Dear reader,
We are now live at www.skycat.pro. The development project continues, and updates are added to this blog in random intervals.
We have parachutes launchers available in many weight ranges; optimal 1 - 6 kg and these could be extended with higher impact level up to 11 kg. For larger up to 23 kg multicopters we have XL - series with pilot chute principle.
For those who wants to digest all information available of products, we have left this blog as it is. This blog follows closely main steps we have gone through while developing parachute launcher. Blog might feel like Do It Yourself kind and to be honest, in the beginning it was.
After hundreds of hours thinking, designing, prototyping and testing our patent pending launcher turned to be the most reliable parachute launcher for professional use. We have searched all possible boundaries of technology and from this blog you'll find results of these successful tests but also not so successful tests.
You never know where The final limit of technology is without experiencing it. That's the reason why we have done tests for scenarios which might not be even realistic on flight.
For production versions of Skycat we could proudly to say that we have experienced zero mishaps, never failed a single eject and parachute has deployed every time. This includes rescue scenarios with every imaginable scenario copter could face in air. Check this out as one sample of our test sessions!
Skycat parachute launcher has been tested beyond all imaginable abuses copter possibly could experience in flight. We have sink it to water, it has been heated hours to 90°C and exposed to extensive moisture, we have frosted, defrosted and frosted it again, it has been in mud and snow and still it has worked. Same overshooting tests we have done also for electronics. This is not promise you can use our products outside of submarine but we have tested it so :)
This blog will still be updated as well our Facebook pages www.facebook.com/skycat.pro and Twitter at https://twitter.com/skycatpro
Fly safe - Let's keep our copters flying!
Henri
Skycat.pro
DJI Inspire 1 / Skycat X55-CF parachute integration by www.remotevision.ch:
Other documentary videos:
OPENTX for parachute eject and 6POS switch
DUAL spring loaded switches - single RC channel for parachute eject, OPENTX
Ground eject demonstration in slow motion
Aerial test No 2 for Opale Paramodels 2.5m^2 parachute
Aerial test No 1 Opale Paramodels 1.8m^2 parachute
Manufacturers contributed to this project:
- http://www.opale-paramodels.com/
Replies
We would like to use APM 2.6 for g - force testing for finding out real g-forces our birds are experiencing during parachute deploy.
Does someone here know what are the limits for g - forces APM is capable to measure?
Edit:
After few minutes of Googling I ordered this accelerometer capable of measure +-200g.
APM limits would still be interesting as shipping and set up time will be weeks and I planned to do some tests within days.
Henri,
I believe the APM2.x's MPU6k accels are configured to measure up to 8G
Here is an interesting twist. This is a 54" parachute in 2.6" rocket tube. The sequence of shots are .01 seconds apart so total deployment took less than 30 milliseconds. Cheap to make and can be triggered electrically with a relay from the main or aux battery. Total weight 326 grams.
Test 1 sequence.jpg
This is what it looks like on a quad...
I have an idea for killing the motors right after ejection time.
I had published this blog here : http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/how-to-avoid-sparks-when-connec...
about an IC component that I use to avoid sparks when connectong a battery. One of its side advantages could be a solution : a small switch (which can be an independant small relay) opens or closes the main battery power circuit.
Could that help ?
And it could be one solution here also. Properly manufactured with proper passive cooling it could be very reliable as well. I assume for large copter pulling all main power for long time through circuit needs extra attention for board design but it could work. Was it rated to 165A continuous and peaks even above. As weight is close to nothing it could be even doubled for extra redundancy. Our birds are filled equally and more complex boards without redundancy and any failure for those could cause crash as well. Long preflight testing could be done by hooking car main power through this. Few months driving should be enough.
Nilsen, how does this sounds like? Original 2 component solution with few more. As all are on same circuit and doesn't need so much extra coding, why not.
I think this is all getting over complicated. A power backed up APM/Pixhawk can make sophisticated choices to cut the motors and deploy the chute or employ a motor failure algorithm. Beyond that we have probably reached the point of diminishing returns.
This is much more difficult than might feel without deeper thinking of risks.
I wish ESC:s had some always same behavior when signal is OFF, for instance BRAKE.
That would be universal for all FC:s.
I was thinking of using an ATTINY to keep cost and complexity down so I'm not sure about decoding the MAVlink commands, what if we simply consider it a failsafe which.
1. Consumes heartbeats from APM (if they stop and altitude is dropping, assume battery/APM is dead) --> Deploy parachute.
2. If APM has heartbeat but APM parachute deploy is high --> Deploy parachute
3. If Altitude dropping but APM deploy parachute is low --> Depends on rate of descent I guess but not sure if it should deploy.
I wasn't going to include it's own IMU as this adds complexity and starts to be like building another flight controller :D Simple 2 chip solution with an output to trigger the relay/servo to release the parachute.
How to get around the fact of upside down copters, I don't know.
Nilsen, Do you have an idea how to shut down motors when board decides to eject?
3. If altitude is dropping fast, it is more likely a problem than a normal situation. When flying high it is difficult to realize visually if copter is dropping before it has dropped many meters.
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