Paramotor Concept/Prototype

Hello guys! This is my first post. I’m a mechanical designer and I’m working on the concept of an electric paramotor that I plan to build. I’m on early stages so all comments/suggestions are very welcome.
The basic specs are:
4 motors intended are M10 180kv,
4 propellers Tiger 26x8.5 Carbon Fiber Three-Blade
4 Turnigy High Capacity 20000mAh 6S 12C Multi-Rotor Lipo Pack w/XT90

I’m still researching for everything else and any tip is much appreciated.

Thanks!

PS. The covers around the propellers are not intended to produce more thrust, like seen in ducted fans, they are just protections.

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I really like this. But why four propellers? Why not increase the chord or pitch or number of blades. I’m assuming you would also need either four motors and four ESCs or two motors with spindles at the front and back. Both these options are going to be more expensive than two off the shelf motors.

Regards, Paul

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Hi Paul, thanks for your reply.
Check this out: Electroflight | Fully Charged - YouTube
There are many videos on YouTube that shows the advantages of counter rotating propellers.
I believe the videos can explain better than I could.
Another characteristic about this concept is that it’s more compact behind your back, making it a bit more comfortable to take off and land, moreover, it’s compact to transport too, only two pins (one each side) are used to fold the motors/propellers. You can do it in seconds and put the paramotor in the car’s trunk.

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It’s impressive looking, however this was discussed last year. That design was considered not viable due to loss of thrust and complexity/cost, which does not improve performance over Paul’s design. Co-axial motors with counter rotating props

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Thanks for the input and the compliment. I’ve seen many aircrafts using the coaxial counter rotating concept, I guess they spent a lot of money researching about the efficiency of the setup and realised it’s advantage and got it right. Another thing I’d like to point it out about my design is that the pilot is not in front of the propellers, thus in theory, would result a better airflow and efficiency.

http://passengerdrone.com/

That looks very well engineered and it really helps that you share the drawings (and not just thoughts). For me as aspirant buyer your setup seems like a good alternative because I usually find the traditional ppg setup a bit on the large size and I also think that taking out the netting is a big advantage.

Apart from complexity, the only potential issue I see with small counter rotating propellers is the possible increase in noise.

I will certainly follow your progress.

Marc

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Nice drawing.
Would agree with that, but also some disadvantages.
Set of wing a little more cumbersome
Thrust balancing will be harder now that they are now out to the side. Say if you have one motor fails than how does the system balance that .
Cheers

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Thrust balancing will be harder now that they are now out to the side

They are balanced just as it happens with drones.

If you have one motor fails then how does the system balance that

The system identifies it and shuts off the twin on the other side, but you still have a decent power to land. If two on the same side fails at the same time (Very unlikely), the system shuts off the other two. In that case, it’s like having a typical single-engine paramotor.

Great design and concept. I’d love to see this fly. I have to agree with e-pusher thrust balancing will be more difficult as it’s further out from centreline. If you have thrust directly in centreline this is most stable. But I’m sure it’s not that big a deal. Only one way to find out right!

Curious why you chose to go with lipo instead of 18650 cells battery pack?

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Thanks for the compliment!

thrust balancing will be more difficult as it’s further out from centreline:
The OpenPPG design is not centered as well, although the distance from one rotor to the other is not as far as my design. How do you guys handle the thrust balance?
“But I’m sure it’s not that big a deal. Only one way to find out right!”: You’re right, the process of developing a project is to build one, test it, corrections, test it, corrections… until you get it right (or give up if proves not worth it). I’m not trying to build something entirely new, far from it. I’m willing to try if the concept would, in fact, offer a nicer, practical and safer experience than what we have available today.

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Curious why you chose to go with lipo instead of 18650 cells battery pack?

At the moment, I thought it would be easier to buy a specific LIPO battery (not really sure which one yet) for the testing phase and go from there. I have no doubt that some new generation of batteries is going to be available soon that will boost e-PPG a lot. They’re going to be lighter, safer, have more density, etc.
Exciting times are coming for e-PPG.

On a quad copter - done with gryos on the horizontal plane - cant do that here as this is not done up and down - I dont think gyros work left to right.
Gyro wont know if your turning or not – I think you will end having to correct steer like you would if your not putting out the same thrust - if your rpms are all matched than it should be fairly balanced with only minor correction needed.

Like you say the Oppg is not centered but not as pronounced, thus less effect if all thrust are not equal.

Cheers

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Etienne went this route 13S15P Battery pack build

Cheers

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I’m going that route as well. Getting 160kv motors for higher voltage. 14s. Probably 55ah pack.

You should consider going with lower kv motors and higher voltage, which will have less amp draw and less heat in pack. Most packaged ready to fly electric paramotors seem to be 16v or higher. But not easy to do with lipo’s seems like 6s is best bang for buck.

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Our ESC’s are capable of monitoring RPM. That’s all you would need to detect a motor going out on one side.

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Love the drawings and willingness to experiment! Welcome to the community :slight_smile:

Do you have a drawing of the unit connected to a wing? I’m curious how you would route the riser lines and how they would come up as you take off.
Thanks!

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This is only true for the ESC’s, motors, and wires. The only thing that can reduce heat in the battery pack (of a given chemistry) is the capacity. With a given number of cells, If you arrange cells in a pack to have higher volts by having more in series and less in parallel each cell will still be producing the same amps to achieve the same total watts. Each cell has the same voltage as well.

I wish what you said was true because if it was I would make a really small high volt pack that would last only 5 minutes just to get to the mountain and soar without the weight.

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Maybe these motors can be designed to unfold when you press the throttle and then snap in place. This could help to set up the wing first…just some wild thought… Also I like to see an attachment system for unpowered paragliding harness for those who fly primarily unpowered.
Cheers,
Marc

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