The Medusa PVC prototype is just one phase in the journey to fly our TechShop UAV at this years Autodesk University. The PVC air-frame is being built to test the physical scale of the final design. It will also provide our team invaluable feedback to optimize the air frame geometry and let us test the flight controls and power systems.
Before get started let me say thank you to all the users on RC Groups.Com Scratch Build PVC Forum for inspiring our working model prototype to test for AU submission. Check out there Gallery!
RCGroups.com Scratch Built PVC Gallery
Since the V-tailed Quad copter is related to Tri-Copter geometry I started our design process by researching symmetrical design theory. I ran into a great website that helped me get under way (
Link).
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| Autodesk Fusion 360 air-frame symmetrical design layout sketches |
I started the PVC build by dropping by my local hardware store and purchasing some thin walled PVC schedule 30 3" inch pipe. The scale looks good and the large diameter should provide the necessary rigidity for a 1500mm motor to motor span. In addition I picked up some PVC T's, 45 degree elbows and some end-caps to connect up the frame.
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| Medusa Frame 3" PVC Thin walled PVC pipe. |
As soon as I got home I fired up Autodesk Fusion 360 and layed out the Tri-Copter symmetry, Tested out Leonardo's sketch and then overlayed Eric Nantel's vtailed quad copter design to triple check the our base geometry configuration.
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| Eric Nantel's air-frame design superimposed over the Medusa Fusion 360 symmetrical T-Copter layout sketches |
Once I had that locked down I created a 3" pipe with a .045 wall and then measured and modeled the tees and the elbows. I added the tees for the body connections and landing legs and the 45s elbow for the V-Tail rear props.
I needed to scale down the pipe to a 1" around the prop so not to disrupt the airflow so using a schedule 40 pipe Tee and Cross pipe fitting I got off Grab CAD I designed a simple system to connect the pipes. The hole in the end of the 3" PVC cap allows allows for a 1/8 vibration dampening o-ring and plenty of support to keep the the smaller pipe fixed.
Saturday morning I headed out early to the join Harry and the team at the TechShop to start the Medusa PVC build. First things first, we placed the 20 foot 3" pipe on the scale. It measured in a 4lbs. Next using the fusion 360 measurements we cut the pipe to size and tested the prop distance. We made some slight adjustments and connected it together. It was really cool to see it come from design to reality.
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| Harry Arnold from Detroit Drones |
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| 20' 3" PVC Pipe 1820 grams |
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| Avorto 3520 KV400 Engines and 17"inch Props from Monto Hobbies. |
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| Avorto 3520 KV400 Engines and 17" Props from Monto Hobbies. |
We should have the final parts in the next weeks and hope to testing the flight by April.
Check out our PVC prototype weights and costs :)
Medusa Weights And Costs
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