Interested in building a heavy lifting quadcopte

I

irishluck

Well-Known Member
So after watching some videos online I'm very interested in building a heavy lifting quadcopter.
Does anyone know where to look at for electronics? Such as the motors and ESC's?

I'm wanting to build one that can lift a couple hundred pounds. May sound kinda odd since I've only been messing around with quadcopters for a few months now. But either go big or go home! Once my mind is set on something I go for it.

Thinking of building an Octacopter to complete this. Will be a custom carbon fiber frame that I will build. Might have to end up using aluminium.

So where do you get motors this big?

I found a motor called the Tiger motors.
http://www.quadrocopter.com/Tiger-U7-Motor-420KV_p_1218.html

It says at an octacopter it would put out 24kg of thrust. So in pounds that is about 416lbs of thrust right?
 
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Holy crap!! I do believe that will be the biggest quad ever built by anyone on this forum! Kudos to you!!
You might do some checking to see if any permits or licensing is required. I suspect it will be in the 2 meter size range. I looked up your u7 T Motor and the 24kg is the take off weight TOTAL for the octo. At 100% it would probably be 32 or 33kg. No where near your goal. They have a U10 KV80 (octo) that can lift about 62kg total or 70kg at overheat. You could potentially waste 8 nearly $400 motors and barely reach your goal at 100% throttle
Don't give up. I found motors that can do what you want. KDE Direct makes a very heavy lift motor the 8218XF 120KV (octo) that can lift 137kg total (304lbs) at 100% throttle, no overheat. I'll send you the link. It will show the motor, ESC and prop you need. I guess you know this project is gonna run you the equivalent of a good used car. You da man!

http://www.kdedirect.com/collections/xf-multi-rotor-brushless-motors/products/kde8218xf-120
 
lol no bombs. Honestly if you guys wanna know, may seem outrageous but I gota do it!
I built my first laser from seeing it online, I built my tesla coils from seeing them on you tube.
Then I got into quad copters and now I wanna build this.

I want it to carry me, After I lose some weight first lol
I saw a guy from Canada that build a octa-copter hover board and holy poop! I want it! lol

 
You could not pay me enough to ride that thing! I would be scared to death of those props lol.

I would need a huge screen cover to even attempt it.
 
ringolong said:
You could not pay me enough to ride that thing! I would be scared to death of those props lol.

I would need a huge screen cover to even attempt it.
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Are you kidding?! That would be a once in a life time experience to ride on! lol
Thats why I gota have one. I have to built it. Its not gona happen overnight of coarse prolly roughly around a year but Im gona do it lol
 
irishluck said:
Are you kidding?! That would be a once in a life time experience to ride on! lol
Thats why I gota have one. I have to built it. Its not gona happen overnight of coarse prolly roughly around a year but Im gona do it lol
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Hahaha, I'm with you, if I had the funds I'd be spending all of my time on building experimental ultralites hahaha. I hope you have a bug budget, cause you are going to need it if you plan to do this haha. first question is if you are breaking any laws, in the US it would be considered an Ultra-lite (technically) so you may want to research the laws on those (a hover board won't be breaking any) it would be subjective to U/L laws (no piloting certification needed, just weight, range, single passenger and a few other things it would easily meet) when it is manned and "drone" laws when unmanned.

This could get to quite a bit of expense, but you'd have plenty of power hahah

The question is do you want a hover board, or a bigger hover craft?




This looks pretty powerful, should be about 23 pounds of thrust per motor at 100%, so assume 11.7 @ 50% throttle per motor
 
GJH105775 said:
Hahaha, I'm with you, if I had the funds I'd be spending all of my time on building experimental ultralites hahaha. I hope you have a bug budget, cause you are going to need it if you plan to do this haha. first question is if you are breaking any laws, in the US it would be considered an Ultra-lite (technically) so you may want to research the laws on those (a hover board won't be breaking any) it would be subjective to U/L laws (no piloting certification needed, just weight, range, single passenger and a few other things it would easily meet) when it is manned and "drone" laws when unmanned.

This could get to quite a bit of expense, but you'd have plenty of power hahah

The question is do you want a hover board, or a bigger hover craft?




This looks pretty powerful, should be about 23 pounds of thrust per motor at 100%, so assume 11.7 @ 50% throttle per motor
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Thank you lol Gota go for it man! Why not ha
I've got money saved up actually. But this isnt going to happen over night. Going to be alot of prep and slowly complete it overtime.
Then maybe when I get it done Ill wear a green goblin outfit while flying it lol

Im just trying to figure out where to buy stuff that is this big.
Like where would you look for that powerful of a motor?

And also trying to learn how you calculate the thrust.
I found this formula. Thrust per motor = ( Weight x 2 ) / 4

So say if I wanted to lift 300lb. I would do 300*2/8 cause I would be using 8 motors.
So looks like I would need 75lbs/35kg of thrust per motor?
 
irishluck said:
Thank you lol Gota go for it man! Why not ha
I've got money saved up actually. But this isnt going to happen over night. Going to be alot of prep and slowly complete it overtime.
Then maybe when I get it done Ill wear a green goblin outfit while flying it lol

Im just trying to figure out where to buy stuff that is this big.
Like where would you look for that powerful of a motor?

And also trying to learn how you calculate the thrust.
I found this formula. Thrust per motor = ( Weight x 2 ) / 4

So say if I wanted to lift 300lb. I would do 300*2/8 cause I would be using 8 motors.
So looks like I would need 75lbs/35kg of thrust per motor?
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Take a look at making it from the same equipment as the first video, they lifted a 100 something pound woman with two helis haha.


Here are the motors used in the second clip, might do a hex with 4 on each side, but may be cheaper to go with 6 motors that are bigger.

See what I mean by expensive? You could probably buy a car for the cost of the two builds in the videos hahah.

Gas (you could also make them run off from propane, or hydrogen if they are two cycle) may be the way to go if you want power.
 
KDE direct has the most powerful brushless motors but GJH105775's suggestion to use gas motors could be the most viable idea. Use 2 stroke, they provide the most horsepower for a given displacement. They are also, cheap, light and uncomplicated. I would suggest landing gear instead of drowning it to land. Hahaha!! Maybe a 2 (bigger) engine quad with each engine powering 2 props. This is a really cool project! I hope you do construct one. We will be looking forward to some build videos as you progress.
 
Oh You can count on me atleast attempting to build this lol My minds already made up lol.

I think id be kinda scared to use gas motors though. Think I would defiantly build a cage around each blade lol
But of coarse use some actual landing gear so I don't have to drown in the lake. Maybe a couple bouncy ball things would work for landing gear ha
 
irishluck said:
Good thing I got both this year and accident insurance as well last month lol
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Hahahaha
irishluck said:
Oh You can count on me atleast attempting to build this lol My minds already made up lol.

I think id be kinda scared to use gas motors though. Think I would defiantly build a cage around each blade lol
But of coarse use some actual landing gear so I don't have to drown in the lake. Maybe a couple bouncy ball things would work for landing gear ha
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Gas motors would do you great, though using 4 stroke may be better as it would allow you to use a gas fuel such as propane or hydrogen. I agree with @HDtallrider that they would have better horsepower:displacement, but their oil is in the fuel so they are less reliable to start. I also would be a bit scared of using gas as they can have a lot more problems than electric do.
 
irishluck said:
Oh You can count on me atleast attempting to build this lol My minds already made up lol.

I think id be kinda scared to use gas motors though. Think I would defiantly build a cage around each blade lol
But of coarse use some actual landing gear so I don't have to drown in the lake. Maybe a couple bouncy ball things would work for landing gear ha
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Cages will help keep your health ins. premiums down hahaha!!
Actually. The ball idea would probably work really good. Get the ones they use for Tether Ball. You can adjust the air pressure and they have an attachment point so mounting would be easy.:D
 
HDtallrider said:
Cages will help keep your health ins. premiums down hahaha!!
Actually. The ball idea would probably work really good. Get the ones they use for Tether Ball. You can adjust the air pressure and they have an attachment point so mounting would be easy.:D
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hahaha could also use some heavy springs but the balls actually might be better as they would bust if you made a REALLY hard landing.
 
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