Suitable Multirotor for mapping project

[mattpitts74]

I have been following reading the forums for several months now and found some really helpful information.

I would for a small conservation charity in the UK and we are planing to use a quad or hex to capture high resolution images to help us with some habitat surveys.

Based on much research we have ended up purchasing a canon SX240 HS and a pixhawk FC.

We h initially build a standard DJI F450 and put a gopro on the bottom, which has only just got us around 10 minutes flight time using a 3s 5000mah battery, which seems reasonable based on others experiences.

We haven't even put the canon on the 450 because we assume that the flight time will to low.

We would ideally like to build a suitable setup that could get us 10 - 15 minutes flight time using this camera? The current total weight of the quad included the canon camera is 1600g

I have come across so much information on this forums, about tweaks to props, batteries or frames, its really hard to work out what might work and we have a very limited budget so don't really have the luxury of trying loads of different options.

We are not wedding to a quad, but for various reasons it will need to be some sort of multirotor.

We are wondering if it was possible to get more flight time out of the 450 with different motor prop combinations? rather than having to start with a completely new frame? It also seems that F550's don't seem to get very much better flight times either.

We would really appreciate real world setups and flight times.

 

[noiseboy72]

As you are well aware, it all comes down to weight / thrust / energy density ratios.
10-15 minutes is about average, even for the heavy lift quads - until you get to the really expensive machines, where 40 minutes is possible. The 450 has about the same lift capability as a Phantom, while a 550 has only about 10% more.

You can fly a 450 with 2 batteries and this not quite doubles flight time. Uprated props, motors and ESCs will improve lift and give you very modest increases in flight time. I found that the uprated P2 props give about 1 minutes extra flight time, while speed and lift was slightly better.

So, in summary, try a second battery and combiner cable first and see if this improves things. Once you are happy with this, bolt on the Canon and see how things go.

 

[mattpitts74]

Thanks for your suggestions, will the 450 be OK if I just strap both the batteries one on top of the other on the top of the frame or is there somewhere else better to strap them?

Thanks

 

[discv]

Or use a 4s 5000- which seems to lie at the cross over point with regard to diminishing returns.