Been practically a month since I signed in but as ever, no project is as simple as it appears at the outset. As one of the webinistas put it: VTOL is hard. Specifically I've been grappling with the electrical side and it is becoming clear that batteries are the key.
These things used to be staid: I was brought up on cells like those pictured, the sort of brand that you suddenly ask yourself where ~ like Kodak ~ they disappeared to? Their background is similar... whilst Kodak stuck with silver for producing images, the UK's Ever Ready company stuck with zinc for producing electricity.
They were eclipsed by Duracell's alkaline batteries, which promised altogether better performance. Ironically in the way Kodak had developed the digital camera and left it shelved, Ever Ready did the same with the alkaline cells they'd developed in the laboratory.
Much the same regime change is underway now, but at a vastly accelerated pace and with a step-change in energy content. Problem for developers is that the selection is bewildering and ~ like the nascent personal computer industry ~ batteries are loosely 'packaged' like the earliest computers that emerged from Silicon Valley. Accordingly, Tesla and Nissan are already on their second generation already.
Given all of this, after 'stepping away from the vehicle' for a period of reflection, I have an alteration to the prototype that involves packaging the batteries in a decidedly conservative way... the trick at this stage is, I feel, not to be too clever.
Watch this space.
