Science Fair helicopter topic
#1
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Science Fair helicopter topic
Hi everyone, I am planning to do a science fair experiment that looks at the impact of a few variables on model helicopter flight. I want to see what the impact is of the length of the blades, and also the number of blades, in measuring lift. Is there any inexpensive rc helicopter kit or RTF model that would let me vary the length and number of blades (some way to convert from two to three to four?) Or some company that makes 2, 3, and 4 bladed copters with the same body type (I need to keep some constants in the experiment, so ideally the copter body, engine, wind speed, etc. would remain constant to test these variables.) Or is there some better way to set up this experiment that I'm not thinking of? I'd really appreciate any help!
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Thanks for the quick reply. If I just alter the blade length, is there a second variable I could add - maybe the amount of twist?
#5
There are some cool looking 4 and 5 blade heads on Banggood for around 150. They are for the align 500 size heli ( that's a cheap base model on these sites) and you could run blades from like 200 mm to 500mm I'm thinking. There is a great thrust measure test bench on Banggood as well, it's for airplane motors but you could mod that to mount the heli frame on and test different blades and power / gearing combos from 2 to 5 blades for a few hundred bucks. Kind of spendy but any test like this will be, I have a plastic 2 blade T-Rex 500 head and main shaft you can have, blades are gonna cost ya tho, there spendy but Banggood has some cheapies.
#6
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In your position, I'd buy a single brushless motor and ESC and a watt meter. Test different size props, 2 and 3 blade at the same wattage. You'll have to tweak the throttle and use your watt meter to get that right. You could go a few different routes with the experiment- most static thrust with 100 watts (or whatever number) of power? Least watts needed to lift X amount of weight? 2 blade vs. 3 blade? There are probably a few more too.