Parachute use on ELEV-8
Hi all,
The use of parachute on drones is a very interesting topic.
Droping things mechanisms, as wellas rescue drone mechanisms , both use parachutes in different ways.
There are various videos on youtube with very cheap till very scientific projects. Parachutes made from plastic bag till very expensive.... The sure is that a right parachute must not be only a piece of fabric or plastic bag... On the other hand you can't spend a lot of money (more the cost of your drone) to protect your drone or to make various experiments using parachutes
After a long research I have same interesting results about that topic and I'll share it in this thread.....
I know that many of you already know much more about that topic...
So please post here any more info links etc....
The use of parachute on drones is a very interesting topic.
Droping things mechanisms, as wellas rescue drone mechanisms , both use parachutes in different ways.
There are various videos on youtube with very cheap till very scientific projects. Parachutes made from plastic bag till very expensive.... The sure is that a right parachute must not be only a piece of fabric or plastic bag... On the other hand you can't spend a lot of money (more the cost of your drone) to protect your drone or to make various experiments using parachutes
After a long research I have same interesting results about that topic and I'll share it in this thread.....
I know that many of you already know much more about that topic...
So please post here any more info links etc....
1600 x 1200 - 956K
Comments
http://forums.parallax.com/discussion/157525/elev-8-super-carries-7-lb-chuckie-with-parachute
Exactly that video I had in mind when I started this project.....
In the way I discovered that we can make much more using a parachute on ELEV8
Actually dropping things from a drone using a parachute I think is the first stage in order to go to the next step....
And something important:
I made that parachute my own, using a sewing machine. So I can make exactly the size of parachute I want....
The first test was today dropping a botle of water....
Everithyng was perfect....
The best solution for ELEV-8 is this one that suggest Parallax.
However I'm not sure if it is still in production....
For those who have a 3d printer here is my suggestion:
Drop Mechanism (with parachute) for Parallax ELEV-8 and various drones
On the next post I'll give more details as well as info for the wiring and the firmware changes
Is the chute to drop stuff or protect the copter? I suppose it could do either.
I had my first encounter with someone throwing stuff at my drone, for no good reason, this weekend. I couldn't tell how close the object came to it, but if I had a chute I think I would have been a little less worried.
I think that that might depend on the point of view.
Having noisy flying cameras buzzing around in rarer and rarer rural areas, parks and so on is not everybody's dream of leaving the city for a while.
Personally I think I would try to talk to the operator instead of throwing stuff. But some people - on both sides - just don't care.
Dropping payloads with a chute seems easier to me then protecting the copter, since spinning propeller and lightweight chute + strings may interfere with each other.
Enjoy!
Mike
As I said, dropping a payload is more easy as the payload drops down while the quad gains height since loosing weight, so both separate quite fast.
Deployment on the top of the quad is not so easy.
If you would hit some sort of panic button, how long does it usually take until the propellers are not moving anymore? A delayed chute deployment could maybe help to avoid tangling.
Maybe shooting the chute out of its compartment with CO2, compressed air or small explosives (erco?) to speed up separation and deployment?
I guess having a rescue chute for the quad would help to reduce the cost of needed repairs and could pay itself off quite fast.
Enjoy!
Mike
I think that a "toy style" parachute doesn't match with V3.....
V3 needs something unique. A new parachute design taking in account various parameters....
Reliable parachutes cost a fortune and you can't know in advance 100% your real needs.
After a lot of research I ended up that a very good suggestion was in this web site : Richard Nakka's Experimental Rocketry Web Site
I followed the steps of construction and I'm very happy with the result. ....
At the first stage chute is used only to drop stuff from the copter...
In the next step an experimental "fake" and cheap copter equipped with the parachute protection system will be dropped from the Elev -8 in order to test both chute and protection system.
That's what NASA does "in house", how would you like to sew that up?
As I can see from your image above, NASA use 3 parachutes with 20 gores each one.
If you know the diameter you can calculate each gore's dimensions using the PARAPAT MS EXCEL spreadsheet.
You must also leave some holes on some of them.........
Very detailed work anyway.....
At this point I changed a little bit the design and I added a rope holder in order to avoid the problem......
LOL, nice idea. That rope holder reminds me of the floor drain grating I used to make a neat job of a wiring harness.
Despite of the strong wind V3, had no problem to lift the weight....
https://youtu.be/29a3OchbIyE
Magnif-Nikos!
Seriously awesome project. As I said on FB, now you're a threat to Dominos, Amazon and Google. Watch your back. Jason Bourne clearly knows his way around Greece in his last movie, so be careful!
You can't help but fly in a breeze where you live.
Great work!
Can you drop a smoke bomb on a chute from maximum altitude, and land it in the bed of a pick-up?
And all of erco's robots have arrived with snow shovels.