TOPIC: Flying capacitor powered models

There is a wonderful Youtube channel run by 2 American gents devoted to super capacitor models - search for 'sonex413' for some very enjoyable videos and a lot of useful tips. You will find 10F capacitors and the coreless motors available very cheaply (if you don't mind the wait) on the Banggood.com site.

A few years ago I was having fun with capacitor powered foam models, here is my original all Depron DH 108 Swallow of 17.5” span and 18g. It was a little too big and heavy for the original Power Up unit and would only fly level at about 6’ height. It went some distance at low level at Middle Wallop way back in year 2000. Either the motors or the capacitors (2.7V 3.3F which was a replacement itself) may have been partly responsible as they did vary in output. Recent test show the motor OK but the capacitor had faded.




Recently I have started indoor flying again and found that my other two Power Up models were hopelessly down on power so drastic action was needed. I purchased a few 10 Farad capacitors and stripped out the Swallow motor system completely with the idea of removing most of the Power Up unit structure and glueing the motor and capacitor directly to the Depron. The original power unit weighed 6g but my stripped version now weighs 7g with the bigger capacitor and moving the capacitor forward slightly enabled me to remove the nose weight resulting in a model with quite more power and weighing only 17.3g, tests in the garden showed a good climb and cruise ideal for indoor flying on only a 4 second charge! That is very promising so next up will be the 16.5g 12.5” span Cutlass, that needs a boost too.



Here is the Cutlass with my Swallowtail design that could do with a capacitor replacement too now.