I am often asked to build a powered aeroplane and I wanted an excuse to buy a ‘super capacitor’ so I built another one of my chuck gliders and glued an electric motor from a vibrating toothbrush on the front. The propeller is made from a strip of aluminium cut from a drinks can.
I charged the capacitor for about 5 minutes using 2 AA batteries before each flight. This gave it enough power to cross my garden with a slight climb in it’s flight path. I don’t think it would do well in windy conditions and would probably do better indoors.
A proper propeller would improve performance significantly.
I have grouped these styrofoam plate gliders into their own playlist here https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLA5a2xPRSrB03ITop_TpKAtz3FxxFOc7R
The original basic glider video is here https://youtu.be/3jScgJGBfpQ?list=PLA5a2xPRSrB0nZItxE_78EJP0F99Ghaki
Rubber Band Power version is here https://youtu.be/e50XT5npqfE?list=PLA5a2xPRSrB0nZItxE_78EJP0F99Ghaki
Different propeller version is here https://youtu.be/CGoNRQamdcs?list=PLA5a2xPRSrB0nZItxE_78EJP0F99Ghaki
The width and length of the plane were just based on what the biggest section was that I could cut from the plates. The coffee stirrer is 17cm long. Each wing is 15.5cm long and 6cm wide. The tail is 12cm tip to tip and 3cm wide
The main components are:
Styrofoam plate
Wooden coffee stirrer
Short length of solder or similar as a balance weight
You would get better results buying a proper propeller for small electric planes online.
Rubber power
Plastic jewellery bead for the bearing
Short plastic tube – mine came from a hand wash bottle pump
Paperclip
Electric power
This motor came from a vibrating toothbrush or you might try a pager motor. I have lot’s of old Oral B Pulsar toothbrushes that I have saved over the years. However I would not buy the toothbrush just to get the motor, they are expensive toothbrushes and you can get better more powerful motors for much LESS money if you buy online from somewhere like eBay or Amazon. I suggest you search for “3.7V Coreless Motor”
Helpfile – Simple Supercapacitor charger https://youtu.be/tdOc62ZOSUI?list=PLA5a2xPRSrB1wNvirrwAn69eo_pM0tdEM
SuperCapacitor – Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercapacitor
The supercapacitors I used came from Maplin Electronics. I am not endorsing these products I am just answering the questions people have asked.
https://www.maplin.co.uk/c/components/capacitors/super-capacitors
Here’s an eBay link for a 2.7v 10F supercapacitor I bought that cost me £5.66 for 2 https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/251694354652
Here is a great video demonstration by Electric Experiments Roobert33 of Capacitor and superCapacitor https://youtu.be/ZgozrScGN8U
Tools
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Hot Glue Gun
Hobby knife
Related playlists and videos
My helpfile here shows you how to remove the vibration weight from the toothbrush motor https://youtu.be/rAkSnCSv0Lk
Here is a great little plane made by random person https://youtu.be/UazGpGIw3NI
Aircraft playlist https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLA5a2xPRSrB0nZItxE_78EJP0F99Ghaki
Styrofoam Plate Gliders https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLA5a2xPRSrB03ITop_TpKAtz3FxxFOc7R
Supercapacitor planes https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLA5a2xPRSrB1wNvirrwAn69eo_pM0tdEM
Filmed using FujiFilm FinePix S4800
Edited using Serif MoviePlus Starter Edition
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I have thousands of videos on YouTube, to find one try my search guides https://youtu.be/ceBSOoOHcgw or https://youtu.be/Zj4UgwkwYRk
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Post time: Jun-16-2017