Hybrid VS Electric

Many people are asking me a question recently.

If you want a hybrid agriculture drone with oil and electricity, you don't need to change the battery for this kind of aircraft to spray pesticide, and it's cheap to use.

Below I will truthfully calculate the real cost for everyone, these are the selling oil-electric hybrid plant protection drone will not tell you.

What are the advantages of hybrid drones? Everyone knows that there is no need to replace the battery, and the flight time is long.

Yes, this is its advantage.What about the disadvantages?

I think few people will tell you. But it won’t be clear until you really use it. At that time, it was beyond regret.

The oil-electric hybrid relies on the engine (generator) to charge the battery, and the long endurance of the drone is obtained by charging the battery all the time.

Therefore, the battery still needs to be replaced. It's just that the replacement frequency is low.

At the same time, the biggest problem is that all oil-electric hybrid plant protection drones are two-stroke gasoline generators, and the speed is very high, generally 4000-7000 rpm. Think about it, what is the speed of a car's engine? So you can imagine how long such a generator will last when it works in the air.

The oil-electric hybrid engine is only suitable for low-intensity industrial applications. Not applicable to agricultural plant protection drones. Because plant protection drones are the most intense models of all drones. When spraying medicine, it is often a continuous flight for more than 10 hours a day. Under such intensity, the oil-electric hybrid engine has a very low life and a high failure rate.

Power system requirements: competitive two-stroke model aircraft engine power-to-weight ratio requirements of 1 or more (1 kg weight output power ≥ 1000 watts)

Output power: Subject to the minimum requirements of 16kg-class plant protection machines. Continuous output power is 4800 watts. Maximum 6000 watts. Four-axis machine is allocated to 1000~1200 watts per shaft. Six-axis machine is 600 to 800 watts per shaft.

Fuel consumption: 6 liters/hour

Fuel label and ratio: You must use pure gasoline of No. 95 and above. Two-stroke fully synthetic engine oil (genuine Mote 710 2t is recommended for use with competitive airplane engines). The ratio is 25-30 to 1.

Maintenance:

50-hour small maintenance: clean the spark plug carbon deposits and clean the carburetor

150-hour maintenance: disassemble the engine to clean up carbon deposits, replace parts (piston, cylinder liner, piston ring) as appropriate, check crankshaft bearings, suggest returning to the factory for maintenance

Daily maintenance: The air filter element must be cleaned every day in dusty workplaces, sometimes once every half a day. The engine must be idling after the operation is completed every day, exhausting the carburetor and the residual oil in the oil circuit.

Approximate statistics of operating costs (based on 16 kg class):

The amount per mu is 1.5 liters/mu. Each up-and-down cycle is about 10 minutes. 16 liters can hit 10.6 acres of land. The amount of work is 64 acres/hour.

Average price of No. 95 gasoline is 6 yuan / liter 30 liters = 180 yuan

Engine oil 138 yuan/liter

180 gasoline + 138 engine oil = 318 yuan / 31 liters = 10.3 yuan / liter * fuel consumption per hour 6 liters = 62 yuan / hour

64 mu/62 yuan = 1.03 yuan/mu

To sum up, the maintenance cost is not included, but the fuel cost is 1.03 yuan/mu. This is the ideal operating state. If the engine is damaged due to a crash, it must be returned to the factory for repair. The cost incurred during the period needs to be determined by the manufacturer based on the degree of damage.

The two biggest problems of oil-electric hybrid engines are: high cost of use and short lifespan

Gasoline is not cheap, motor oil is more expensive.

The reason why oil is expensive is because it has to be added together with gasoline and burned together. Add engine oil every time you add gasoline.

The salesman said that his own gasoline-electric hybrid engine is maintained every 200-400 hours. All are pure ideals. In actual work, the engine is generally maintained every 50 hours. The maintenance cost is generally 2000-3000 yuan, and the most important thing is that it must be returned to the factory for maintenance. How much is the lost time?

Once the machine crashes, the damage is high and the cost is extremely high.

The overall cost is much higher than that of a pure electric plant protection drone.

The simplest sentence: Electric plant protection drones only need simple maintenance of the circuit.

The oil-electric hybrid plant protection drone, in addition to maintaining simple circuits, the most important thing is to maintain extremely complicated oil circuits.