X-8 Parachute Deployment

I've seen a lot of CO2 deployment systems for high power rocketry, but they're usually used due to lack of oxygen for a more normal ejection charge. They are comparatively heavy and complex, things you generally want to avoid for this application.

If you're not going to be at an extreme altitude, you could use an ejection charge (small amount of black powder and an e-match), but there are safety questions with that approach on an RC aircraft/drone. They do tend to travel farther away than rockets, and occasionally get found by little girls in a field (as recently posted), so maybe not a good idea.

But perhaps a spring ejector and latch instead? Servo operate the latch, sprung plunger pushes chute into airstream, problem solved. It'll weigh less than a CO2 system for sure, and be less likely to blow sections of your airframe apart too, now that I think on it. The rocket folks have to carefully consider orifices etc to avoid airframe issues. And those applications tend to have larger volume than even the X8 Airframe.

Your sketchup skills outstrip mine, I need to find 3D software I like and spend time with it.

Replies

james sowell May 4, 2013 at 8:21am

http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/skywalker-x8-instructions-parac...
Jay Bryon October 8, 2012 at 1:18pm

I've seen a lot of CO2 deployment systems for high power rocketry, but they're usually used due to lack of oxygen for a more normal ejection charge. They are comparatively heavy and complex, things you generally want to avoid for this application.

If you're not going to be at an extreme altitude, you could use an ejection charge (small amount of black powder and an e-match), but there are safety questions with that approach on an RC aircraft/drone. They do tend to travel farther away than rockets, and occasionally get found by little girls in a field (as recently posted), so maybe not a good idea.

But perhaps a spring ejector and latch instead? Servo operate the latch, sprung plunger pushes chute into airstream, problem solved. It'll weigh less than a CO2 system for sure, and be less likely to blow sections of your airframe apart too, now that I think on it. The rocket folks have to carefully consider orifices etc to avoid airframe issues. And those applications tend to have larger volume than even the X8 Airframe.

Your sketchup skills outstrip mine, I need to find 3D software I like and spend time with it.

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