1:1 scale Mars Ingenuity Helicopter

[NickRehm]

Lots of progress--gears have been installed in place of the belt drive, and I've been spinning up the un-shaped/un-balanced blades to verify that my motor selection was at least in the ballpark... Looks like we can get enough lift, and the 500kv motors on 4s can handle the torque with a 3:1 gear reduction. The swashplate works well while its spinning and I have verified the correct actuation/servo mixing for roll and pitch control moments. I'm ready to commit to cleaning up the blades from double thick flat foamboard to chamfered leading and trailing edges, and spend some time getting them balanced.

Right as my confidence was up, my BEC powering the servos and flight controller died... So a new one just came in the mail thanks to amazon prime. I'll get that swapped out over the next few days and make some small updates to swap out some of the 3D printed parts, then I think it's time to try for a flight with landing gear installed. Couldn't directly attach a video file, so here's a screenshot until I get the proper video put together

 

[The Hangar]

Lots of progress--gears have been installed in place of the belt drive, and I've been spinning up the un-shaped/un-balanced blades to verify that my motor selection was at least in the ballpark... Looks like we can get enough lift, and the 500kv motors on 4s can handle the torque with a 3:1 gear reduction. The swashplate works well while its spinning and I have verified the correct actuation/servo mixing for roll and pitch control moments. I'm ready to commit to cleaning up the blades from double thick flat foamboard to chamfered leading and trailing edges, and spend some time getting them balanced.

Right as my confidence was up, my BEC powering the servos and flight controller died... So a new one just came in the mail thanks to amazon prime. I'll get that swapped out over the next few days and make some small updates to swap out some of the 3D printed parts, then I think it's time to try for a flight with landing gear installed. Couldn't directly attach a video file, so here's a screenshot until I get the proper video put together

Awesome, looking forward to the flight report!

 

[EQMOD]

Awesome--do share more specs!

Will just make a quick description;

1. It is only roughly about 1/4 of the scale you are attempting to achieve.
2. I'm using two 180 size brushed motors , no brushless motors here for that size and its hard to get one
specially with the pandemic although battery is 3S 450maH. Yup a small one with a max 5 min flight.
I tried to separate the cells of a 3S Lipo and reassemble it to fit it inside the box with the rest of the electronics.
3. TX-RX is 72Mhz, I dont have a 2.4ghz version that is compatible with the ESC
4. ESC is from a Lama V4 3-in-1 72Mhz type Coaxial heliopter (i have this since 2008)
5. Rotor head is Coaxial Dual Swashplate with the upper rotor head with a paddled flybar with a bell hiller type mechanism.
There are no ready parts for Dual swashplate+bell hiller mechanism thus most of the upper head assembly came from different
parts from different helis from the 2007-2008 era. Mostly are made of plastic that the upper swash linkages are actually CA glued
6. Body is 3d Printed ABS+ filament. I dont use PLA as they disintegrate over time (biodegradable in nature)
7. Body walls is made of copper tape.
8. Although upper paddles + paddle weights provide flight stability, a coaxial rotor head plus a weighted box (motors, batteries,
legs) attached below it makes the heli act like a pendulum thus i had to add an electronic stabilizer mechanism on the servos using
two gyros , one for roll, the other for pitch - just to cancel that pendulum effect.
9. Legs are made of carbon rods, with some pieces of wrapped paper + sticker to make it look like a thicker rod.
10. Foot is also 3d printed. Do take note that one foot is different based on the NASA pictures. That foot was used to stow/lock the heli
below the perseverance rover.
11. Oh, blades are made of plastic (from the Lama V4 rc helicopter) with CF stickers to make it look like the real one :-D
12. I also added a Flight Cam on its belly pointed downwards , it uses a wifi-cam circuit board that can stream live vid to a mobile phone.

It is actually the dual swash bell hiller mechanism which makes this 1/4 scale fly-able outdoors as both upper and lower rotors provide the necessary cyclics for a stronger and responsive roll and pitch movement

I guess thats about it.

 

[NickRehm]

7. Body walls is made of copper tape.

Any problems with radio connection through the tape? I guess 72Mhz will be different than my 2.4GHz. My initial plan for my Inequity was to cover the fuselage in aluminum foil, but I'm worried about radio connection since most people use aluminum tape or similar for radio noise isolation

 

[EQMOD]

Any problems with radio connection through the tape? I guess 72Mhz will be different than my 2.4GHz. My initial plan for my Inequity was to cover the fuselage in aluminum foil, but I'm worried about radio connection since most people use aluminum tape or similar for radio noise isolation

bottom part does not have tape and this is the part where the antenna wire (a long one) is looped inside.

 

[NickRehm]

New BEC for the flight controller and servos is installed and I also spent some time today shaping blades. I've got to play around with blade pitch on their mounts to maximize lift and minimize power, but the shaping has already helped out a ton with reducing power (as expected)