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James Dyson and the Harrier.

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James Dyson and the Harrier.

Old 12th May 2016, 08:56
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James Dyson and the Harrier.

Not sure it had a carbon fibre wing back in the 60s though..

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-36257643
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Old 12th May 2016, 11:04
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Composite technology came with the re-design as the AV8B in the early 80s so he's wrong, it wasn't around in the 60s.
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Old 12th May 2016, 11:24
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... I'm still trying to work out what Dyson means when it says it uses 'Digital Electric Motors'
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Old 12th May 2016, 11:31
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Harrier Composite

I seem to recall that the advent of major composite airframe parts then caused a rethink in how it stood up to battle damage in the field; as what was a 'hole' punched into metal originally became a more serious problem when it shattered a composite component.
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Old 12th May 2016, 11:35
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Dyson is a scroat with a tendency to marketing B/S to justify inflated prices.

His famed "digital motor" is simply a brushless DC motor - nothing that clever or unique. They are manufactured in the millions all over the world for uses ranging from robots and UAVs to radio-controlled toys. Every quadcopter "drone" has at least four of them...

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Old 12th May 2016, 11:37
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... I'm still trying to work out what Dyson means when it says it uses 'Digital Electric Motors'
Bushless DC motor, uses a switching speed controller.
Smaller, more efficient, runs cooler...
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Old 12th May 2016, 12:01
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Originally Posted by PDR1
Dyson is a scroat with a tendency to marketing B/S to justify inflated prices.

His famed "digital motor" is simply a brushless DC motor - nothing that clever or unique. They are manufactured in the millions all over the world for uses ranging from robots and UAVs to radio-controlled toys. Every quadcopter "drone" has at least four of them...

PDR
If it has more than four, is it still called a quadcopter?
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Old 12th May 2016, 15:28
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Dyson is a scroat with a tendency to marketing B/S to justify inflated prices. - PDR1

Have just been in touch with James who laughed, and replied that you might like to look up the definition of a "scrote" in the Urban Dictionary.......

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Old 12th May 2016, 15:43
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I first flew the plastic wing in 1979.
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Old 12th May 2016, 15:46
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Nige ...

That's my point ... The physical motor is no more than a bog standard DC Brushless Electric Motor ... How you generate the field in the stator coil is another matter.

Marketing 'Hype' ... Pure and simple. The word 'Digital' has been/is being overused by the advertising industry IMHO.

Sorry for thread drift ...
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Old 12th May 2016, 15:54
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Is that a digital thread drift, or simply an analogue one? On important issues like this, we need to know.
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Old 12th May 2016, 16:04
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Nutty ...

01000100 01101001 01100111 01101001 01110100 01100001 01101100

Go figure
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Old 12th May 2016, 16:57
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Originally Posted by rugmuncher
If it has more than four, is it still called a quadcopter?
No, it can be called a hexcopter, octocopter or the catch-all multicoptor/multi-rotor term that is also used. For those with *fewer* than four it is far more common to hear them descibed as "multirotors" than "tricopters".

Well you did ask...



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Old 12th May 2016, 17:04
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Originally Posted by John Farley
I first flew the plastic wing in 1979.
Just typical - how are we supposed to have a typical internet rant-fest when you go jumping in with claims based on the simple matter of having been the man who actually did it, John. It's unfair!



Actually I think I have photos of that flight amongst the piles I salvaged from Phil's bin when the Dunsfold photograph dept was closed down.

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Old 12th May 2016, 17:28
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Yee I did smirk at the wing moment
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Old 12th May 2016, 17:38
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I thought the binary might be more exciting than it was
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Old 12th May 2016, 18:56
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Having now viewed the video - his comment about it weighing "five tons" was a bit off as well. I'm sure John can correct me here, but from memory I don't think a Harrier II has a flyable configuration down at 10,000lbs does it? Certainly the original 1127/kestrals had basic weights down there somewhere, but I'm not that sure if even any of the Harrier Is did.

At the other end of the scale I can remember the 34,000lb AUW (or was it 32,000?) clearance trials, but that's a different skillet of trout, of course.

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Old 12th May 2016, 21:42
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Originally Posted by PDR1
Having now viewed the video - his comment about it weighing "five tons" was a bit off as well. I'm sure John can correct me here, but from memory I don't think a Harrier II has a flyable configuration down at 10,000lbs does it?
I seriously doubt the Harrier in Dyson's company car park is even remotely approaching a 'flyable configuration'! It will have been stripped of it's avionics and other sundry classified/dangerous items at the very least and possibly it's engine too...

-RP
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Old 12th May 2016, 22:00
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Coffman

What is slightly unusual is the speed Dyson's motors run at, over 100,000 RPM. I suspect the speed controller is doing some quite clever stuff measuring RPM and governing speed... I do know they get through thousands of prototypes of the airmoving parts....
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Old 13th May 2016, 07:36
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There are plenty of electric motors (especially brushless ones) which operate at these sorts of speeds. And the controller will be either a sensored or sensorless brushless controller of the kind made in gazillions al over the world - known technology and nothing particularly clever. With a synthetic commutator (which is how a brushless motor works) you don't need to do anything clever to know and govern speed because you're nailing it in the control function.

Of course electric motors are *inherently* speed limited by the nature of the wind and the applied voltage anyway. I have a motor which can develop 1500watts at 8,000rpm into a 22" propeller from a 44v power supply. If I take the prop off and apply full power it turns at a whopping great...

...10,100rpm. That's all.

The effect of back-EMF as expressed in a paramter called the "motor constant" (Kv) means that the motor will never turn more than a certain number of rpm per applied volt of electrickery.

The rest of it is snake oil, of course. And purple plastic - that makes it very high tech!

PDR
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