printed weight was PLA vs PETG?

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GHOXX's avatar

More details

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