SOLAR FPV Plane V3 Crash and Testing - RCTESTFLIGHT
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- Опубліковано 2 жов 2024
- More testing with the solar plane V3. Luckily it survived my bad decision making. I'll do the next test flight in mid August with a 5S.
Many people have suggested using an MPPT charge controller instead of a direct solar tie in. I've tested a Genasun controller with solar plane V1 and it ended up not being as efficient as I had hoped.
Help support my UA-cam channel: / danielriley
thats not a crash, thats an A+ emergency landing
lacucaracha111111 every Landing is a controlled crash!
every crash is an uncontrolled landing, then.
You seem to imply that is not true.
i can land anywhere. once.
3:48 well..... thermals are pure solar power....
so to speak...👍
Actually the thermals are caused by a flat earth falling down through space
YES; OF COURSE!
and Gravity is caused by Flat earth flying up at the same time, makes perfect sense!
Gravity force is produced by mass and not by accelerating up. This doesn't disprove flat earth theory.
but Flat earth would form a ball because Grvity is pulling stronger on the Outside then the inside.
So why is it that when the earth turns upside down everyone falls off
mppt is the way to go.. having it connected directly is a lottery.. specially when the battery is getting low, you can start asking too much amps out of PVC and the voltage will drop also.. P=U*I.. mppt will try to ballance U and I so that the P is maxed no matter how low the impedance (battery level).. same problem when battery is full, only then you don't need charging at all.
Think of it this way.. open circuit PVC has high voltage, no current running.. power = 0. A short circuit PVC has some amps, 0 volts.. power = 0.. somewhere in between there is a sweet spot.
i belive that even if the solar cells are in the most eficient array, because the amount of radiance from the sun changes too much (because plane orentation), and because of the nature of lipo bateries the voltage also changes the best thing to do is use an mppt. if the mppt is noy used then the solar cells are just useless.
and in the wors case depending on the enviroment thr cells can discharge the battery.
1/2 I actually suspect things would go better with a proper switching circuit; an MPPT controller is effectively a buck circuit and designed to chop high voltage down to a lower battery voltage. With the solar panel in parallel with the battery, the battery is going to determine the output on the cell based on the charge of the battery, and the cell will produce less efficiently at lower voltages in the current setup.
2/2 You loose efficiency ( 5 to 25%) by going through the buck converter, and it's not very useful if you're actually almost at the voltage you need anyway. I'm also concerned about the battery charging/being overvoltage. A hybrid approach which actively switches between battery and solar to the ESC, incorporates constant voltage charging and ideally included the ESC, would be ideal. This is, however, a non-trivial Electrial engineering and software task.
Question. I am not very knowledgeable in electronics but would it be better for the power coming from the PVC to go into something that would smooth it out before it went to the ESC or does the ESC do that itself? And please feel free to correct me if I am worng. Just trying to learn.
i hope that you'll continue to do videos while travelling, im always looking foreward to your videos!
cant wait for august
Why dont you wire a small dc-dc buck booster converter between the solar panels output and the esc? Set the converter to output constant 25.2V and also limit its current to max solar panel output current or to your battery max charging rate (if solar panels could provide such high amp) whichever is lower. Put a compatible diode in series with battery to prevent battery to "charge" the solar panel. No mater the input voltage from solar panels, your motor/battery will be able to suck any small amp from the panels (just like solar systems usually do).
In what way is the electricity different if it comes from a solar panel and battery than from a Dc-dc converter? You're just paying the penalty of the losses from the conversion and creating a bunch of switching noise in your airplane.
Dude, you have no idea what you are talking about. Dutra is right. Trust me. The setup in this video is just asking for a crash. Which would you prefer - reliability OR 2 more minutes of flight time? Moreover, the entire purpose of the solar panel is so that he can get unlimited juice.
With all due respect, the problems he had with his ESC control weren't fundamentally caused by his connection between the solar panel and the battery. The ESC just needs a low impedance path to a power source in the voltage range that its designed to operate. From the standpoint of the ESC, it just thinks its connected to a battery, which is the typical way you power an electric power airplane.
Solar panels dc voltage output is a function of solar incidence on panels and it may be much lower (and usually is) than the max voltage the solar panel is rated and also much lower than your lipo voltage as well. It may happen during all the flight... In addition to that, if a solar panel is loaded, its voltage will drop (in a similar way than lipos suffer from voltage sag under load).... you need a dc-dc buck-booster converter just as any solar system does (in order to store the available energy from panels in li-ion cell packs in home systems), no matter there is a shiny bright sun outside or a lot of clouds.
I agree with Durta. The way he has it set up if the solar panels are not making more power than the battery is providing they are dead weight. The output of the buck converter would at least take some of the load from the battery which will extend his flight time. His wing might not have enough surface area to reliably power the whole aircraft.
Awesome ! Lovely solar power FPV ...... Thanks your video 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻 ☀️✈️
Very exciting to see this baby fly again. Love the progress. I'm so glad the landing was relatively safe considering the circumstances. Way to go!
I was happy to see that the wings survived this time.
Bad luck on the crash but I cant wait to see if you get it fully solar. Great work!
That's a worthwhile project bro. You may get a contract from the military or gov. Amazing.
Seems like you could just run it off of direct solar without a battery. I'd think of it like a glider with a solar boost. Perhaps the control surfaces and FPV gear could be powered by a normal battery, and the ESC would only be powered by the solar panels.
Very interesting. Have fun in Thailand Daniel, don't catch anything nasty :-)
With 5S or 4S batteries it will be much better ! Solar panels used to charge Lead-Acid batteries deliver about 19V with no charge, but give best power at about 14V.
Add another diode to battery output. Solar or battery which voltage is higher will supply the motor. When voltage become same level, both will supply the motor. Or use solar as charger. Use power from battery as it is charging. If less power being use, extra power will charge up the battery
Some diodes make rf noise that might cause interference with EC or throttle channel. Being it's hooked inline on the power cable if it is making noise it's received straight down the wire. If your solar cells have a charge controller it will automatically regulate so it isn't putting out higher watts and amps near the topping off point of the battery.
i like your solar plane
I'm here before this becomes viral!
(2k views)
Love your tenancity dude. I enjoy following your projects.
hey,
great video and project in general, I followed it from the start until now.
For a somehow similar project we needed to charge and discharge the battery for many times during use, so here I will tell you my experiences for your problem with the too low solar cell voltage (or too high LiPo voltage).
In the course of a diploma thesis we used a gasoline engine and a generator to create the energie for a X12-Copter with 20kg take of weight instead of LiPo batteries, in order to achive longer flight times (due to the times 80 higher energie density of petrol).
We discovered the following:
LiPos do not like to be charged and discharged in a rapid sequence, so it will die quite soon. Lithium-Iron-Phosphate (LiFePo4) batteries are much better for this purpose, furthermore they can handle higher charging rates too. We used a DIY 7S battery out of A123 System 2500mAh LiFePo4 cells (like the one TESLA uses).
For your purpose it would be ideal, because the nominal and maximum voltage of LiFePo4s is lower than LiPos (3.3V nominal and 3.6 maximum), a 6S LiFePo4 will have a maximum of 21.6V.
Furthermore, they are more rigit and because the battery consists of single cells, you can distribute them in the plane as you like to achive the best CG.
Hope I could help a bit, for further information feel free to contact me, and keep up the good work!!
Ya, LiFePo4 would be a good choice since apart from having lower energy density, are more like ideal batteries with superior power density. They make some smaller 1000mAh cells that would be better for this application. They aren't really being abused like your application sounds like but they would be good here.
This project is awesome. I hope you find stuff to share with us from your trip.
Great video--a pleasure to watch and learn.. Let us know when you make your first million.
adding a folding prop or at least adding break to the esc would help.
hey my dude what you need is a buck/boost converter that is set to a proper voltage to keep charging off the solar cells optimally charging your lipo. you could also gain some efficiency if you remake the front end of the v3 white styrofoam and maybe use a hot wire cutter to make the nose conical. If nothing else get some aluminum tape to cover the gray nose so it doesn't heat up all of your components and ultimately decrease their lifespan and efficiency.
edit: the LM2596 is a good boost converter, seeing as how the solar cells won't really exceed 24v it's useless to buy a buck/boost converter. the only problem that I foresee is that since the solar cells have a constantly varying supply voltage, that the boost converter circuit may change the output voltage proportionally.
Do you have a patch antenna for your FPV gear? Because it's directional, you could point it around and see which direction the craft is in.
Don't Step On Snek
*steps on snek*
I specifically requested the opposite of this
two batteries and a switch to isolate one battery from the other.run off the isolated battery and charge the other while flying off the battery that is in use.
enjoyed the video very much. have fun in your trip.
👍 for catching that airplane.
Disclaimer: I know essentially nothing about all this.
You should connect the solar cells directly to the motor and have the battery as standby. Wire in a switch if you need the battery power. It might not be the goal you have for this, but my small brain doesn't see why it wouldn't work.
You need maximum power point tracking. That will let you use a 4 - 6 cell without the problems you have been having.
Use a linear voltage regulator to regulate the voltage coming out of the solar cells.
For what purpose? The voltage is already the value he needs for the ESC. All that would do is make heat on the regulator chip and reduce his motor power.
GaryVolts because this way his Battery could be charged with full power at all times- the current Setup only works in full Sun. With a converter it could be used at Sunset, cloudy weather and even in Winter.
also the Converter would charge the battery with 80w even if its almost full.
You can't charge the battery after its already full. And it doesn't matter about charging the battery when you're in the edge case because the battery is sized to be as small as possible because the point of the airplane is to fly on solar cells. The aircraft lands with a near empty battery. The system will find its own equilibrium, which is a technically beautiful thing. The panel isn't large enough to fly in any but the best conditions, which is plenty for a UA-cam hobby project.
This is pretty cool stuff. I'm pretty sure if you find an efficient way of getting power from the solar cells to the battery, you'll have it nailed. But I think you're stacking the deck against yourself more than is necessary. I see you getting concerned every time you hit a thermal updraft, thinking that this invalidates your test. But there are thermal downdrafts as well, and I don't see you trying to avoid those. I think if you're flying around randomly, you'll hit just as many ups as downs, and these should cancel each other out as far as overall energy goes, and your test will be completely valid. There's a tradition in speed runs - once you make what looks like a new record, you make the same run in the opposite direction to cancel out any tailwind advantage. In your case, flying back and forth directly between two landmarks should neutralize anything you may be doing unconsciously to find updrafts.
As long as I'm writing anyway, here's my half-baked idea: use supercaps instead of batteries. These will charge to whatever voltage the solar panels produce, without having to hit a "sweet spot" like lithium batteries require. The voltage available will vary according to the time of day (incidence angle of the sun's rays), but these should charge more efficiently than LiPOs do, over a wider range of voltage. You can still monitor voltage the way you are now, and this will tell you if you're draining the caps faster than you're filling them.
You've inspired me. I've been doing the math for several days now, to see what it would take to scale this up to do more interesting things with solar power and aircraft.
8:25 and forward a few seconds. Wow! That was an epic emergency landing!
do you use the 5010 engine or not, if you do I would like to know why it is economical or something
you need small mppt or simle boost dc-dc to charge lipo correctly (e.g. 25v 3A for 75w solars on the right angle). otherwise your schematic will not be work correctly
Nice catch!
is the sun energy high enough for an RC BOAT???
I WANT TO BUILD ONE
where to buy these solar panels? ???
thx best ideas for RC
Gudrun Mühlacker Yes check out the rc boat that crossed the Pacific. It was slow and steady but made it!
Mike R where to find it etc.
Seacharger autonomous boat.
Ya, a boat is easy because weight isn't as critical. Look on e-bay for small panels. Size the panel to match you battery voltage and max motor current draw. Its going to be a slow boat.
what osd are you using
if you have all the solar panels in series and one of them does not receive sunlight none of them will work
I don't think that is the problem but maybe you make a lot of sharp turns
It's nice to see progress in this project! Keep it up!
Cool Video and very informative for sure. I see 111 dislikes (As of 8-17-2017), I guess those are the " DUMB " arse People doesn't understand what is going on, LMFAO
what's the flight time on a good clear day? do you have batteries for the hd cam & fpv cam? or are they both powered by the solar panels..? Id take the HD cam off of it if so. or use a small lipo for the hdcam..
There is a better way of connecting the solar panels to the power rail. If you wire them to have a higher voltage (lets say 36V) and use a step down converter (or "buck") set to 24V, they will contribute their power all the time, regardless of the current throttle level or the solar energy they collect. The *current* will fluctuate, but the voltage will be controlled, so the overall efficiency and reliability will significantly increase. Msg me if you want tips on how to do that. I want to see that solar plane fly!
Would love to see some build videos on this beast one thing I've noticed is that your solar panels are set down in the wings and will likely suffer some shade from the wing structure and since any shade on any part of a solar cell severely affects the overall performance of a solar cell and in turn the whole string 😊
Screw the battery man! That's a ton of weight that you could remove. Then the plane will be able to cruise on even less current. Maybe use a tiny battery to make sure that the receiver, servos, and video system have constant power.
That is really cool.
also, log the temperature and humidity... maybe a thermal camera
can i have your facebook or email pls!. im research this too!. thanks for your video, very helpfull
can you provide a link to the clear wrap you are using on the wings? cheers, love the videos by the way!!
can we get more frequent updates on this please, im attempting a solar plane project of my own
So the battery makes the solar cells less effective--seems odd, but empirical testing doesn't lie.
With that as a given, the best hypothesis I can come up with is that the high voltage and low resistance of the lipo means that the battery gives up energy way more willingly than the panels do, and as a consequence shoulders a disproportionate amount of the load.
What if you had a relay that let you isolate the battery/osd/rx from the panels/esc/motor so that you could turn battery power to the drive train on and off in flight? that way you could test the panels without dealing with the odd variable of the battery voltage. You could also bypass the switch with a diode and resistor so that the panels could trickle charge the battery even when the battery was "disconnected".
Get a MPPT lipo charge controller, there are small, light weight and cheap pcbs avalible and ebay, banggood, aliexpress etc.. Just search for mppt on those sites.. Great video as always !
I am in UT as well. Looking to build one of these myself. I fly out on the other side of the lake and at a field here in layton. Would love to see how this goes for you.
Could you avoid the battery issue by running the solar panels directly to the esc with no battery in parallel? A small battery could be used for the radio, flight controller, and servos. Perhaps a switch or something could connect the battery in case it is necessary.
It looks like you're doing 44s1p for the solar cells which gives max volts 25.6v and max amps 5.93a. The max watts we see is ~75w. This is half of the max capacity you should be getting (according to spec sheet for the c60 cells). Is that normal for these cells or is there some other issue going on here?
That said great work. You've built a solar plane nearly exactly how I was planning on building one. I'm rooting for you.
I'm 72 years old and not as quick as you probably are. When I'm traipsing around in snake infested grass, I carry a 38 caliber revolver with number 9 rat shot. It's basically just a point-and-click system and will turn a diamond back into confetti 20 feet away. Food for thought.
I'm so excited to watch this!
good work. I like to watch your progress.
Just and advice: Don't connect the battery direct to the panels.
if the panel produce to low voltage than the battery then the panels work as a load .. and take power from the battery and turn it into heat.
Instead use a 12V/24V 20A Solar Panel Charger Controller Regulator. If possible try a mppt solar charger. These are more efficient.
You connect the panels and battery to it. And the motor to the output of the charger.
I am sure you will then get a unlimited flight time.
Dude you wanna bump up that solar charger? Here is what you do. Lets say you have a 12v system you can have it 24-48 volts in order to charge it. I have installed a few solar kits. 48 volt charging with around 96-98 volts. This higher voltage all makes it easy for an amp to charge a cell of a battery.
Due to solar cells being constant-current sources, use an MPPT Buck-Boost-Converter, it will boost or buck and track the solar cell's voltage so that the maximum power will be feed into the batteries. If you have questions on how to do this, feel free to ask. - Stefan
thanks for posting. nice work. some thoughts. i will assume the plane is as light as possible.
the boom looks like carbon tube; the weight of the aft ten inches of carbon has a lot of moment.
a piece that long weighs more than spruce. the vert and horiz stabs could be lightened by removing some 'inner' material. you may know, a modelling rule of thumb is 100w per pound. suggest a larger, slower-turning prop be used. aoa could be changed for more lift. determine whats nominal cell output voltage/amps/watts, match battery and motor wattage to that. in a hybrid electric vehicle, the engine is the primary power source, supported by electric cut-in. since cell output is variable, some capacitance might be useful. cheers
The maximum power point of a solar cell is typically at ca 75 % of the open circuit voltage. Hence if your batteries are at 30 V then you should have solar cells which generates 40 V without load. This way you will maximise the power when you connect them together (solar cells will be forced from 40 to 30 V with will generate a lot of current, such that the voltage times the current will reach its best/highest value)
In schematics, there is no need to draw bridges. Wires can simply cross one another. :)
3.21 .... Hi, have you thought about putting the solar panels through a voltage step up to say 30v and then take apart a "charge controller" down to its circuit board... That way the solar panels will be producing more shunt, and the charge contoller will give the batteries what they need.
Just a thought, hope that helps
wow charging a 5s with 80watts that a lot... nice job looking forward to the test flight mate
mppt would solve the problem, but it adds the weight, and reason why you dont get max effecienty is because you got batteries which wont accept so much current at the time. You could find batteries with greater charge current (C rating)
you might want to have a special circuit made that powers the plane on solaf if possible, to charge the lipo as secondary and the switch the battery alone when power is too low and dont charge at all.
thats what I think killed your ESC , the battery and solar cells combined where giving too much juice to it
didn't you have a charge controller? should help with current reflow and voltage... also maybe just a diode could help with reflow. edit: read the description, the diode just before the solar cells should be tested
Thanks for the great update! Have a nice trip!!
Why don't you just look at the recording of your DVR, and then use your phone to navigate to the last GPS location?
good catch
install a voltage regulator and have it divert excess voltage into a capacitor bank and release it into a strobe light or have it use stored voltage to power motor when batt is low. idk. something like that. it's in my head I just can't explain it but I think you get the idea.
Why don't you build a proper charging circuit to get maximum efficiency out of your solar cells? You can plenty instructions on how to make one.
why don't you use the extra onboard charger you used in the previous airplanes? that should make it more efficient
Charge voltage must be higher than the battery voltage... Simple physics.
Would you ever consider making all of the aspects of this open source?
how about a low power relay that switches on and off the solar to the motor. that way the battery pack is just backup power if you lose sunlight
I saw balsa rinforcements in the fusolage pod , can you make a quick video about that?
could you have a switch that bypasses the batteries and powers the motor directly off the solar cells whilst leaving the flight system intact
Tank you vidéo magnifique super bravo
you may try to serial connect more solar cells to charge 6s batteries? for solar cells, there is a maximum power output on certain amps. or using some charging management system?
DC-DC converter my friend , the diode is not going to do it. You have to have controlled regulation for a project like this.
why not use a dc to dc converter to provide the proper voltage/current to the batteries at all times? I'm sure there's some kind of off-the-shelf solution for this, right?
Because the dc-dc converter just adds losses to the system, he already has the freedom to select matching solar array and battery voltages, When the battery is already full, you EXPECT that no energy is flowing to them.
What losses? He has solar panel. He can afford to "waste" some power.
Gary, you are wrong, please google MPPT controllers.
Gabriel DeVault yeah I figured you'd be losing enough from the mismatch for a dc to dc converter to be worth it. I wonder how it would all shake out. what an interesting problem >:-)
You get losses by not running the panels at the optimum voltage. Adding a DC-DC step up/down just adds further losses. You need to regulate the amps drawn from the panels to get the panels at optimum efficiency, then step that up to something that will charge the batteries. All this adds losses.
maybe you should get those props that fold when not spinning so when you restart the motor it can do its little beepy twitch without malfunctioning from wind spin.
Why don't you have ESC prop brake on for more efficient gliding? I don't get it.
If you're able to arrange the panels in strings that give 30-36 volts you could try a tiny PWM solar reg, or if you can get PV volts between 30 & 60 you could try to get hands on a small MPPT and use that. Either way, add a current sensor inline after the PV reg before it connects to the power system, then you can subtract PV gen current from the ESC drawn current and hopefully display that somewhere in the OSD, that way you'll know that a reading of 0A means power neutral, a positive reading means battery is charging and a negative reading means battery is discharging.
I like your project, good luck with it!
I'm following you for a while, and you should try a pylon for pushers. Pusher is way more adapted for long flight, as it does not tract, and consume less energy than front while climbing and IDLE. My advise.... Also, never use such flexible solar pannels until you got monocristaline ones, who provide more volts, and preserves voltage necessary for power maintaining. You are close to make such a good plane. I have some knowledge reagrding electrics, electronics, and also CNC cutting. I guess we could make something better by exchanging some exepriences, knowledge, and point of view...
Hello! That ESC sounded like my code. Which board is/was it?
The first failure of power output seemed to be making a watchdog reset alarm. This is an endless loop (while powered) of two-tone beeping to indicate that the hardware reported a reset by watchdog alarm. This can only happen in the event of a hardware fault (or software bug).
The hardware fault is often that the oscillator stops or some other serious issue. For example, touching an external ceramic resonator (or applying a water spray) can sometimes cause this. Brownouts could also cause this, but the brown-out detector should reset it before this occurs, unless the fuses are set incorrectly.
The watchdog alarm occurring is supposed to be a significant event because it's not possible with that hardware to safely turn off all FETs in the minimum watchdog time, so it's possible that something could have been damaged.
The second issue seems like the result of a failed FET, but it's hard to tell.
A separate MPPT charge controller will probably always be less efficient than some sort of smart ESC(s) that could use two inputs. The basic MPPT idea is to just walk the duty cycle to find the current draw that maximizes the power, but to have another buck/boost converter doing that when there is already PWM control to the motor would be a waste.
Probably what you need is something that can MPPT on one ESC and use the rest of the duty cycle from the battery as needed.
I've been meaning to try to make an MPPT-ish ESC firmware because I've driven fans directly from small solar cells before and noticed the efficiency issue (turn the servo tester up and output power increases to a point, then decreases), and the difficulty in browning out the ESC without a battery.
You should consider using an electronic voltage regulator to make solar cell output constant throughout the flight. Furthermore, I would get Lipo disconnected and allow solar to take over while in flight. This way your Lipo is your backup battery in case of emergency. To accomplish all this, I would power the receiver, servos, FPV everything via separate power source. So you will need two batteries. One for Motor and ESC. One power source for RX, FPV, Servos. An electronic voltage regulator to stabilize the solar power.
I'm not sure you really understand electricity, you said a few things that made zero sense. " The battery only charged 0./14V".. what does that even mean, energy isn't stored as volts, since the engine was off, how did the battery exert any energy? It kind of sounded like you REALLY want to have this hobby, but don't quite understand it fully. Nice plane though!
Maybe consider two 6s lipos. One running the plane, and the other charging. Then have the switch when one is getting low. Try adding some super caps to offset the current of the motor start up. I think an arduino could switch and monitor the batteries. There is probably a simpler circuit that would do the same with less draw. This is amazing! Thanks for sharing this!!! :-)
a great test would be to use a flight controller with gps pos hold and let it circle and maintain altitude automatically while u chill and have a day pf flying other planes
My thoughts are probably written in the comments below. To get efficient charge you will need a charging circuit that will boost the voltage to charge the batteries which then can cut if the voltage gets too high. You might be able to charge directly to the balance port of the battery. Wonder if you could purpose a small Lipo battery charger. Unfortunately most of those are max 15 volts. Now your motor cutting out I would guess your ESC is overheating. Try mounting the ESC outside or bring in some cool air to cool the ESC. Best to really oversize the ESC. I've had similiar issues with tricopter and ESC overheating and motors cutting out.
i say make it slightly bigger so it can sustain flight, and trip it out with extreme long range gear and do some super long range stuff!
looks like the motor was losing sync. better ESC may solver the power failure issue?
Great video - love the concept! I will be staying tuned to see this project evolve for sure. Something I have been thinking about, but don't have the know-how... yet... Which OSD are you using here? Oh, and I REALLY hope you are taking something FPV with you to Thailand & Nepal! :-)
You're on the right track with the direct connection between the cells and the battery. When you take off with a full battery you should expect that you aren't delivering any power to the battery, its already full. And that extra solar power if it isn't consumed by your motor then you didn't want it anyway. As the flight wears on, if the battery voltage drops, then it will become more receptive to solar energy and it will reach an equilibrium voltage as the charging efficiency goes up to meet the falling battery voltage. The trick is that the unloaded solar array voltage shouldn't exceed the max voltage of your battery. Also, I don't think you need that diode, its just extra loss, the solar cells are already diodes (PN junctions) themselves. You also want a small (light weight) battery if your goal is sustained SOLAR flight. Its mainly there as a buffer, and emergency fly home energy source when the sun gets too low in the sky.
Awesome! What HUD are you using in the video?
Keep in mind that solar cells are not sized like batteries. The moment you put a load on them, their voltage will drop greatly, therefore you need to have an array far in excess of the desired voltage and then work out a means of protecting the other electronics from an overvolt condition.
Using the datasheet from the cell's manufacturer you should be able to determine the current draw that will drop the voltage to a safe range for your ESC and then use a current sense circuit to switch in the panels when the motor is running. You could also move the diode to the battery pack and use a voltage sense circuit from the ESC-side of the diode. The V-sense circuit would control a switch that shorts out the diode when the solar cells wouldn't overvolt it, and thus you wouldn't waste power when no harm would be done to the battery but still have the protection of the diode when you need it.
Cheep/small random input-voltage LiPo charging boards are available on Amazon, so you could have your panels charging/maintaining the battery until the ESC can use the solar directly. These modifications should be an overall efficient and lightweight setup.
Volunteer Flight Mission for you: Take the solar glider out to Salton Sea, California and video document the recession of the waterline from the air. Also of interest are the water inlets to the sea itself.
Purpose of flight: Test for thermals in the area and make location markers for them to be put on a map.
Danger Advisory: Do not go alone and take at least a gallon of water per person for every 4 hours you plan to be out there. Temperatures in summer months regularly exceed 100*f.
I would love to watch that video. The reason for my interest is due to environmental engineering study, spaning all the way up the Colorado River up into the Rocky Mountains.
You're not going to be able to fly for an unlimited amount of time when it can only fly so high and the sun only lasts for so long. But, you can get absolutely fantastic flight times with it. I'd say just go with the KISS method. Instead of having the solar panels wired to charge the battery, just build a wireless switch that changes where the ESC gets its power. So you fly solely from solar power, and when it starts getting cloudy and the solar panels cant keep everything in check, just flip the switch and you're on battery mode. Say the clouds blow over and the sun is shining brighter, flip to solar mode again. If the solar cells can already produce enough power to run the motor, why bother integrating a charging system?