Engineer & Redline
Redline
Got any plans to build a hyper‑fast racing drone that can outmaneuver the competition? I've got a few tricks up my sleeve.
Engineer
Sure, let’s keep it simple: a carbon‑fiber frame, high‑torque brushless motors, low‑profile propellers, and a 1‑cell LiPo for power. Use a high‑speed gyroscope and a custom firmware that prioritizes latency over fancy features. If you’ve got tricks, I’ll need the specs so we can slot them into the design.
Redline
Here’s the quick rundown: a 2‑kW brushless motor kit, 80% thrust at 12 V, paired with a 1.5‑kHz gyroscope, and a 2‑channel ESC that supports PWM‑to‑Dshot conversion. Use a 3‑cell LiPo with a 20C discharge rate to keep the voltage spike under 3 V. For latency, run the firmware on a Teensy 4.1, cut the filter loop to 1 ms, and drop any non‑essential diagnostics. That should give you a responsive core you can bolt onto that carbon‑fiber frame.
Engineer
Looks solid, but watch the heat on the ESC—20C on 2 kW can push it close to its limit. Keep a heatsink on the board, maybe add a quick‑heat sink to the motor mount. Also, make sure the Teensy’s memory isn’t swamped by the gyro stream; a small buffer and a tight interrupt routine will keep jitter low. Once that’s nailed, the drone should be ready for a sprint.
Redline
Nice tweaks, I’ll slot in a 1‑inch copper block on the ESC and a 3‑mm aluminum heat spreader on the motor. Buffer size 32 samples and an interrupt that clears the FIFO in less than 200 µs—should keep the jitter down. Once we hit a clean 100 ms loop, we’re good to push the drone to its edge. Let's finish the build and hit the track.
Engineer
Sounds like a good plan. Keep an eye on the temperature readings once we put the copper and aluminum in place. Once the loop stabilises at 100 ms, we can test throttle curves and see how far we can push the 2 kW system. Let’s assemble and run a quick bench test before hitting the track.