Solar powered quad or hex?

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Been thinking about this latel. As most of us know this phantom needs 10 something volts to fly. Therefor giving a short flight time. Once you add gimbals, fpv, etc. flight time is cut very short. I have been wondering if solar power could be used in powering the phantom or not. Although to generate enough solar power to constantly run the phantom you would need a very large solar panel to do that but there could be some-sort of way . Any thoughts?


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Compared to everything else on this flyer the batteries are cheap, and light relative to the power they provide.
 
Using a solar panel to charge a battery that's NOT flying isn't really practical! Solar doesn't have a high power output for the space it would take up. An 80w panel retails for around $600+ (for quality brands) and would only provide ~5A @12vDC, after some loss thru the regulator you would have about 4A available to charge with, and that would need to pump into a standard 12v battery to be usable to us.

You would be lucky to fit a 2W panel on the phantom, and that would do very little in increasing flight times, it would probably decrease from the extra weight and extra turbulence caused from the panel on top.
 
Solar arrays don't work the way that you are thinking. They convert solar energy not store it for use. You could use a solar array to charge the LIPO batteries during the day but I would not try to fly with one strapped to my copter.

With that being said high discharge LIPOs are exactly what a solar panel should be charging. Off grid solar arrays work best with high discharge batteries.
 
miskatonic said:
Solar arrays don't work the way that you are thinking. They convert solar energy not store it for use. You could use a solar array to charge the LIPO batteries during the day but I would not try to fly with one strapped to my copter.

With that being said high discharge LIPOs are exactly what a solar panel should be charging. Off grid solar arrays work best with high discharge batteries.

I'm not sure exactly who you are talking to, but I have a very good idea of how solar power works . . . I've worked in the solar industry for 5 years :) the lipo battery I said shorted out in my hand (in another thread, in the past week or so) was on a solar system I was working on!

Have a look at a post I made in 2009
http://www.candm.com.au/forum/viewtopic ... f28b858f19

Solar panels can't charger directly to the phantom lipo batteries (it will over voltage the cell!), you would need to charge like follows.
Solar Panel>solar regulator>12v (deep cycle?) battery> 12v to 11.1v lipo charger> phantom battery!
 
Driffill said:
miskatonic said:
Solar arrays don't work the way that you are thinking. They convert solar energy not store it for use. You could use a solar array to charge the LIPO batteries during the day but I would not try to fly with one strapped to my copter.

With that being said high discharge LIPOs are exactly what a solar panel should be charging. Off grid solar arrays work best with high discharge batteries.

I'm not sure exactly who you are talking to, but I have a very good idea of how solar power works . . . I've worked in the solar industry for 5 years :) the lipo battery I said shorted out in my hand (in another thread, in the past week or so) was on a solar system I was working on!

Have a look at a post I made in 2009
http://www.candm.com.au/forum/viewtopic ... f28b858f19

Solar panels can't charger directly to the phantom lipo batteries (it will over voltage the cell!), you would need to charge like follows.
Solar Panel>solar regulator>12v (deep cycle?) battery> 12v to 11.1v lipo charger> phantom battery!

I would hope that the array had the regulator included. ;)
 
Solar panels don't have built in regulators . . .

And also to clarify, a solar "Array" it a string of multiple panels joined together on the same system.

For a grid feed system, multiple panels would be joined in series to increase the voltage and regulated by a grid feed DC to AC inverter. For a stand alone system, the solar panel must charge into a battery, and then any load are run from the battery as per normal.
 
runnerman said:
Been thinking about this latel. As most of us know this phantom needs 10 something volts to fly. Therefor giving a short flight time. Once you add gimbals, fpv, etc. flight time is cut very short. I have been wondering if solar panels could be used in powering the phantom or not. Although to generate enough solar power to constantly run the phantom you would need a very large solar panel to do that but there could be some-sort of way . Any thoughts?


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Were you able to use solar power? It seems to be very exciting concept but I am not sure.. Please share some more information.
 
I am interested in this as well did you figure anything out? I was thinking about using 2 6V panels in a series with a regulator so that you would overload the phantom battery. Hoping to get enough juice to get a sustaining energy source for my phantom.
 
Titan's Solara 50 solar-powered drone takes 50 meters of solar panels to power its single, somewhat anemic motor mounted on it's specially-designed-for-minimal-weight frame and components.

I think you would have a tough time converting an off-the-shelf airframe to be light enough, or power four motors from an array any smaller than 50 meters+.

Maybe in time... but not yet.
 
In the most basic analysis, a Phantom uses a 58 Whr battery for around 20 minutes of flight, so it is averaging around 175 W. The most efficient solar panels around today can produce in the region of 175 W m⁻² and, depending on latitude of course, the maximum theoretical power based on solar insolation would be around 1 kW m⁻².

So with today's technology it would take the power from at least 1 m² of solar panel to keep a Phantom aloft, but that doesn't take into account how one could mount such a panel or the additional weight of the panel and associated electronics. Clearly not possible with current technology, and given that the surface area of the Phantom is less than that required even with 100% conversion of incident solar power and no additional weight at all, likely never possible.
 
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Sorry not even slightly feasible... to charge the phantom in flight with power to spare to run the rotors, you'd need a very large solar panel indeed, much larger than the phantom itself!
 
Have you seen the solar plane? It's a giant fragile ultra-light solar panel with a little barebones frame that can barely carry one person. We're not even remotely close to solar quads.
 
Have you seen the solar plane? It's a giant fragile ultra-light solar panel with a little barebones frame that can barely carry one person. We're not even remotely close to solar quads.

Yup, i've see the Solar Impulse. It's pretty cool and really slowwwwwww.
 

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