@Tinkeringbell hahahaha - no, but there are a few young deer come past the bottom of the garden fairly regularly

That's cool too! The cows at the forest here have had babies too, and they're not very people shy so I often encounter them on evening walks :)

What kind of details do we need for this kind of question?

To me it seems well-framed as it is: the asker wants the highest-thrust copter configuration for a certain space disregarding other factors. That's both a nontrivial question that would require digging into some papers, and answerable, so I don't think it needs any more clarification besides possibly some information about the intended application of such a platform (which would imply, e.g. the need for shielding for the props or lack thereof).

The issue I do have with this question (and some others) is that it's of the "what is the best X" kind

Which is not bad in and of itself (if it's not something that can lead to flame wars), but I'm afraid that too many such questions early on may skew the site's scope somewhat.

Would an answer to such a question depend on the amount of weight that needs lifting? Now it says 'say 50gr', so maybe it's a bit too hypothetical?

OTOH it has three reopen votes already and is still in the queue, so maybe it is good enough right now ;)

At first glance, I'd say that it won't

Hmm. Then I'd say things like this happen... a few close votes come in, someone makes a good edit, but still gets the last 1/2 close votes too, without comment.

There are some practical effects that come into play with bigger platforms (i.e. less weight overhead for mechanical and other control mechanisms; a bigger heli rotor can have a better, but relatively smaller/lighter swashplate, etc.), but the main differences due to rotor size, number, and configuration are the same across the board, and the differences that do happen can be pointed out by a knowledgeable answerer.

@FlashCactus I understand about half of that, but it seems like you might ask the asker if they have restrictions on some of those parts?

Materials Modelling also reached 100% commitment! \o/

yay!

I know nothing about the subject but i'm happy for that

Me neither :)

See you there :)

@Daniil I'm here :)

That really depends on a lot of things!

First and foremost, where do you fly? (or expect to fly)

(and what have you flown before?)

As a blanket one-size-fits-all recommendation, get a toothpick. But it might not be the right choice for you, depending on your situation.

@Daniil ^^

Ooh: we need to migrate important Area 51 posts to Drones and Model Aircraft Meta; they'll disappear when we leave Private Beta.

@wizzwizz4 Is that a possibility? Or are you thinking manual copy-pasting?

@Tinkeringbell Mostly re-asking important questions, like the one about legal questions, and possibly answering them with quotes from Area51 discussions.

Ah, that makes more sense :) I think there's already a discussion about legal questions on drones.meta. So that's good :)

It'd be best if the people who originally posted answers re-posted them to the meta questions, so that they can change their minds etc., which is why "possibly".

@Tinkeringbell There is.

Hi

No worries; I presume that's related to your removing it from the Puerto Rico post for being too broad?

Ah yes; that sounds fine

Likewise - I think we are starting to get a good base of questions and answers.

Is this on-topic?

I'm planning to re-open vote as soon as that vote comes in.

I'm biased, but I think so. The current Meta consensus is that regulation questions are OK. If it was more along the lines of "If I do X, is the building under my control" then it would be less on-topic; as it stands, it just quotes the relevant regulations from a 137-page document which could otherwise be fairly inaccessible to a newcomer.

@Kralc Answers shouldn't determine the on-topicness of a question, but I agree.

Can you think of any edits to the question that would make it more clearly on-topic?

(e.g. reducing the scope without invalidating the answer)

It could perhaps be more about whether someone has first-hand experience, or knows of an official/reputable source providing clarification?

I don't think that would be an improvement.

It's currently "what does this law mean?", "what am I allowed to do?".

(Not that I can see any way to really improve the question in that sense.)

@wizzwizz4 Yes, it's very much on topic.

@FlashCactus @FlashCactus I think your hunch is right, with a nice edit the question can be "what are the thrust densities of typical configurations?"

@Daniil The "control of a building" one. You improved the title.

I… knew that.

I don't quite understand why some people are against regulation topics appearing here. I feel that they're some of the most important things SE.Drones can contribute.

Perhaps the meta question needs featuring.

The Area51 answer saying "yes" got 24 upvotes.

@Daniil Flight Controller and Brushless DC motor.

I’m one of the people who commented that that particular question wasn’t completely on topic, and would just like to clarify that I completely support regulation questions being allowed here. I thought that this question maybe wasn’t the most fitting as it didn’t directly relate to drones, and more how a particular word within the law should be interpreted, which isn’t within the purview of the SE. I’m very open to having my mind changed thoug.

@CaptainJ.LPicard I guess since the question is about a legal interpretation of something specific to drones, I feel it's appropriate.

@CaptainJ.LPicard That word within the law is required to understand what it means.

And hence what you're allowed to do.

Frequently, us full-scale pilots turn to SE.Aviation to understand how to interpret regulations.

So for instance, if I want to know if I can log time flying gliders counts toward a commercial license requirement, SE.Aviation helps me parse the relevant regulations to arrive at a conclusion.

I do think that we're getting into a little trouble with the "legal" tag.

It's not well understood by many pilots, but regulations and laws aren't the same thing.

That phrase basically (oversimplified) means "if you okay it with the building owner and its residents, you can fly the drone", which is not what I originally thought it meant. This knowledge is useful for drone flight, therefore on-topic.

@KennSebesta Do you know of a word including both laws and regulations?

That’s fair enough, I fully see where you’re coming from. I guess the way I see it, if the same regulation could apply to something else, for example ‘you are only allow to have a campfire on property you control’ (which I have no idea if it’s true), then interpreting it is more suited to a law SE than a drone specific one.

Regulatory bodies, such as the FAA, are empowered by law to regulate a domain. The regulations are oftentimes open to interpretations and so you will see many, many FAA circulars which help people understand the regulation. These circulars are not binding, but they are strong and so if you go to court you should be prepared to lose if you cannot mount your own strong defense/attack.

@CaptainJ.LPicard Then all brushless motor questions are off-topic.

And all aerodynamics questions are off-topic.

And so on. I don't think that's reasonable.

@wizzwizz4 I think it's reasonable! Unless it's specific to drones, I don't believe it belongs here.

@KennSebesta But what is "specific to drones"?

But that's just my one voice, I feel like the community sees it a little more expansively.

@wizzwizz4 If it has unique characteristics which aren't found in other domains.

@wizzwizz4 see that perspective, though brushless motors and aerodynamics in RC aircraft are different enough than in other uses to be applicable here I feel

@KennSebesta Is this question on-topic, then?

So cooling of motors is a thing which is highly aviation specific.

And thus BLDC cooling is a great question.

But questions about which motor is better do not belong here.

How to choose a good motor + prop combination IS very relevant.

@wizzwizz4 I do see what you mean and as this rule does come directly from the CAA, I see how it may be applicable here

I mean, the line is blurry. But it's not so blurry that we should be answering basic EE questions here.

No.

Has there ever been a site without this kind of issue?

For Retrocomputing, it's CRT televisions.

@wizzwizz4 I think so, because the answers are drone specific.

I doubt there has been a site without this discussion - it’s a good thing we’re having this discussion because it means we can lay down what should be applicable before we go public

@KennSebesta But what if it hadn't been answered yet?

My litmus test is whether @Daniil would get the identical answer if he were asking about electric cars, or even industrial steel mills.

@wizzwizz4 If it's never been asked before, what's wrong with opening a question on SE.Electronics?

@KennSebesta You don't get drone-specific answers.

That's true, but I can't control the answers. If it's a drone-specific question and the answers aren't drone specific, then I can add specificity in my own answer and hope to see it accepted as The Answer.

@KennSebesta My litmus test is basically that, plus "if the question is explicitly drone-related" – except it's a similar, hard-to-put-into-words rule that's consistent around the boundaries.

You can sometimes ask the same question, with the same wording, on Music: Practice & Theory and English Language & Usage, and get two different sets of answers.

I think we're basically saying the same thing. Somewhere it's a judgement call, and we have to be willing to trust each other to the point that we say "It's not how I would have done it, but..."

Which site the question's on is an implicit bound on the requirements for answers.

I agree. I think we should let the upvotes on that question speak for themselves: it seems the community agrees it is an on-topic question

My feeling is that questions are out-of-scope when we get identical answers no matter where we ask. And questions are especially inappropriate when the answers we get are reduced in quality because that's not our expertise domain. (LiPo chemistry!)

@KennSebesta Imo, we should go further, and be able to say "the decision I'm about to make isn't what I would choose, but it's community consensus".

@wizzwizz4 Yes!

@KennSebesta But LiPo chemistry questions are relevant.

@wizzwizz4 I would argue that the "control a building" question is on topic, as it's a difficult question related to drone legislation, so both very relevant to this community (and this community only; no one else cares about drone laws for practical purposes), and unlikely to be answered in-context (i.e. with knowledge of what drones are capable of) outside the community.

If a LiPo chemistry expert came to Drones.SE, they'd give answers more about the environments (temperatures, pressures) that a drone encounters; thus, better answers.

@wizzwizz4 I have yet to see one which I feel is relevant to Drones. Maybe I'll be surprised?

@KennSebesta I've yet to see one too.

I certainly was not expecting a good cable question, but then this one popped up: drones.stackexchange.com/questions/357/…

@wizzwizz4 I think the kind of LiPo question is important. If it’s ‘I’m building a heavy-lift drone, what is the best battery chemistry’ it is on topic

If it’s’how does a LiPo work, it isn’t necessarily on topic

@CaptainJ.LPicard I would like that question to be "what are relevant things to consider when speccing power supplies for a heavy drone?"

I can't tell you what's best. But I can tell you that in the EU you generally can't have systems >60VDC without special protection.

@Daniil, may I please request the core community, and you personally, to ask less questions that could be answered in simple terms by the first link in google when you paste in the name of the question? I'm referring to the brushed vs brushless question specifically, and a lot of other questions asked on the site in the past days.

Maybe 100V is appropriate for your application, because you're keeping current low. Maybe 48V is appropriate because it's easy to find chargers. Maybe 20V is appropriate because you want to charge off USB PD. I can't really choose "best" from that.

(No offense)

@KennSebesta I think that the particular battery chemistry would be important here as well. For example, if someone says I need X voltage and Y amps, but I do t know what chemistry can give me that, I would then not be able to use that information

But I can definitely help provide solid, referenced information that lets you get over your hurdle. That's what I think the Q&A should be about.

That’s a fair viewpoint - I think it comes down to what direction we want this community to go. Should it be a database of general information, or a compilation of direct answers that will give the person the answer they need, but may not be as useful in future searches

@wizzwizz4 What do you think about the tag "drone-regulation"?

Why not just "regulation"?

sticking the word "drone" on top of tags inside a drone SE does not make them more specific, since by default anything here is drone-something

Yeah, technically laws are regulations.

@FlashCactus Works for me, although @wizzwizz4 was specifically looking for something which wasn't regulations

In the EU, a regulation is even a kind of law.

@FlashCactus Do you want to write up the "tag rename request" or shall I?

Since I don't know where that even is...

maybe you could show me

It's good that we started organizing tags now, I wanted to come in to point out that we need to do that, actually

Yeah, it's just the generic verb :)

I mostly DDG

Objectively correct, but we don't need to get into a Search Engine war right now.

That, and Browser Wars (of which I have the Only Correct View), are… best avoided.

@Daniil Yeah, I do all my googling on Bing.

Plural or singular form of tags?

i.e. regulation v.s. regulations

@wizzwizz4 plural FTW

@Daniil regarding the "every question" part, almost all of the questions I answer here, I pull 80% of the information out of search engines, but I have to spend maybe half an hour to get that info, and it's usually something you have to know to search for. If it takes half a minute, then ummm...

@Daniil I'd think that's a fair question. It's drone specific.

@FlashCactus Have you thought about self-answering some questions when you find out new stuff?

Fundamentally, SE sites aren't typically primary sources. They are collations of source material, distilled to address the Why can't I google that in 5 seconds?

@Daniil well, I just pasted that phrase into DDG, and... yeah, first link, great article, simple terms.

So something which is amazingly drone-specific, such as headless mode, is great to ask. The answers can then link to primary sources.

Plus, we'll have a duplicate target.

If we anticipate people asking stuff loads, best to get it out of the way with a high-quality canonical Q&A pair.

@wizzwizz4 Definitely. Particularly the more difficult engineering-related ones if I find the required information before anyone knowledgeable posts it as an answer first.

Asking this stuff as a duplicate target might be a good idea, yep.

But then both the Q and the A must be of stellar quality, with a sufficiently generic title for the Q, etc.

Of course.

i.e. this question: drones.stackexchange.com/questions/430/…, which is marked as duplicate, has a better title for a "canonical" question than drones.stackexchange.com/questions/434/… , the one it's marked as a duplicate of)

@FlashCactus cough edit button cough

I left a comment on the second question regarding whether we should edit that question to oblivion to make it the one (as opposed to, e.g., writing an entirely new and shiny Q/A pair specifically for the purpose)

Combine it with drones.stackexchange.com/questions/353/…

It would be very helpful to get this out of the way and into a canonical space.

I might suggest starting with a new question, though. That way the existing answers and questions don't have to be heavily edited to make it canonical.

From a principles perspective, I think it's a little unfair to take someone's question and make it into something overarching.

@RoryAlsop what can be done to get questioners to select questions as answered?

drones.stackexchange.com/questions/220/… should have been marked as such, IMO.

@FlashCactus ^^^ (Sorry, should have tagged you to begin with)

@KennSebesta Yes, about everything you just wrote is exactly how I feel.

(Oh wow, I found something the two of us don't disagree on, yay!)

Yay, thank you very much!

Do we already have good Q/A pairs that we can consider canonical as is?

Also: I think we might want to start a Meta thread on canonical questions, just to be able to track all of them and what we want to do to them.

I'm logging off for now, see you all later!

@FlashCactus we also agree that drones.stackexchange.com/questions/377/… is a great question. ;)