2-20 Sync Meeting

Requirements:

• Each tower need to have a solid support and can withstand 30 knots of wind

  • Dangling weight 

    Open

    

  • (Heaviest backpack or something)

  • Spiked base tripods or hooks on the side (like tents)

• Need two tower with easy to swap mountings

  • Same design for two towers with different mountings

• Each tower need to be portable (weight limit)

  • Components are separated and assembled on field, no concrete bucket

  • Use of brass fittings(maybe for longevity)

• Each tower need to be easy to setup in low dexterity & visibility environments without any tools

  • Modularized components

  • May require some basic tools eg.screwdrivers

• The tower need to be able to rotate (supporting pwm protocol || dshot protocol)

  • Is this BRUSHLESS???

  • See design sketch

• The tower need to have a weather proof solution

  • Conformal coating, 3d-printed enclosure

• must be able to be transported by any SDC vehicle

  • Should be fine (tripod, base, head, cover(s))

• Nucleo need to be mounted on the tower

  • Nucleo screw holes, foam to prevent metal contact

• BMX 160 need to be laid flat and rotate as the antenna rotate and give back the heading and pitch data

  • Attached to antenna modules

• TBS nano 2.4 Ghz need to have a clear line or sight with the pilot Tx16s 

  • Attached to side or back

• Singular 868 need to be mount on the tower fixed without major obstacles blocking the line of sight

  • See design sketch

• X-air 900 and x-air 1.3 need to be safely mounted on the rotation mechanism and able to adjust it’s pitch

  • See design sketch

  • Outer radius pitch rotation should enable various sizes and futureproof

• an removable camera mount on the antenna

  • Ask about this

• tool-less assembly, if any required

  • ?? basic tools are allowed??

PUT design here

Open

Tool lists: A good of 3d printing b/c of time constraints and rapid prototype

• Final product may use a machine shop and proper materials??? (aluminum, better plastics, carbon fiber)

• No slip rings are needed(based on the all electronics in head design)

• A few sets of bearings(largest ones for the base, and a bunch smaller ones to assist base rotating and pitch rotating

• Ring gear and pinion(probably gonna be plastic, since metals are heavy and idk maybe expensive?) soln. Use engineering resins from WatiMake or whatever or the million additive labs in UW and print some

• Brass insert fittings for screw joints(potentially) makes the parts modular and longer forever kinda of

• Switch certain parts to be made of acrylic(ie base plate, head base plate, etc.)

Questions to ask:

Limitations on antenna angles (do we need to go all 90 degrees)

Are we anticipating larger antennas and how it conflicts with omni placement

What components do we already have

Brushless motors and dshot

The removable camera mount / gopro requirement

Key requirements or components to test

Hard wind limit, must need stable base

Heatsink cutouts

Notes from the meeting:

We will actually get really high winds

Comp this year might be at an airport in quebec

We could have some grass to be able to hook in to the ground but should design around potentially not having any ground to hook into

The higher the better and you want to separate high power components from the antennas

Assembly requirement is if there is terrible weather and you don’t want to screw stuff in in -20c blizzard

Each parts are going to be heat sinked and then coated but be careful with conformal coating and thermal requirements

Going to have to think more about heating

Could be a good idea to separate each components into sections eg. Power/motors, omnis, antennas

The current design will put too much stress onto the servo motor to maintain pitch position and also the long arm could compromise the pitch accuracy

Direct drive or closed gear systems will give you better accuracy

Bearing style systems are common?

Utilize gear ratios and make sure the accuracy is prioritized over rotational speed

Make a bunch of different design using different systems and then make a decision matrix based on that

Don’t base antenna tower on size but it should be able to support any different kinds of yagi or patch antennas

Make friction mounts for the base plate, everything since cold

EE Questions: Daniel what stuff are hot/need to cooled (a list out of all the stuff) - some metrics

WHAT parts are gonna be conformal coated, what isn’t and how weather proof is stuff…

Condensation due to cold/hot difference

How the parts are separated(Power system, antennas, etc.)

Is it possible to have all the components in the top and avoid using a slip ring

Tasks:

Design:

FOR THIS key is to make sketches and keep both of us on the same page for CADing

Base plate/main plate refinement ->  high

Arm redesign

Electronic placement and housing and heatsinks

Establish datasheet(footprints, sizings, parts to buy, etc.) maybe put this in sheet

• Part selection(bearings, regular hardware(nuts, bolts, brass fittings)

• Material Selection(3d print, acrylic, etc.)

• Motor selection(calculation for torque, etc.)

• Gears(this 3d printed, maybe not)

Clarification:

-Ask mech leads on current ideas for feedback - msg andrew of how busy he is

-Ask daniel for ee niche question