A rain-safe fixed wing build design

[jolfstn74]

Hello! I live near Seattle,who has the not undeserved reputation for frequent rain, and I was just wondering what it would take to build a plane who would not feel risky to fly whilst the clouds miturate. Electronic vital organs heavily conformally coated or entombed within an internal shell or case who is waterproof for receiver/esc/flight control, though in this case, heat build-up could be a problem; perhaps a heat sink or fan for cooling. As far as the battery is concerned, whatever protection is afforded batteries within electric RC boats should work in our rain-plane. Concerning the airframe, a foam fuselage, wing assembly, and tail feathers would be water resistant by their nature. How are motors in RC boats protected?, or is there a motor design possibility that would permit saturation without affecting performance? I asked this because it is raining as I write this and I very much want to go fly but I don't want to risk sickening my models. Necessity is the motherhood of strange bedfellows. In this case I want a weird wench to get high in the rain with who isn't afraid to get wet!

 

[leaded50]

a brushless motor dont care much aboput water, it function anyway.....just be sure it not begins rust.
Its the foamboard who is the real problem. You need seal any open foamcut, and all paper. Personally i sparypaint all my builds, even with layer(-s) of clearcoat, then its waterproof anyway.

 

[Timmy]

I think it will work as long as all the electronics (minus the motor) are inside and no water gets in. What about servos and control rods? How will you water proof those?

 

[jolfstn74]

Leaded50 I hadn't thought of foam board,but you're right! That would be much easier than a straight up foam ppo or epo build, and a few coats of polyurethane would waterproof nicely, do you think conformal coating would be sufficient or would I need to seal the electronics in a waterproof shell, then mitigate the heat build-up somehow? Then, what about servos? Do they make waterproof servos? They must! For boats, right?

 

[jolfstn74]

Timmy I was just wondering that myself. My concern with sealing though is heat. How can we keep ventilation and keep water out? Supposing these questions of practicality/feasibility be resolved, wouldn't it be nice to have a model built to fly in the rain?

 

[Timmy]

Have the esc stick slightly out the bootom and don't fly inverted?

 

[leaded50]

in FT articles, even in post here, the ways to waterproof electronics have been discussed... just do a search oim sure you gonna find it.

 

[leaded50]

its two things mostly that can make trouble... ESC and battery. By using XT 60/90 on battery, it needs be drowned in water to get problem. Then its ESC you need think of, servos should go quite ok, (if mostly mounted under wings/inside fuselage)

 

[BATTLEAXE]

All the ESC's need it to have the ends sealed off with either hot glue or 2 part epoxy, 5 minute epoxy works best. This way the water stays out of the electronics board and still stays cool no matter where you put it. Next biggest concern will be the receiver, this can be placed where ever you can put it, like you said inside a box or balloon sealed off with only the antenna hanging out, it wont need cooling. The next would be the servos which also don't need cooling. You could creatively hide those for protection as well.

 

[leaded50]

in my opinion, in a heavy rainshower......its the pilot who get worst trouble

 

[leaded50]

servos would keep up very good even in waterplanes, by just using an o- seal under the servoarm

 

[Paracodespoder]

Flitetest has a full video on waterproofing electronics, find it and see how they do it.

 

[Michael9865]

MPF foam is good for wet areas. It is 6mm thick and has no paper on it to get wet.

 

[L Edge]

You forgot the most important item, the transmitter. Get any mosture in that and in the long run you will pay for it. Yes, cover it in plastic or whatever, but one time you make a mistake and water dribbles in somewhere(switch, gymbal, pot, etc) you will pay for it. Been there, done that.

 

[jolfstn74]

Sure,individually peter had that great video on waterproofing foam-board with craft paper,talcum powder and polyeurothane. We can use conformal coating for electronics,I guess I was fixating on the whole package for a design to be used in inclement weather including those elements, perhaps elements of design from RC boats provided those could be incorporated without costing too much weight, ideally an rc plane that isn't fortified against the potential damage that could result from getting it wet but designed from the ground up to be flown in wet environments.an rc boat as far as watertightness and expected proximity to moisture is concerned in the shape of an airplane. Though admittedly now that it's cleared up here now it seems like a lot of trouble,not to mention what the previous poster said about the pilot getting soaked! Suns out,I'm going to go fly! But if there was a bnf or pnp on the market who said it was great to fly rain or shine,I'd promise not to sue for stealing my idea IF they sent me one!

 

[jolfstn74]

Good point about the transmitter!

 

[Hondo76251]

I have a few planes i fly on floats. Most have submerged in water at some point or another with little to no long term ill effects. The last one i made videos on was my FT beaver. After a few flights on water (check out prevous videos if you like) i decided it needed more power, i waterproofed everything with conformal coating just for good measure:

 

[Merv]

You might want to move forward carefully. The rain may effect your range.

I know green leaves in a tree will cut my range, before the leaves come out, no worries. When the leaves are out, don't FPV too far into the trees. I always assumed it was the water in the leaves.

 

[Hondo76251]

You might want to move forward carefully. The rain may effect your range.

I know green leaves in a tree will cut my range, before the leaves come out, no worries. When the leaves are out, don't FPV too far into the trees. I always assumed it was the water in the leaves.

Pine trees are a bugger year round in my experience...

 

[JasonK]

You might want to move forward carefully. The rain may effect your range.

I know green leaves in a tree will cut my range, before the leaves come out, no worries. When the leaves are out, don't FPV too far into the trees. I always assumed it was the water in the leaves.

you are correct, the water in the trees will attenuate the signal for normal FPV frequencies and rain will have a similar effect.