Has anyone seen, or thought about building an efoil where the motor is located in the board, with a shaft running down the mast, and a gearbox and propeller all build into the fuselage?
With a folding propeller, it seems like this would have very little drag, like a glider.
Any thoughts on how to design this? The 90degree gearbox in the fuselage would have to be very compact.
My dad (the builder) and I thought about this some time ago.
90° gearboxes (right angle gearbox) are available for this, but it will be noisy as hell, and you will need to cool everything (even the motor)
I had same thoughts and I think the cooling is the bigest issue.
My options:
Easy to disasemble: You can use angle grinder gears in the mast and a big outruner inside the case that drives the gears trough a long shaft.
Easier to make. Use a belt that drives a shaft inside a mast. Can also use 2 motors.
What percentage of the drag do you think you could achieve? I imagine the folding prop has its own foot print that is hard to remove
I can’t get it. Do they move the motor up and down?
Can we think about a solution to move the motor up to the board, or even totally get it out of the water?
What do you not get?
Motor (fixed) on top of the mast, and a long driveshaft inside the mast with a 90 degree angle gearbox going to the prop.
Also. The rear mast does not move.
Pitch is done with the front wing.