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Electric Stunt => Gettin all AMP'ed up! => Topic started by: Dennis Toth on November 26, 2020, 12:21:02 PM
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Lots of devices now feature wireless charging, is this possible with our flight packs? Just curious.
Best, DennisT
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I'll start the discussion with an article on some of the differences in wired vs wireless. Wireless uses electromagnetic induction and that part of the system would have to be designed to meet our needs, if possible.
https://www.thetechlounge.com/blog/wireless-charging-vs-wired-charging/
In addition to the presentation in the article, what of balancing?
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Wireless not likely. Our batteries are high power and need a balance charge. besides for the most part our batteries are not in the airplane when charging. You would have to plug the battery into a warless module to get it to talk to the charger. Bottom line our setup does not lend itself well to wireless charging. n1 D>K
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A friend worked for a UAV company. Their drone (fairly large VTOL aircraft, not multi rotor) had a "ground station" that the plane would land on for wireless recharging.
It was sort of a complex setup, underneath the landing pad was an X-Y gantry that had the wireless charger on it, and it had to search for exactly where on the pad the plane had landed in order to recharge it. These unmanned ground stations would be located out in the work area of the drone, and allow for unattended recharging.
(Power line and pipeline inspections were the sort of task in mind)
I seem to recall it didn't work out quite as planned. :) But the wireless high power multi cell lipo charger part of it did work.
For our application it does not make much sense. Just a bunch of extra weight in the model, and of course unlike an unmanned drone we are always there on hand to swap the pack in and out.
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I'm thinking we come up with some sort of air-to-air charging system, maybe a low flying "tanker" with a probe and drogue system for the electrical connections. Now, that would be fun.
Think of the rat-racing possibilities!
Chuck
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The stuff that is charged wireless doesn't use much current and doesn't work hard for extended time. Induction has far less energy compared to a physical wired connection. Think about a tooth brush that is used maybe two times a day for two minutes and it had the rest of the day to recharge.