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A little idea I came up with on a wet afternoon. DIY thrust tester.


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A little idea I came up with on a wet afternoon. Might be useful? It kind of follows on from my '3 maidens 2 fails' video where I had an issue where a small 1s lipo had insufficient power to drive 2 small brushed motors in an experimental model. It's called C rating. 'The capacity of energy the battery can safely discharge, represented as a multiple of its overall capacity.' I hadn't considered it with small 1s lipos I use in small models.
I'm sure it could be improved, eg I just cut a small V in the front of the trolley to take the fusi!
Suggestions welcome (polite preferably please. 😉)
You never stop learning in this hobby!
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Ah interesting.  And thanks.   I'm glad I'm not the only one who comes up with these ways of amusing myself on rainy days!

 

The only other scale I have with a hook is the old kind of spring balance.  Very crude. Just a spring that you put under tension and it has a scale on it.  I've got one 1.5kg scale and one that has 3kg scale. the 1.5 kg one shows divisions of 25g but nowhere near sensitive enough to measure say 40g or 45g. A small digital balance like that would have been easier.  I just figured what can you do with what you do have!  A mechanical way to change the thrust direction. It was a bit of fun really but reasonably accurate.

I might improve it with a better trolley! 

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I'm not sure how useful static thrust measurement is.  I did experiments like this when I was trying to get electric models to fly with NiCads and cheap brushed motors, using a spring balance to make the measurements but once the model is moving through the air all the static measurements are moot. 

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13 hours ago, Geoff S said:

I'm not sure how useful static thrust measurement is.  I did experiments like this when I was trying to get electric models to fly with NiCads and cheap brushed motors, using a spring balance to make the measurements but once the model is moving through the air all the static measurements are moot. 

Agreed,   airframes are all different and some more efficient than others.   But does give a rough guide of power to weight.  Gives you a chance to see what difference different props make too.

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