It’s getting nice out and it’s time to start thinking about playing outside again.
I have a few RC Airplanes. Some older ones like a nitro powered sig cadet or these foam bodied electric ducted fans shown here…
Since these are electric I can test them indoors. I threw together this little board with a load cell to measure the actual thrust. This makes it easy to compare motors, batteries and props.
Instead of a radio I just use a servo tester to control the throttle.
Then I added a little hall effect current probe to measure the motor voltage and current.
Right now it still connects by USB but I added an ESP board for Wifi…
Graphing is handled by MakerPlot software…
Next addition will be Dallas one wire temperature sensors for the motor, controller, and battery.
Then I will extend it for nitro powered models with a thermocouple input, and tachometer sensor.
Here’s a run with a nice smooth single motor prop plane.
And here’s a dual motor ducted fan jet with one motor stalling from a galled bearing.(yes, the bearing sound was horrific)
the current is a bit jumpy so I will have to add a smoothing cap to the sensor..