After the partial success of last year solar splinter was upgraded several ways:
- The Center section was strengthened and designed to fail in an easily repairable way.
- The Solar Cells were upgraded and a new wing was built using sunpower 20% efficent cells.
- The Solar cells were connected to a power point tracking boost converter.
- The 6M RC system was replaced with a custom built system based on maxstream telemetry radios.
The Result:
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It Flies well:
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During flight I either had a control anomaly or the horizontal stabilizer failed.
Since the H Stab was found in two peices 50 ft apart I currently believe the H stab failed.
Update on crash theory:
one of the aero guys on RCSE suggested that my problem was a too flexible boom. The basic concept is as the aircraft speeds up the tail needs to provide more down force. This flexes the boom down reducting the H-stab angle of attack, pitiching the nose forward, increasing speed, flexing the boom etc.... Until something breaks. (The h-stab in this case) This fits better with my perception of the failure. It also fits better with my ground testing. The 2005 version will have a much stronger boom.
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We will keep trying...
Work has begun on Solar 2005: see Cutting the tail ribs...
The Brain that runs the whole thing is a MOD5282 Embedded Ethernet Module from NetBurner.
I will publish schematic and source code details later on as I finalize the 2005 effort.