Crazyflie nano quadcopter inductive charging

Discussions and questions about the Crazyflie Nano Quadcopter
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pohwj
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Crazyflie nano quadcopter inductive charging

Post by pohwj »

Hi

I have a question on the crazyflie inductive charging. I am curious about how the inductive charging is implemented on this quadcopter. How is the LiPo charger incoporated on this quadcopter? Thanks!
tobias
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Re: Crazyflie nano quadcopter inductive charging

Post by tobias »

We wrote short blog post about a inductive charging hack a wile ago. I think you can find the basic information there.
chad
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Re: Crazyflie nano quadcopter inductive charging

Post by chad »

I really like the Qi charger Flykit (expansion board). It's the one I keep on my Crazyflie 2.0 pretty much all the time. I make a game of trying to land it on a small, round, puck-size charger at the end of the flight. Someday it would be cool to make it autonomously land there at the end of the battery cycle but I think my brain is much too small to deliver on grandiose ideas like that!
Crazyflier - my CF journal...
4x Crazyflie Nano (1.0) 10-DOF + NeoPixel Ring mod.
3x Crazyflie 2.0 + Qi Charger and LED Decks.
Raspberry Pi Ground Control.
Mac OS X Dev Environment.
Walkera Devo7e, ESky ET6I, PS3 and iOS Controllers.
Call_me_a_Cab
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Re: Crazyflie nano quadcopter inductive charging

Post by Call_me_a_Cab »

Has "FlyKit" been officially chosen now?

"Deck" is WAY cooler!! 8-)
chad
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Re: Crazyflie nano quadcopter inductive charging

Post by chad »

Call_me_a_Cab wrote:Has "FlyKit" been officially chosen now?
I'm not sure if the final decision has been made. I was just trying it on for size. ;-) I think I like Deck better too...
Crazyflier - my CF journal...
4x Crazyflie Nano (1.0) 10-DOF + NeoPixel Ring mod.
3x Crazyflie 2.0 + Qi Charger and LED Decks.
Raspberry Pi Ground Control.
Mac OS X Dev Environment.
Walkera Devo7e, ESky ET6I, PS3 and iOS Controllers.
arnaud
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Re: Crazyflie nano quadcopter inductive charging

Post by arnaud »

There has not been any final decision yet but we like deck the most too so lets go for deck! I guess we have to do some formal announcement on the blog later :).
ppisljar
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Re: Crazyflie nano quadcopter inductive charging

Post by ppisljar »

jamesshao8
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Re: Crazyflie nano quadcopter inductive charging

Post by jamesshao8 »

chad wrote:I really like the Qi charger Flykit (expansion board). It's the one I keep on my Crazyflie 2.0 pretty much all the time. I make a game of trying to land it on a small, round, puck-size charger at the end of the flight. Someday it would be cool to make it autonomously land there at the end of the battery cycle but I think my brain is much too small to deliver on grandiose ideas like that!
I am trying to realize the automatic landing on the charging deck, but the weight of the coil is a problem. It seems like the coil is reducing the flying time. How long is your flying time with and without the inductive coil?
chad
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Re: Crazyflie nano quadcopter inductive charging

Post by chad »

jamesshao8 wrote:I am trying to realize the automatic landing on the charging deck, but the weight of the coil is a problem. It seems like the coil is reducing the flying time. How long is your flying time with and without the inductive coil?
I just did a test with a fully-charged, middle-aged battery, outdoors, with moderately aggressive flying both with the Qi charger deck and without. Flight time is reduced, but not significantly. The flight time recorded here is from power-on to steady red LED 1 (low-battery indicator):

Unladen (no decks): 6 minutes, 3 seconds
Qi deck: 5 minutes, 42 seconds

Keeping in mind this battery is more than 6 months old and has many flights on it, that's not too bad. Brand new, the advertised flight time is 7 minutes with a stock battery. I would imagine you'd only lose 15 to 20 seconds with the Qi deck mounted.

In my tests I was flying outside in 7 mph gusty wind, being moderately aggressive in my flight. Still, with the added Qi deck weight of 5g, the difference in flight time was less than 30 seconds.

YMMV :)
Crazyflier - my CF journal...
4x Crazyflie Nano (1.0) 10-DOF + NeoPixel Ring mod.
3x Crazyflie 2.0 + Qi Charger and LED Decks.
Raspberry Pi Ground Control.
Mac OS X Dev Environment.
Walkera Devo7e, ESky ET6I, PS3 and iOS Controllers.
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