Egregoros · Phoenix Framework

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Caleb James DeLisle

*sigh*

Just invented a variable pitch propeller hub. These are typically 10-20k$ systems and my design has no oil, no seals, no pressure, no roller bearings, you can just throw grease in it. Probably 500$ to manufacture. And I'm *extremely* confident that it will have absolutely heroic strength and vibration properties.

Should I chuck in a patent application and see where life takes me, or should I dismiss it as head-noise?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

@Yo@noauthority.social remote

@cjd The odds you're the first to come up with a design for a problem that has been worked on for 100 years is approaching 0. Did you find no prior art?

Caleb James DeLisle

@cjd@pkteerium.xyz remote

The general idea is that the propeller blades are held *loosely* - and this has been approached in the past, there are patents going back to the 1940s. In fact modern drone blades are loosely held on hinges. The centrifugal force is enough that you don't need to hold tightly and not doing so eliminates a bunch of forces that you really don't want.

My precise structure is probably novel enough to be able to patent. If I were to patent it, my strategy would be to give it away to home builders / non-commercial and license it to anyone building an SLSA - and the license would come with test data that is collected on the hub.

@Yo@noauthority.social remote

@cjd Oh, so based on engine speed. More force, less pitch?

Replying to @Yo@noauthority.social

Caleb James DeLisle

@cjd@pkteerium.xyz remote

That's normally more-or-less what you want. When you're taking off and the air is moving pretty slow, you need a fine pitch so that you can get the engine to max rev and make full horsepower.

But then when you're up in cruise, the air is moving past the blades a lot faster so to make the same thrust the engine would have to run much faster than it's designed for. So you want a sharper pitch to take a bigger bite out of the air.

And then if you want to save fuel, you want to slow the engine down from its max speed, so then you want the prop to take an even bigger bite out of the air.

Either you do this with a lever or you have a computer doing it for you...

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