Micro blimp?

[raythomas]

Does anybody make a micro blimp thats small enough for the inside of your house. I've seen the one that uses the 17 inc balloon and uses the IR remote to control it. I'm talking about one that looks like a big one only alot smaller. Ray

[toofastdave]

Does anybody make a micro blimp thats small enough for the inside of your house. I've seen the one that uses the 17 inc balloon and uses the IR remote to control it. I'm talking about one that looks like a big one only alot smaller. Ray


Plantraco makes a 22 inch micro balloon blimp that runs on a Li-Poly Cell and is fully proportional. It has 3 motors on it, two for forward / reverse thrust and one for up / down. I just started carrying them this week, and I had one buzzing around my house tonight. My 12 year old son ran a couple batteries through it as well. It's lots of fun. I got the balloon filled at my local grocery store for $0.25 cents. The battery charges on the transmitter, and it comes with two 90mAh Li-Poly's. You can PM me and I'll send you my site or you can Google Plantraco. They are located in Canada. Great products.

Cheers,
Dave

[Iepurila]

I suppose the balloon was filled with helium ... with ONLY 0.25$ ??! Helium must be not extremely expensive in your country. I'm afraid I'd have to pay 15 times more in my country for the same operation. A mylar helium balloon is hard to find, costs about 1$, leaks and is only about 10 inch diameter.

[toofastdave]

I suppose the balloon was filled with helium ... with ONLY 0.25$ ??! Helium must be not extremely expensive in your country. I'm afraid I'd have to pay 15 times more in my country for the same operation. A mylar helium balloon is hard to find, costs about 1$, leaks and is only about 10 inch diameter.


Most places around here charge between $1 - 2.00 to fill one. You can buy a helium baloon kit around here at the Party City Stores but they cost about $20.00 for the kit. You can also rent larger helium tanks for $50.00 from welding shops.. The balloons at the Grocery Store are about $3.00 filled, but mine was the Plantraco MicroBlimp, and it's only 22 inches in diameter, and since I wasn't actually buying a balloon, they only charged me to fill it. Which Country are you in by the way??

D

[Iepurila]

I'm from Romania (Eastern Europe). As far as I know, helium can be extracted from only a few natural gas sources, most (90%) in USA, some in Poland, Russia and... I don't know any more. Of course, it can be extracted from air but it's much more expensive. Air contains only 0.0005% helium so, when natural gas helium resources will be over, we'll extract helium from air at a bigger price.

A latex balloon of about 10 inches diameter is here about 1$. I suppose the 3$ balloons are more than 22 inches diameter, therefore they contain more than 2.2^3=10.65 times helium than my 10 inches 1$ balloon.

Maybe I'm not a good buyer. A good buyer knows the market, where to buy from and when.

How does the Plantraco MicroBlimp control it's buoyancy? I understand it has a helicopter-like propeller and I suppose it has negative buoyancy. So, for taking off you need to command it up. Ok, but it won't stop and touch the ceiling. If you decrease the throttle, it will go down and land ... and so on. How can you keep the altitude constant? I suppose it's like a hot air balloon, when you turn on the fire, you go up and when you turn it off , you go down and so on.

[toofastdave]

How does the Plantraco MicroBlimp control it's buoyancy? I understand it has a helicopter-like propeller and I suppose it has negative buoyancy. So, for taking off you need to command it up. Ok, but it won't stop and touch the ceiling. If you decrease the throttle, it will go down and land ... and so on. How can you keep the altitude constant? I suppose it's like a hot air balloon, when you turn on the fire, you go up and when you turn it off , you go down and so on.

Wow Romania eh?? I went to Constanza, Romania when I was in the Navy. Went to Dracula's castle and did the tour. Nice country side.
As far as the MicroBlimp and buoyancy, it uses a bunch of tiny magnets to create a neutral buoyancy. When you first fill it up with helium, the magnets that were provided didn't weight it down enough, so I had to use a few extras, but as it slowly leaks out, you can start removing magnets to create the neutral zone. Once you get it dialed in it doesn't rise or fall unless youuse the vertical motor to pull it up or push it down. It is greatly affected by any wind though. If you walk by the blimp while flying it, it will spin or get pushed up or down by the moving air. The motors are more than enough for flying around inside. I would recommend putting some kind of vertial fin on it though, to keep it from yawing while under power. It's a handfull when you are trying to keep it in a straight line in the beginning, but I have been having so much fun with mine that I can almost predict where it wants to go and react with opposite propeller control before it starts to turn. I rarely use full power so I can fly around for 30-40 minutes in my house on one battery. It comes with two 1-Cell Bohoma packs which are magnetic and clip right on to the circuit board. They also clip onto the charger (transmitter) for charging. Very neat little setup.

Have fun!
Dave

[Rocketman1092]

http://plantraco.com/product_microblimp.html

[fhhuber506771]

You will find that at the small end... you get some pretty "cheesy" blimps. The lifting capacity of the blimp is related to the volume of the ballon.. and a tiny blimp just can't lift much. That means you won't be able to carry anything but some pretty cheesy (or very expensive) micro control equipment.

You could probably look up the stuff used with the under 1 oounce indoor electric models and come up with a 4 ch FM control system ..$99 for the RX.. $35 for a pair of "actuators" (not servos) a pair of tiny electronic speed controls...the super-tiny pager motors used for power are inexpensive... Then add your 4 ch (or better) radio system's transmitter... But even that setup would be pushing the lift capability of a 2 ft long blimp.

So... if its under the size of Plnatraco's 51 inch blimp.. don't expect much more qulity than that 17inch dia IR thing.

[Plantraco]

Does anybody make a micro blimp thats small enough for the inside of your house. I've seen the one that uses the 17 inc balloon and uses the IR remote to control it. I'm talking about one that looks like a big one only alot smaller. Ray


Check out our Microblimp - 11 gram gondola including battery enables you to use an ordinary 16" latex rubber balloon. Comes with a mylar balloon.

Magnets for ballast control - nice

90mAh lithium cell included

Full proportional control with trimmers (digital 900Mhz)

built in Lithium Polymer charger

Easy bahoma connectors on cell

It is the best R/C microblimp ever produced (of course I would say that!).



http://www.plantraco.com

http://www.microblimp.com

[Plantraco]

How does the Plantraco MicroBlimp control it's buoyancy? I understand it has a helicopter-like propeller and I suppose it has negative buoyancy. So, for taking off you need to command it up. Ok, but it won't stop and touch the ceiling. If you decrease the throttle, it will go down and land ... and so on. How can you keep the altitude constant? I suppose it's like a hot air balloon, when you turn on the fire, you go up and when you turn it off , you go down and so on.


Buoyancy is adjusted by adding or removing small magnets. Very clean and nice!

You should try it - you'll like it - I guarantee that it will put a smile on your face!

Proportional control and 2 mixing modes available so you can fly like a tractor, or airplane.

No crystals needed - you can fly 3 at once in the same room - user selectable frequency.

So cool - I hope the end users will understand the difference that our new Microblimp has over our previous models and all the Chinese copies.

Again, I hope. : )

[Plantraco]

You will find that at the small end... you get some pretty "cheesy" blimps. The lifting capacity of the blimp is related to the volume of the ballon.. and a tiny blimp just can't lift much. That means you won't be able to carry anything but some pretty cheesy (or very expensive) micro control equipment.

So... if its under the size of Plnatraco's 51 inch blimp.. don't expect much more qulity than that 17inch dia IR thing.


Check out our MICRO blimp..

It has proportional control - that is good - not cheesy : )

2 mixing modes for the Tx - teach your kid to fly airplanes with it!

The Tx actually can connect to FMS flight sim - that ain't cheesy either!

Comes with 90mAh lithium polymer cell - again, that isn't cheezy

Really nice charger and patent pending Bahoma battery connector.

Check it out - Plantraco's Microblimp is the best thing since sliced bread!

:p

[fhhuber506771]

Yes... I just found the $129 micro with 900 mhz... quite an improvement over the $50 51 inch.

[FREEFLY PR]

Yeah

[new2blimp]

Hi everyone, perhaps people who own the Plantraco Microblimp can answer this for me.

1. Does the motors reverse or just only spin forward, meaning you cannot back up the blimp. Can someone clarify how it actually flies?
2. Is the transmitter has a throttle stick or self centering stick?
3. Can it stay in one place or do you have to steer it all the time like an airplane?

Thank you in advance.

[toofastdave]

Hi everyone, perhaps people who own the Plantraco Microblimp can answer this for me.

1. Does the motors reverse or just only spin forward, meaning you cannot back up the blimp. Can someone clarify how it actually flies?

- The motors actually reverse.. all 3 of them. There are two methods of control from the transmitter, airplane and tank style. Tank style for example, when you push both sticks forward the blimp is pulled forward by both motors. When you pull them back, it backs up and if you push one forward and one back it will spin. You use one of the sticks right/left movement to make it go up and down.

2. Is the transmitter has a throttle stick or self centering stick?

- Both are self centering.

3. Can it stay in one place or do you have to steer it all the time like an airplane?

- It will float in one spot if the boyancy is correct. The motors are not always on, so it only moves when you push on the sticks.

Hope that helps... Dave

[Harv]

2 mixing modes for the Tx - teach your kid to fly airplanes with it!



I'd like to start using my blimp to teach my fingers to fly a helicopter with a Mode 2 Tx, but I need a bit of help.

Holding the transmitter upside down almost works perfectly, except the turn left/right is backwards then. Everything is soldered onto a circuit board, and I don't know exactly where/how to cut/solder to get this to work the way I'd like. :confused:

Plantraco, is there any help you could provide here please? :)

[Harv]

Hmmm.

Does anyone know what I'd need to switch? :confused:

Apparently I need to cut the trace on the board and solder in jumper wires, but without knowing which ones, or where, anything I do would just be a SWAG. :(

[Plantraco]

Hmmm.

Does anyone know what I'd need to switch? :confused:

Apparently I need to cut the trace on the board and solder in jumper wires, but without knowing which ones, or where, anything I do would just be a SWAG. :(


Yes, you could cut traces and add jumper wires to reverse this I suppose.

Try it, and you will figure it out. If you mess it up, you can restore the traces.

[Harv]

Try it, and you will figure it out. If you mess it up, you can restore the traces.

Oooo, that sounds like something I should hire someone to do, simply so I can blame them when everything goes wrong. :D

I'll see if the local electronics guru wants to take a crack at it. Unless I can cut and solder with a chainsaw and acetylene torch it's probably too small for me to work on. ;)

[Plantraco]

Oooo, that sounds like something I should hire someone to do, simply so I can blame them when everything goes wrong. :D

I'll see if the local electronics guru wants to take a crack at it. Unless I can cut and solder with a chainsaw and acetylene torch it's probably too small for me to work on. ;)

I see you are not far from our location, so next time you are in saskabush give us a call and drop it off.

You can probably do it yourself if you have the right tools. It is a good idea to get a decent soldering station with fine tip and temperature control. Use a hobby knife to cut traces, rough up the metal and remove the mask, flux it and solder on wire jumpers.

[Harv]

I see you are not far from our location, so next time you are in saskabush give us a call and drop it off.



Cool, that would be great if you could do it. Almost done that seeding thing out here, so I'll probably be making the arduous trek into the Big City within the next couple of weeks.

And if I time it right, maybe there's a chance I could be taking home a Butterfly also? Or better yet, a Microscout? :) Maybe I should just drop off my entire hobby budget for the next decade, and you could automatically send me all the new stuff you're making as it becomes available. :D

[TMorita]

I'd like to start using my blimp to teach my fingers to fly a helicopter with a Mode 2 Tx, but I need a bit of help.
...


I don't think a blimp is a good trainer for a heli :)

A simulator like Realflight is much better.

Toshi

[Harv]

True, but I figure if I'm going to be flying my blimp around (and I will be quite a bit in the winter again), I figure it might as well have the same control layout. :)

Part of my current problem in flying with Mode 2 helos is the countless hours I've spent flying the blimp, which seems to have burned this layout (Mode 1?) into my hands. Unlearning this is a lot harder than I thought it would be, and since I'm too cheap to buy a good sim I figured this couldn't hurt to retrain my traitorlike digits. ;)

[Zlatko]

Harv,

FMS is free :)

Download here http://n.ethz.ch/student/mmoeller/fms/index_e.html .
If you own a normal TX than you should be able to get a TX to serial port ( or even USB port ) relatively cheap ( ~US$20 give or take $20 ;) ) .

You can even make your own ... http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/search.php?searchid=2911583

Good Luck
Zlatko

[Plantraco]

Harv,

FMS is free :)

Download here http://n.ethz.ch/student/mmoeller/fms/index_e.html .
If you own a normal TX than you should be able to get a TX to serial port ( or even USB port ) relatively cheap ( ~US$20 give or take $20 ;) ) .

You can even make your own ... http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/search.php?searchid=2911583

Good Luck
Zlatko


Our HFX900 Transmitter can be connected to your computer for use with the FMS R/C Flight Sim! It's a great bonus feature.

For Micro R/C Airplanes our HFX900 Tx comes with the FMS interface cable.

For the Microblimp, you'll have to buy the cable from us ($10.00).

We have the MicroScout RTF airplane modelled for FMS, also the Butterfly FMS model coming, and modelling Blimps might come through - I think we have a few problems making an actual MicroBlimp FMS model.