Maybe someone has encountered a small scale parachute ?
I'd like to add a safety parachute to the Arducopter !! help me decide....
As part of the project is to use an expensive DSLR on the copter,
My GF said i must have some kind of emergency parachute... after joking at it, i thought deeper -
I'd rather feel much safer having a parachute as backup to all electronics (even though i plan on 6 or 8 motors)
Just imagine an emergency button that will immediately turn off all motors and shoot a parachute.
questions:
as parachute takes some time to open (=some free fall height), the benefits are sure and obvious for a 100m fall.
but if i'm around 5m above ground, (which can still be nasty to the DSLR) - would i have enough "falling time" to open the parachute and having enough braking force ?
think i better make one by myself ? is it rather simple as cutting and connecting wires to a cloth,
or it is more complex design that i could hardly achieve and i better get a ready one ?
i came across this as the only parachute i could find:
It looks sturdy and well balanced & stuff... it's totally affordable !
they say the 40" version has 7KG resistance. i'm safe on this side, i dont want a much bigger one.
how about the opening technique ?
i could stuff it in a small plastic tube attached to the top of the dome, using a small solenoid or servo to kick it out...
how do i ensure it opens reliably ? i guess it depends on the folding inside the storage tube...
Comments
i'll just try to avoid this happening
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3arC5lVAo-Y
Martin,
expect the blog post in a month or so about propulsion system for the parachute....
the thing is i'm still hesitating on which parachute to go for...
i aim for 40" (1 meter) or a bit less.
on all the rockets sites ive seen, they use 20" parachutes for max 1KG loads...
thats far of being my needs...
ill go though on one from a rocket store rather than a sports one, because they are made lightweight and efficient i believe
pyro propulsion is probably not stupid to use.
i might go this way, it's not too complicated or expensive to make,
and it has the force like nothing else...
when you compare the german video device to a servo arm pushing a compressed parachute out of a tube, it's quite obvious....
oh no, taking explosives onboard is a step too far :D
i want to safely land my camera, not to blow it in the sky :P
the servo arm pushing it out is obvious, but i'm afraid this won't 'throw' it harsh enough (resulting in bad opening?)
imagine that the first thing to hit the ground would be the DSLR mount.
i might put foam or polystyrene on the outer side of it to absorb some G's
it's still not very friendly to the DSLR,...
but let's said im less worried on the 5m height falling (where the parachute won't have time to open) or from the relatively aggressive landing with the parachute...
i'm more worried of 100's meters free fall from the sky...
http://www.apogeerockets.com/parachutes.asp
http://www.madcowrocketry.com/servlet/the-Rocket-Components-cln-Chu...
I wonder if a streamer would slow / stabilize enough?
who's talking about airbags ? thats behind us...
these chutes on the rockets site are nice,
but i think 40" (the sports one i found) is not ENORMOUS relatively to the copter, and remember it will be a heavy one - 2-3kg...
so, apart from being difficult to implement and mostly ineffective, an airbag is a good idea.
We are using parachutes from rocket store http://www.rocketstore.co.uk
jl
The sports chutes are pretty big for our needs, unless you're talking a big RC craft, stowage/deployment of the chute will be the issue. This is a picture of the small parachute used to deploy the larger chute in sky diving. I guess it's call a throw-chute. The one I have is about 18 inches and is very strong but packs up very small, about the size of a small egg.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/12/Pilot_chut...
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