What a beautiful video - Incredible engineering, clear explanations, and a father son project. Doesn't get much better than that! Great work both of you, a well deserved record.
Think i found my new favorite channel. Having in depth technical description and great prodcution is rare nowadays, great to see the design process, would never have thought to test aerodynamics out of a window haha. Keep making videos this good, and analysis this engaging.
This is AMAZING! Congrats on the accomplishment… a good thing that you documented everything, which is a great thing to do in engineering. Great job once again!
Been slightly obsessing about this cool thing so here's some calcs for interest's sake: If we look at the power consumption at 360km/h (100m/s) which is 5091We, assuming about 85% motor efficiency and 55% propeller efficiency we arrive at drag force of 23.8N. This can be reduced to a CdA figure of around 0.00396. Eyeballing the design section area of 150mm x 120mm gives us an A of 0.018m^2 yielding a drag coefficient (Cd) of about 0.22 or approximately that of a Tesla Model 3. This is kind of impressive except that it has no wheels, wheel arches or tyres which are one of the dominant forms of drag on a road vehicle so it suggests that there's at least some room and probably plenty for improvement. Also, at max speed of 510km/h we're starting to see compressibility effects being over Mach 0.4 in linear speed so there's no doubt that the propeller blades are well into the transonic flow regime so the 55% propeller efficiency above may be an overestimate. To make any appreciable gains in the record speed these problems will only be exacerbated. Time to get busy with area ruling and possibly ducted fans to improve the total aero efficiency. I also note there is appreciable voltage sag at the high speed run dropping down to 34V. This means that, for an assumed 12S system voltage of 44.4V nominal, there's about 2kW of power disappearing into the wiring as heat. (235A at 10V sag > 2kW). While motors are to some extent immune from increasing voltage from an efficiency perspective, the rest of the electrical system surely isn't, so bumping the voltage higher is only going to be a win, albeit with safety complications.
@@matthewbarnard461 Some of it is, for sure, but it depends on how and where the voltage is measured. Also it's still I²R losses which is just turning battery power into heat so increasing system voltage can only but reduce this inefficiency.
From someone who can barely make a paper aeroplane, this is fascinating. Watching the design evolve to optimise the aerodynamics, airflow, and centre of gravity is amazing. It must have been so rewarding seeing it achieve such crazy speeds 😄
Small drones are practically undetectable and inescapable at much more conservative speeds anyway. Being cheap, easy, high range and having resilience to jamming would be more important than 500kph+ speed.
I feel almost vindicated seeing someone else do their rapid drone prototyping in Blender, and especially your line that; "Success is achieving both excellence in performance, and esthetics" is something I've cought a lot of heat over from the pure CAD guys. Amazing work all-round!
This is a very interesting take! I feel like engineering/product design is to often teached to go from a sketched based 2D straight into hard and traditionel software such as solidworks/ siemens NX surfacing tool of what ever is used. Blender could be this perfect in the middel. It's abusrd to think about the hours i've seen friends, colleageas including myself put into interrating very complex surface models just modifying splines and addapting surfacecontinuity. The best thing is I have blender installed a couple of months ago exact for this reason but do not seem to find the time or motivaction tot get into it. I this video shows exactly why I should.
Thanks I value the concern 😊 and your comment. It more case of with youtube getting 3.7mill new videos uploaded each day that it really takes a lot to stand out above all that noise. But after a couple of years doing this I think this video is going to give me the catapult boost I have been waiting for. The subscribe rate on this video and type of story has gone nuts and is super high which is fantastic recognition for my efforts.
Well done guys, this is awesome to have local guys pushing the limits like this, very inspiring! Did you ever consider running CFD on the model, and do you think that would have helped the design direction?
Thanks Mike. Up till this point the level of technology is such that big gains have been possible through iterative exploration. But from here on the gains will become smaller and harder to achieve and require more sophisticated optimisations and we are running wind tunnel simulations for further speed improvements. And we have product manufacturers who are interested in supplying us with optimised components to go faster. If you have CFD skills I would be interested to know how you would approach this.
Maybe tow steered composites and custom aerostructurally optimized geometry of frame and motors for v4? In my experience, ADFLOW is a lot faster and more accurate than airshaper and it can do shape optimization
10/10 Stunning achievement for both of you , and being able to keep it "in the family" and have FUN together as well as keep on learning , innovating and supporting is Mega Brilliant, Well Done
Awesome project! Looks like a fun one. Curious if you have done the math for what impact a carbon fiber exterior (or any alternative) could have on weight. The shell sure looks pretty light already.
The low hanging fruit development areas are still batteries and aerodynamics so thats the next version. And interestingly induced drag is near negligible at 500. You pay the price of weight in battery drain and manoeuvring. The angle of attack of 1 degree is all you need for body lift. It’s basically a wingless VTOL. I’ll be explaining this in the next video. So weight savings will increase speed because of a longer speed boost but not induced drag savings. Weight will get serious attention in version 4🤣 And when we get serious competition. 🤙🏻
My university drone team may be attempting this record next fall. Been doing some research, and I want to commend your component selection! It's been really hard finding any configuration that performs higher in thrust simulations.
What a tremendous accomplishment, Mike and Luke! Congratulations to you both on this amazing feat! You’ve created a thing of beauty, and I can’t wait to see the next iteration. Although I am not a trained engineer, I was able to follow your clear descriptions and appreciate the problems and how you were solving them. Simply remarkable. I am so happy for you both!
I just built my first vertical frame and it flew away on me, it might be because my props are so close together as you were saying. Fascinating to hear more construction detail and the problems you had with your escs. also how you made your camera/nosecone and airshaper fascinating thanks a lot!
9:15 "The software generates these elegantly sculpted streamline curves." I am sure you've discussed this elsewhere, I've yet to see your other videos, but what software did you use here?
This has absolutely blown me away in terms of how effective your designing and surfacing was of v2 without doing aero computation. Eagerly awaiting v3!
This reminds me of the passion I had when I was a child about aviation! Working together with your son on a project like this not only is super cool, but then to achieve what you did in the speed record is fantastic! The LEDs in the tail is brilliant! I am definitely looking forward to seeing what else you dream up, design, test, tweak, get to its best version as engineers and a father and son duo? Just lovely!
Thanks. I am a retired architect and have an Autocad Sketchup Revit Lumion background so Blender is a natural follow on. My primary need is animation so Blender is a must. Besides Blender is fantastic software. It can do pretty much all things 3d. What is your field/ software?
Awesome design, execution and performance, Mike Your Bambu printer may be able to print STEP files, which will behave like very fine mesh STL files, although that depends on the slicer. Great to see South Africans setting records. Netjies gedaan.
Dankie. Flippin lekker om SA bietjie te showcase. Blender doesnt work with STEP files unfortunately but it is perfect for the animation I make and it makes fantastic drone designs too.
Yup, Bambu Studio does support STEP. That's my go-to format when working with designs that have tight tolerances. Plus they're much easier for others to reverse-engineer.
In general, the idea of such a device is not new,🤷♂️ it was already there, but you guys have brought the project to a really working fast state!👍 Thanks !
Are there any blender Addons you use to help model it? I have blender for a few years since 8th grade but I still find it extremely difficult to do things like this that involve precise measurements and parameters. Also, was all of the design done in blender? Or dis you also use other programs like cad or other things to help. Thank you! For instance, how did you model things like the camera tilt adjustment? Also, during the part of the video where you showed the short clip of modeling the NACA duct, how were you doing that? What was the greyed out shape you were manipulating? Was it just a boolean or was it something else that i don’t know about?
Yes all modelling and design was done in Blender. I dont use special add-ons. I find the overall dimensions of an object useful for sizing and scaling. And you can set up a special axis for non orthogonal modelling. And you can move and scale inputing numbers. The NACA duct was modelled with booleans.
great to hear it. The need to distribute the PDB/motor controllers is something I've never seen on a hobbyist drone before. Also, you guys have the same heat gun as me, and good to see your solid Blender skills!
Hey, I remember this guy called me on the phone a few years ago for consulting about blender. How you doing Mike? This is seriously cool. I grew up without a father because he was assassinated when I was 2, so I never had this kind of interaction, and even though I'm an amazing engineer I have simply never had access to the tools, space, or resources required to carry out this kind of experiment. To me, you guys are like ultra-rich. You are like infinitely richer than me. We are different classes of human. That's why I am a designer. Pencils are cheap. I have made countless models for other people to 3D print, but they will profit because I can only afford the tools to make the models, but they own the printers, and I will simply never have enough money to own my own printer.
Hey Tom. I cant say I remember talking to a Tom 🤔 do you go by another name? And for the record I also grew up without a father which is why I treasure my sons all the more.
@@Mike-Bell You called me on the phone after my blender tutorial went viral to inquire about Blender consultation, and I gave you a figure that I assume was too high, and you never contacted me again. I'm 100% sure it was you, I might still have your number. I know because I remember your name, voice, and videos. Do you realize what you have made? you've made the next weapon for the Russia Ukraine drone war and you gave the designs to the world for free.
Hey Tom oh yes I found your channel. I remember you. Are you still working for the architecture related company? Don’t let lack of tools define your potential. Your creativity is a powerful tool that many would be envious of.
@@Mike-Bell My father was assassinated when I was 2 and I was accused of Sexual Assault in Cape Town while running two popular comedy shows even though I'm completely innocent. It does not matter how intelligent or talented I am. I have been told since birth that I'm a genius capable of anything. My father was also a genius. It doesn't matter. I live under fascism. There is a boot on my face. I'm telling you, we are different classes of human. I will forever been seen as a crazy person despite the fact that I repeatedly prove myself to be in the top 0.01% for intelligence. I'm telling you I have no power, because I was born a criminal.
@@TommyLikeTom Hi Tom, I'm really sorry to hear about your difficult start in life. Your story is heart-wrenching. However, given your intelligence, you'll understand that dwelling on self-pity can trap you in a cycle that hinders progress and success. Stephen Fry articulates this sentiment beautifully. th-cam.com/video/r_2kelqYz_o/w-d-xo.htmlsi=dZcWIaX_HwLWtfQ_
Mike, you should get sponsorship deals with your component suppliers. They'd get fantastic advertisement from you simply telling everyone which components you're using.
What an amazing project. I love the father and son team. I'm looking forward to use some of the things I learned from both of you in my next project. Congratulations
I am in the process of designing a drone and quadcopter for atmospheric measurements, I am intrigued on how you designed the latching mechanism to connect the top piece to the bottom!
Thanks for logging all the steps to a great project. 6:22 Did you contemplate integrating carbon fiber rods to reduce the wobbling effect with the mass of the batteries?
Would love to investigate more complex carbon fibre parts but we had so much to deal with in this build there was no time. Plus surprisingly weight is not much of a problem at these speeds because body lift comes essentially for free. Must watch weight at take off and manoeuvring.
Needs to take advantage of the Area Rule. (See differences in body shape between F-102 and F-106 jets). Spinners on the props will help reduce drag inducing turbulence, and could be landing gear. Potential to move those speed controllers in to the printed sections of the arms, to reduce cable mass.
Area rule to be investigated in next version. 500 kmh is already into some incompressibility territory so we suspect there are gains to be made with area rule. Interestingly the weight is only a burden to take off and manoeuvring. At high speed cruise the angle of attack is only about 1 to 2 degrees and induced drag from body lift is tiny. But yes wiring is heavy and around 8 to 10% of weight so needs optimising.
@@Mike-Bell I think there's mention in there of tip speed getting close to supersonic,... It'd require custom molds, and a gearbox on each motor, but having each motor drive a pair of contra-rotating props, with the trailing prop having a steeper pitch angle to further accelerate the air, might add a decent amount of thrust.
Did you use Aluminium or Copper Cables? Aluminium cables win over copper in Ampere/Weight, little bit thicker but lighter per Ampere. Airplane do not use it because of (galvanic) corrosion over long time (piper did use it in the 70s).
Incredible. The headaches and cost of prototyping and manufacturing on a cnc machine twenty years ago vs. the options of today has mind blowing potential.
Congratulations on building such a beautiful machine! Would be interesting to explore how durable your design/build is with the goal of characterizing operational lifespan and maintenance/repair costs. I'd expect optimizing these would present a entirely new set of engineering challenges. Of course, understandably, you and your son might instead prefer to focus efforts on just going faster.
Excellent video! The animations were awesome and that definitely covered everything I would have liked to pick your brain about. It's always nice to hear about others design philosophy. Also I just have to mention some funny coincidences. I'm currently getting my mechatronics degree too, nice job Luke! The other one is that I had originally named my speed record project the peregrine falcon back in 2019. What are the chances?
very, very cool! how are you doing the control mixing? i.e. converting from torque commands to motor thrusts? if by any chance you have a mixer that outputs something like 95% of max thrust + some small differential consisting of roll/pitch/yaw components -- there is something better! using a QP solver you can find the thrust commands giving max forward thrust while still satisfying torque inputs. for such small problems the solution can be found in fractions of a millisecond, even on tiny processors. If you haven't yet done so this might get you another couple kph! get in touch if you wanna know more, i have done something extremely similar at work :)
its simply the mixer in betaflight. there will always be a small loss of power as the pid controller with airmode enabled can only be active and stabilize the quad if it dials back from full throttle on at least one of the motors. this is why its most efficient to make the quad as aerodynamic as possible at the angle of attack its going to fly at and a good tune. since the drone doesnt fly completely straight forward but very slightly tilted up any drag on the body will push the body up and the pid controller will cut power to the bottom motors to compensate.
Mike and Luke, I'm sitting here in Joburg and so proud that you guys from my hometown have achieved this incredible milestone. Great videos from you both and have already shared the links with other drone enthusiasts. Also must add that I love the fact that you designed the drone with Blender. 👍👍👍. When I saw Blender I figured you'd move over to FreeCad but I was wrong.
Hi Jerome thanks for sharing the video. We are both ex Joburg. Blender has proven excellent for this project and is a must for animations. Blender is awesome. What is your filed/software used?
We did not list the battery and ESC’s because both were dissapointing. We used the Dogcom 1500mah 160c batteries but they weren’t great, so Bonka next time. And APD ESC’s but they also weren’t great. A lot of duds we had to put through their paces and they popped before we filtered out the duds and APD won’t acknowledge they don’t filter out the duds in their quality control.
@Mike-Bell do you think you could possibly do a video (or just describe in general here in a comment) on how you go about setting up Blender for precise (down to the millimeter) modeling? How do you go about setting up the environment, did you use any specific Blender add-on's?
This is something I always thought I would need to learn a specific CAD software for, but you've achieved amazing results in Blender. I'd love to know your process in Blender, or if you would consider making any Blender tutorial videos for engineering and design? Amazing work!!!
The object size can be typed into the xyz object size. In decimal millimetres if neccesary. You can draw a cube and rotate it to any angle. Select the cube and in Transform Orientations to the left of Snap make a new transformation axis to snap to. Its no harder than CAD. Just a different way to achieve the same result. loads of tutorials on TH-cam for any topic you need help with. And Blender has fanstatic animation features which are essential for my videos.
in your next design, you can double the amount of motors. 8 instead of 4, same design for the core, space for the battery in the center. 4 more motors on top, feeding the bottom motors, or turn them all 4 45 degrees as to not interfere with the bottom 4 motors. the flight time might be halved, but the speed might increase :) you could make it perfectly symmetrical, modular even, adding more and more motors in a line, even the battery compartment could be modular.
Why not mount the speed controllers side ways on the motor arms, then they can be blended into the surface that connects the motor shrouds to the main body. Small naca ducts can then be used on each of the blended arm sections
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The very idea of 9000W motor/battery power in a product that small is just absurd. Amazing work!
Its absolutely insane. I built fast drones myself but never Had anything over 4500W
Better to fly fast to cool it!
So you decided to take on Red Bull and crush them, what a badass the both of you are!
It's a totally different system. This drone can not stay flying as long as red bulls drone.
@@grampafpvthe speed record has nothing to do with flight time
Redbulls drone was never about getting a top speed world record? 2 different drones for 2 different purposes
@TinyBearTim read the comment I replied to.. keep up bro..🙅♂️
@@grampafpv I think it can fly 7km at 350phh so it could in theory track the red bull car although the camera probably isn’t as good
What a beautiful video - Incredible engineering, clear explanations, and a father son project. Doesn't get much better than that! Great work both of you, a well deserved record.
Thank you very much!
... love your channel 👌
what a amazing project, and this being done by a father and son just adds to how awesome it's wish you best of luck on your future projects
Think i found my new favorite channel. Having in depth technical description and great prodcution is rare nowadays, great to see the design process, would never have thought to test aerodynamics out of a window haha. Keep making videos this good, and analysis this engaging.
Wow, thanks! 🤩 more good stuff to come
@@Mike-Bell what is that 3d software? great video !
@@kay834 I use Blender. Open source and free
@@Mike-Bell My mind is bent at just how skillful you are with Blender, that alone is award worthy.
@@sUASNews thanks 🤩
Congrats to you and your son on breaking the record!
Thanks!! 😃
The amp draw and ability of those batteries to discharge that fast is insane.
Sure is. Next version 200c batteries straight from the factory.
This is AMAZING! Congrats on the accomplishment… a good thing that you documented everything, which is a great thing to do in engineering. Great job once again!
Thank you so much!! 😃
Been slightly obsessing about this cool thing so here's some calcs for interest's sake:
If we look at the power consumption at 360km/h (100m/s) which is 5091We, assuming about 85% motor efficiency and 55% propeller efficiency we arrive at drag force of 23.8N. This can be reduced to a CdA figure of around 0.00396. Eyeballing the design section area of 150mm x 120mm gives us an A of 0.018m^2 yielding a drag coefficient (Cd) of about 0.22 or approximately that of a Tesla Model 3. This is kind of impressive except that it has no wheels, wheel arches or tyres which are one of the dominant forms of drag on a road vehicle so it suggests that there's at least some room and probably plenty for improvement.
Also, at max speed of 510km/h we're starting to see compressibility effects being over Mach 0.4 in linear speed so there's no doubt that the propeller blades are well into the transonic flow regime so the 55% propeller efficiency above may be an overestimate. To make any appreciable gains in the record speed these problems will only be exacerbated. Time to get busy with area ruling and possibly ducted fans to improve the total aero efficiency.
I also note there is appreciable voltage sag at the high speed run dropping down to 34V. This means that, for an assumed 12S system voltage of 44.4V nominal, there's about 2kW of power disappearing into the wiring as heat. (235A at 10V sag > 2kW). While motors are to some extent immune from increasing voltage from an efficiency perspective, the rest of the electrical system surely isn't, so bumping the voltage higher is only going to be a win, albeit with safety complications.
The voltage drop of the battery is due to the internal resistance of the cells
@@matthewbarnard461 Some of it is, for sure, but it depends on how and where the voltage is measured. Also it's still I²R losses which is just turning battery power into heat so increasing system voltage can only but reduce this inefficiency.
I ran a sim and came to the conclusion its 28.67 newtons of drag at 140m/s, which gives it a Cd value of 0.172
Amazing video, Mike. So insightful!
Glad you think so!
From someone who can barely make a paper aeroplane, this is fascinating. Watching the design evolve to optimise the aerodynamics, airflow, and centre of gravity is amazing. It must have been so rewarding seeing it achieve such crazy speeds 😄
Glad you enjoyed it! 😃
congratulations To you and your Son
Thanks ☺️ always nice to get a comment from you
I had a very uncomforable laugh at 12 hp in a 10" frame.
The US Department of Defense is going to be giving this video a good number of views i think
Ukraine is here first 😏
That was my first thought, The military application is very obvious.
Small drones are practically undetectable and inescapable at much more conservative speeds anyway. Being cheap, easy, high range and having resilience to jamming would be more important than 500kph+ speed.
@@putrid.p Against stationary targets, yes. However, this high velocity drone could also be effective against helicopters and some planes.
@@2MeterLP no, because you forgot the payload.
The left handed guy who uses a shorty pencil is the guy you should worry about.
😂
😂 😂
Learning breakdowns from you is awesome, please keep making more!
We will!
The shot in the dark with the LED on made it all so much cooler, that is quite beautiful.
The fastest father/son duo on TH-cam! And in the world! Congrats! Love your work.
Thanks! 😃
Wow. Amazing entineering and really well presented. Congratulations and thank you for sharing.
Thank you very much!
I feel almost vindicated seeing someone else do their rapid drone prototyping in Blender, and especially your line that; "Success is achieving both excellence in performance, and esthetics" is something I've cought a lot of heat over from the pure CAD guys.
Amazing work all-round!
This is a very interesting take! I feel like engineering/product design is to often teached to go from a sketched based 2D straight into hard and traditionel software such as solidworks/ siemens NX surfacing tool of what ever is used. Blender could be this perfect in the middel. It's abusrd to think about the hours i've seen friends, colleageas including myself put into interrating very complex surface models just modifying splines and addapting surfacecontinuity. The best thing is I have blender installed a couple of months ago exact for this reason but do not seem to find the time or motivaction tot get into it. I this video shows exactly why I should.
That's more of an argument to CAD designers needing a background in graphic design than it is for Blender being the better tool.
I loved your previous video's but this is something else. Love it, you are amazing.
Glad you like them!
This is an amazing video, thanks very much for creating it. Comgratulations to you both from KZN
As an FPV pilot for many years, this gave me chills. Inspired!
absolutely amazing. loved the use of Blender, this has so much in it... look forward to seeing more!
Thanks a ton!
Awesome video! I particularly enjoy the animations. Well done Luke and Mike - dream team 💪
Thanks so much!
i’m confused? just 24k views and 61.2k subscribers? for this level of production? truly underrated!!!
Thanks I value the concern 😊 and your comment.
It more case of with youtube getting 3.7mill new videos uploaded each day that it really takes a lot to stand out above all that noise. But after a couple of years doing this I think this video is going to give me the catapult boost I have been waiting for. The subscribe rate on this video and type of story has gone nuts and is super high which is fantastic recognition for my efforts.
Totally agree!!!
This aged like milk
Well done guys, this is awesome to have local guys pushing the limits like this, very inspiring! Did you ever consider running CFD on the model, and do you think that would have helped the design direction?
Thanks Mike. Up till this point the level of technology is such that big gains have been possible through iterative exploration. But from here on the gains will become smaller and harder to achieve and require more sophisticated optimisations and we are running wind tunnel simulations for further speed improvements. And we have product manufacturers who are interested in supplying us with optimised components to go faster.
If you have CFD skills I would be interested to know how you would approach this.
Thank you for sharing your family project. Great video. I hope it inspires more father/son projects.
More to come!
Maybe tow steered composites and custom aerostructurally optimized geometry of frame and motors for v4? In my experience, ADFLOW is a lot faster and more accurate than airshaper and it can do shape optimization
10/10 Stunning achievement for both of you , and being able to keep it "in the family" and have FUN together as well as keep on learning , innovating and supporting is Mega Brilliant, Well Done
Thank you! Will do!
Awesome project! Looks like a fun one. Curious if you have done the math for what impact a carbon fiber exterior (or any alternative) could have on weight. The shell sure looks pretty light already.
The low hanging fruit development areas are still batteries and aerodynamics so thats the next version. And interestingly induced drag is near negligible at 500. You pay the price of weight in battery drain and manoeuvring. The angle of attack of 1 degree is all you need for body lift. It’s basically a wingless VTOL. I’ll be explaining this in the next video.
So weight savings will increase speed because of a longer speed boost but not induced drag savings.
Weight will get serious attention in version 4🤣
And when we get serious competition. 🤙🏻
Now that's what's engineering is all about. 🎉❤
My university drone team may be attempting this record next fall. Been doing some research, and I want to commend your component selection! It's been really hard finding any configuration that performs higher in thrust simulations.
Luke and I will follow your progress if you post the outcome online
Wonderful design, explanation and experience. So well deserved.
Thank you very much!
What a tremendous accomplishment, Mike and Luke! Congratulations to you both on this amazing feat! You’ve created a thing of beauty, and I can’t wait to see the next iteration. Although I am not a trained engineer, I was able to follow your clear descriptions and appreciate the problems and how you were solving them. Simply remarkable. I am so happy for you both!
Thanks Maud. I always look forward and enjoy your comments and loyalty.
This is so neat to see the wonderful engineering behind this. You guys are so cool. 😊
Thank you 🤗
I just built my first vertical frame and it flew away on me, it might be because my props are so close together as you were saying. Fascinating to hear more construction detail and the problems you had with your escs. also how you made your camera/nosecone and airshaper fascinating thanks a lot!
9:15 "The software generates these elegantly sculpted streamline curves." I am sure you've discussed this elsewhere, I've yet to see your other videos, but what software did you use here?
I use Blender. Great for this design project and amazing for animations. Enjoy the rest of my content.
This has absolutely blown me away in terms of how effective your designing and surfacing was of v2 without doing aero computation.
Eagerly awaiting v3!
This reminds me of the passion I had when I was a child about aviation! Working together with your son on a project like this not only is super cool, but then to achieve what you did in the speed record is fantastic! The LEDs in the tail is brilliant! I am definitely looking forward to seeing what else you dream up, design, test, tweak, get to its best version as engineers and a father and son duo? Just lovely!
That is awesome!
We have improvements up our sleeve that should give another big speed improvement. You won’t be disappointed with Peregreen 3 😁
Congrats. Cool, great design. Could I ask, why have you used Blender for CAD modeling and not smth. specific?
Thanks. I am a retired architect and have an Autocad Sketchup Revit Lumion background so Blender is a natural follow on. My primary need is animation so Blender is a must. Besides Blender is fantastic software. It can do pretty much all things 3d.
What is your field/ software?
Awesome design, execution and performance, Mike
Your Bambu printer may be able to print STEP files, which will behave like very fine mesh STL files, although that depends on the slicer.
Great to see South Africans setting records. Netjies gedaan.
Dankie. Flippin lekker om SA bietjie te showcase. Blender doesnt work with STEP files unfortunately but it is perfect for the animation I make and it makes fantastic drone designs too.
Yup, Bambu Studio does support STEP. That's my go-to format when working with designs that have tight tolerances. Plus they're much easier for others to reverse-engineer.
@@Mike-BellYeah, Blender works exclusively with meshes. STEP is for CAD.
What CAD program do you use in addition to Blender? Great work and dankie for sharing.@@pseudotasuki
@@cs9260 Autodesk Fusion.
In general, the idea of such a device is not new,🤷♂️ it was already there, but you guys have brought the project to a really working fast state!👍 Thanks !
nobody said this was a new idea
Are there any blender Addons you use to help model it? I have blender for a few years since 8th grade but I still find it extremely difficult to do things like this that involve precise measurements and parameters. Also, was all of the design done in blender? Or dis you also use other programs like cad or other things to help. Thank you!
For instance, how did you model things like the camera tilt adjustment? Also, during the part of the video where you showed the short clip of modeling the NACA duct, how were you doing that? What was the greyed out shape you were manipulating? Was it just a boolean or was it something else that i don’t know about?
Yes all modelling and design was done in Blender. I dont use special add-ons. I find the overall dimensions of an object useful for sizing and scaling. And you can set up a special axis for non orthogonal modelling. And you can move and scale inputing numbers. The NACA duct was modelled with booleans.
Awesome father and son collaboration 🇿🇦🇿🇦
Great film, and great teamwork and perseverance... Well done on the record!
Thank you very much!
This is fantastic. Please do more breakdowns of future Peregrine development processes!
Certainly will be making more …
great to hear it. The need to distribute the PDB/motor controllers is something I've never seen on a hobbyist drone before.
Also, you guys have the same heat gun as me, and good to see your solid Blender skills!
Hey, I remember this guy called me on the phone a few years ago for consulting about blender. How you doing Mike?
This is seriously cool.
I grew up without a father because he was assassinated when I was 2, so I never had this kind of interaction, and even though I'm an amazing engineer I have simply never had access to the tools, space, or resources required to carry out this kind of experiment. To me, you guys are like ultra-rich. You are like infinitely richer than me. We are different classes of human. That's why I am a designer. Pencils are cheap. I have made countless models for other people to 3D print, but they will profit because I can only afford the tools to make the models, but they own the printers, and I will simply never have enough money to own my own printer.
Hey Tom. I cant say I remember talking to a Tom 🤔 do you go by another name?
And for the record I also grew up without a father which is why I treasure my sons all the more.
@@Mike-Bell You called me on the phone after my blender tutorial went viral to inquire about Blender consultation, and I gave you a figure that I assume was too high, and you never contacted me again. I'm 100% sure it was you, I might still have your number. I know because I remember your name, voice, and videos.
Do you realize what you have made? you've made the next weapon for the Russia Ukraine drone war and you gave the designs to the world for free.
Hey Tom oh yes I found your channel. I remember you.
Are you still working for the architecture related company?
Don’t let lack of tools define your potential. Your creativity is a powerful tool that many would be envious of.
@@Mike-Bell My father was assassinated when I was 2 and I was accused of Sexual Assault in Cape Town while running two popular comedy shows even though I'm completely innocent. It does not matter how intelligent or talented I am. I have been told since birth that I'm a genius capable of anything. My father was also a genius. It doesn't matter. I live under fascism. There is a boot on my face. I'm telling you, we are different classes of human. I will forever been seen as a crazy person despite the fact that I repeatedly prove myself to be in the top 0.01% for intelligence. I'm telling you I have no power, because I was born a criminal.
@@TommyLikeTom Hi Tom, I'm really sorry to hear about your difficult start in life. Your story is heart-wrenching. However, given your intelligence, you'll understand that dwelling on self-pity can trap you in a cycle that hinders progress and success. Stephen Fry articulates this sentiment beautifully. th-cam.com/video/r_2kelqYz_o/w-d-xo.htmlsi=dZcWIaX_HwLWtfQ_
Beautiful explanation, thanks for taking the time.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Thank you for sharing this detailed and impressive video. It gives such a beautiful insight into the whole project & engineering that went into it.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Awesome!
Amazing to see the use of Blender for design! Open Source FTW!
What OS you are using? Just curious...
Mike, you should get sponsorship deals with your component suppliers. They'd get fantastic advertisement from you simply telling everyone which components you're using.
Yes we get most stuff sent to us for free.
Masterclass! I’m your newest subscriber and bravo! Excellence of art, spirit and intuitive innovative engineering! 👍🏻✌🏻
Thanks. Welcome aboard
Amazing video, this was a joy to watch!
So glad! and your comment is a joy to see 😊
Were you only using DJI’s (GPS-based) speed calculation or did you also have something like a handheld radar gun?
The fact that you bring the world along your journey of inspiration, design, iteration, testing, failure, etc., is such a gift to humanity.
It is more like a rocket. It can be a good weapon but not for camera.
no one tells you the drawbacks of being an engineer.
i have zero interest in drones or drone technology and yet....
air squid go brrrrrrrrrr!
Air squid yay!!!😂😂😂
This blew me away! Is the 3d model accesable to public?
Mike this is amazing, congratulations to you and your son for the record. World class work
Thanks Voyta. Nice to see you in my comments and enjoy summer that is on its way.
You are the luckiest father alive. What a blessing to work together with the son.
And a son! Living their best live moments:)
Congratulations. Phenomenal project, so well executed.
What an amazing project. I love the father and son team. I'm looking forward to use some of the things I learned from both of you in my next project. Congratulations
Fantastic video, thanks for documenting your work!
Will you release the 3d files behind the drones design or will you sell it as a product?
Did you consider putting the esc's below the booms. Seems like it would have the shortest wiring and easy to provide esc cooling. I love the shape.
Good idea but they would be hit by the props.
@@Mike-Bell I have a drone done that way and I don't see what you mean. If they are in the fairing below the boom how could the prop hit the esc?
Interesting project 👍did you try spinners on the props to decrease drag even more?
perhaps on version 3
I am in the process of designing a drone and quadcopter for atmospheric measurements, I am intrigued on how you designed the latching mechanism to connect the top piece to the bottom!
Nice to watch a video without blasting music or funky editing. I could easily watch this style of video for hours
Recently joined the SA fpv community, half-way through UCT mechatronics, I guess what's left is Guinness Record to match Luke hahaha. Amazing video💯😂
Truly phenomenal! Bravo to you and your son, very inspiring video, beautiful work, and completely bonkers! Just WOW!!!
Thank you very much!
This is amazing! It's great to know, that you have used Blender to 3d model this incredible creation 😆
What in the world? I somehow stumbled upon the coolest and best-presented TH-cam channel I have seen in years.
Well done!
Wow, thanks!
This is absolutely brilliant, and your narration made it a joy to watch.
So glad you enjoyed it. More to come
Thanks for logging all the steps to a great project.
6:22 Did you contemplate integrating carbon fiber rods to reduce the wobbling effect with the mass of the batteries?
Would love to investigate more complex carbon fibre parts but we had so much to deal with in this build there was no time. Plus surprisingly weight is not much of a problem at these speeds because body lift comes essentially for free. Must watch weight at take off and manoeuvring.
Besides your world record and your engineering skills … your storytelling is marvellous! Thank you for sharing your design process.
Wow thanks 😀
Needs to take advantage of the Area Rule. (See differences in body shape between F-102 and F-106 jets). Spinners on the props will help reduce drag inducing turbulence, and could be landing gear. Potential to move those speed controllers in to the printed sections of the arms, to reduce cable mass.
Area rule to be investigated in next version. 500 kmh is already into some incompressibility territory so we suspect there are gains to be made with area rule. Interestingly the weight is only a burden to take off and manoeuvring. At high speed cruise the angle of attack is only about 1 to 2 degrees and induced drag from body lift is tiny.
But yes wiring is heavy and around 8 to 10% of weight so needs optimising.
@@Mike-Bell I think there's mention in there of tip speed getting close to supersonic,... It'd require custom molds, and a gearbox on each motor, but having each motor drive a pair of contra-rotating props, with the trailing prop having a steeper pitch angle to further accelerate the air, might add a decent amount of thrust.
I can see Ratheon taking notes... Brilliant execution, spooky possibilities on the budget 🫡
Did you use Aluminium or Copper Cables? Aluminium cables win over copper in Ampere/Weight, little bit thicker but lighter per Ampere. Airplane do not use it because of (galvanic) corrosion over long time (piper did use it in the 70s).
Incredible. The headaches and cost of prototyping and manufacturing on a cnc machine twenty years ago vs. the options of today has mind blowing potential.
That is so true. The power and capabilities of software and tools available today to anyone with drive and initiative is staggering.
Congratulations on building such a beautiful machine!
Would be interesting to explore how durable your design/build is with the goal of characterizing operational lifespan and maintenance/repair costs. I'd expect optimizing these would present a entirely new set of engineering challenges.
Of course, understandably, you and your son might instead prefer to focus efforts on just going faster.
can i ask how much did this drone cost and how much do you think it would cost if it was mass produced
Incredible! Would like this video 100x if I could
Thanks! Looking forward to your speed attempt.
Excellent video! The animations were awesome and that definitely covered everything I would have liked to pick your brain about. It's always nice to hear about others design philosophy. Also I just have to mention some funny coincidences. I'm currently getting my mechatronics degree too, nice job Luke! The other one is that I had originally named my speed record project the peregrine falcon back in 2019. What are the chances?
Tanks in Ukraine watching nervously 🫣
You are actually digusting
Helicopters too
So why not a co-axial design tucked behind the mainbody?
Well then it is no longer a quadcopter ie 4 props and a control via props only. A coaxial design would require aerodynamic control surfaces.
@@Mike-Bell Would still be a drone and a helicopter as the title says.
very, very cool!
how are you doing the control mixing? i.e. converting from torque commands to motor thrusts?
if by any chance you have a mixer that outputs something like 95% of max thrust + some small differential consisting of roll/pitch/yaw components -- there is something better! using a QP solver you can find the thrust commands giving max forward thrust while still satisfying torque inputs. for such small problems the solution can be found in fractions of a millisecond, even on tiny processors. If you haven't yet done so this might get you another couple kph! get in touch if you wanna know more, i have done something extremely similar at work :)
its simply the mixer in betaflight. there will always be a small loss of power as the pid controller with airmode enabled can only be active and stabilize the quad if it dials back from full throttle on at least one of the motors. this is why its most efficient to make the quad as aerodynamic as possible at the angle of attack its going to fly at and a good tune. since the drone doesnt fly completely straight forward but very slightly tilted up any drag on the body will push the body up and the pid controller will cut power to the bottom motors to compensate.
Mike and Luke, I'm sitting here in Joburg and so proud that you guys from my hometown have achieved this incredible milestone. Great videos from you both and have already shared the links with other drone enthusiasts. Also must add that I love the fact that you designed the drone with Blender. 👍👍👍. When I saw Blender I figured you'd move over to FreeCad but I was wrong.
Hi Jerome thanks for sharing the video. We are both ex Joburg. Blender has proven excellent for this project and is a must for animations. Blender is awesome. What is your filed/software used?
Amazing work Mike and good video. You need to do more works like this. Keep it up❤
Congratulations, great work!
Great video and great achievement! So what sec and battery did you end up using?
We did not list the battery and ESC’s because both were dissapointing.
We used the Dogcom 1500mah 160c batteries but they weren’t great, so Bonka next time.
And APD ESC’s but they also weren’t great. A lot of duds we had to put through their paces and they popped before we filtered out the duds and APD won’t acknowledge they don’t filter out the duds in their quality control.
Great video and many congratulations on this incredible achievement
Thank you so much 😀
@Mike-Bell do you think you could possibly do a video (or just describe in general here in a comment) on how you go about setting up Blender for precise (down to the millimeter) modeling? How do you go about setting up the environment, did you use any specific Blender add-on's?
This is something I always thought I would need to learn a specific CAD software for, but you've achieved amazing results in Blender. I'd love to know your process in Blender, or if you would consider making any Blender tutorial videos for engineering and design? Amazing work!!!
The object size can be typed into the xyz object size. In decimal millimetres if neccesary.
You can draw a cube and rotate it to any angle. Select the cube and in Transform Orientations to the left of Snap make a new transformation axis to snap to. Its no harder than CAD. Just a different way to achieve the same result. loads of tutorials on TH-cam for any topic you need help with. And Blender has fanstatic animation features which are essential for my videos.
Wow, this thing looks marvelous. Good job
Glad you like it!
Here before this blows up. What am amazing feat of engineering, so glad to be here!
in your next design, you can double the amount of motors. 8 instead of 4, same design for the core, space for the battery in the center. 4 more motors on top, feeding the bottom motors, or turn them all 4 45 degrees as to not interfere with the bottom 4 motors. the flight time might be halved, but the speed might increase :) you could make it perfectly symmetrical, modular even, adding more and more motors in a line, even the battery compartment could be modular.
Incredible work, you guys pulled off something really impressive here! Im very excited to see your next iteration
Us too!
Custom ESCs? Might cost a lot though but that might allow for putting them in the arms and increase efficiency
impresive and smart guy! Keep the good workgoing!
Go Cape Town go! So impressed guys!
I want to get into this hoppy so bad! but I have no idea where to start.
Why not mount the speed controllers side ways on the motor arms, then they can be blended into the surface that connects the motor shrouds to the main body. Small naca ducts can then be used on each of the blended arm sections
Nice idea but it would enlarge the fairings and body skin friction a lot and at these speeds drag avoidance is a central aim.