Benefits of Carbon Fibre Props

Aran

Junior Member
Hi All,

I've got to the point with my 550 that I feel I'm ready for some carbon fiber props, I've not broke a prop in at least 3 flights! ;).

Before I shell out my hard earned money, what are the benefits of using carbon fiber props?

Thanks
Aran
 

Cyberdactyl

Misfit Multirotor Monkey
- Lower vibration due to non-flexing from out-of-plane movement.
- Maintains chord orientation and profile even under high rpm.
- Strong, but not indestructible, during prop strikes
- Looks nice
 

xuzme720

Dedicated foam bender
Mentor
In addition to what Cyber said, less inertia on the motors due to lighter weight of the props.
 

Mustang7302

Senior Member
I picked up some CF 8045 props from HK for my last build and I have been very happy with them. They're paper thin, weight nothing, very rigid, and have taken quite a number of run ins with the ground, bushes, trees, metal poles, and plastic poles. So far I have only put a crack in two of them, which has happened after hitting the plastic or metal poles. They were still 100% flyable and I only noticed the cracks when I was making sure the prop nuts were still tight.

CF props are more expensive, but I am very happy with them. The light weight means they don't carry a lot of inertia and survive much better than I had expected. Some of the crashes into the ground, bushes, or trees would have busted the composite carbon reinforced nylon 1045 props I've used in the past right at the hub, sheering the blade clean off; obviously not flyable when that happens.
 

Ron B

Posted a thousand or more times
Ok guy's I went to the hobby store to get some props I needed some 8 x 4 E and they only had 1 but they had 1 8 x 6 slow fly and I bought both of them. My question is what will my flight characteristic difference be between these two props.
Also we used to boil our nylon props to make them a bit more flexible and I used to get a lot of crashes before breaking one after doing this. Has anyone done this with these newer props?
 
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Tritium

Amateur Extra Class K5TWM
Slow fly props flatten and deform at high speed vs the E prop that holds its profile much better at high speeds. Never heard of boiling nylon props. My guess is it would release any mfg. stresses from the blades. There are some explanations of various props and the engineering of them on the APC website.

Thurmond
 
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Cyberdactyl

Misfit Multirotor Monkey
The reason I find carbon fiber attractive is because the beauty of its amazing functionality is displayed and easily seen.

Add to that, the uniform fiber is apparent whether in matte black or as reflective as the wet scales of a fish. To me, carbon fiber has that weird organic appearance melded with high tech.

And many may not realize the insanity in the magnitude of strength we will get when graphene arrives as the fiber. Possibly in some sort of polyhedron matrix ribbon overcoming its shorting comings to out of plane transitions. I suppose the overall weight may not drop compared to volume in relation to CF, but the increase in strength should be logarithmic, unless the polymer binder sees a breakthrough. But the strength will certainly be a game changer. :cool:

Who knows, that and a moderate battery breakthrough. . . we could all be discussing manned DYI quads . . .
 

jhitesma

Some guy in the desert
Mentor
we could all be discussing manned DYI quads . . .

Won't catch me on one! With a plane - you can glide. With a heli - you can autorotate. With a multi - you can fall out of the freaking sky :D

I do hope that I can afford to get my pilots license and build a kit plane before I'm too old to pull it off....but I wouldn't even dream of building a multi to ride in/on - even an octo or similar I just couldn't feel safe in.
 

lonewolf7717

Senior Member
Won't catch me on one! With a plane - you can glide. With a heli - you can autorotate. With a multi - you can fall out of the freaking sky :D

I do hope that I can afford to get my pilots license and build a kit plane before I'm too old to pull it off....but I wouldn't even dream of building a multi to ride in/on - even an octo or similar I just couldn't feel safe in.

Won't need that license to at least build a kit....just saying....don't let it hold you up. kit planes are long term projects, would have at least a year or two to procure license in the mean time.
 

Cyberdactyl

Misfit Multirotor Monkey
Oh, I wouldn't want to fly much higher than 150 meters in a DYI MR.

But as we all know, MR's can be very redundant in that they can be "multi-rotor".

A helicopter does indeed have auto-rotation, but must land very quickly, a plane can glide, but both are highly restricted to a landing site, the heli because of its horrible glide slope and the plane for the same, opposite, reason. An MR with >6 rotors can lose a rotor or more and land pretty much where it wishes within reason. And with redundant support systems, limit itself to failure.

Each have their own strengths and weaknesses.
 

jhitesma

Some guy in the desert
Mentor
Won't need that license to at least build a kit....just saying....don't let it hold you up. kit planes are long term projects, would have at least a year or two to procure license in the mean time.

Yeah, but right now I can't afford the time or money for either getting a license or a kit. And with no garage/shop at my current house I'd also have to start paying for a hanger just to build it and there's a 7 year waiting list for a hanger around here right now.

And with college for my daughter hopefully looming down the road (thankfully still 16 years down the road)...I figure for now my best bet is focusing on keeping myself healthy enough to be able to pass the physical by the time I have the money saved for either ;)

To get back on topic...I've been seriously considering picking up some carbon props to try on my little quad to see if they can help get rid of some of the last few vibrations I can't seem to balance out since I can go a week of flying a pack a day without crashing now....

But now I'm still trying to fix a bad vibe it picked up after things went crazy for me new years eve. Even after replacing the shaft one motor still has a bad wobble to it and I can't figure out why...going to try replacing the bearings next as the shaft is straight as far as I can tell....unless in my fever induced haze of the past week I managed to replace the shaft on the wrong motor (which is a possibility.)

And even then right now I'm thinking more about building an anycopter style quad with larger motors and simonK flashed ESC's and would rather put my budget towards that than CF props on what's destined to be my basher/acro trainer.

Maybe after Chinese new year I'll try some CF props....
 
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Ron B

Posted a thousand or more times
@Tritium
Back then we had 2 choices wood or nylon and this was over 42 yrs. ago. You have heard of the dinosaur age, well 1 is still around and just getting back into r/c. Boiling did make them more flexible and that may be why they didn't break as much. I have looked around and haven't found any nylon props so I guess they have been replaced by cheaper or better props.
Now with slow fly props in what context should they be used?
 

Tritium

Amateur Extra Class K5TWM
@Tritium
Back then we had 2 choices wood or nylon and this was over 42 yrs. ago. You have heard of the dinosaur age, well 1 is still around and just getting back into r/c. Boiling did make them more flexible and that may be why they didn't break as much. I have looked around and haven't found any nylon props so I guess they have been replaced by cheaper or better props.
Now with slow fly props in what context should they be used?

I was 13 in those "old days". Never got to fly RC but did some control line stuff with a friend that could afford it.

SloFly props were originaly made for geared drives I believe. They are very useful in my experience to about 1200 to 1400kV (2 to 4S battery) At the top end the pitch angle tends to flatten out and become inefficient at lifting. The newer Stiff APC Multi-rotor props hold their profile at much higher speeds.

Thurmond