RC Groups - Blimps

Help! blimp project speed controler

DaleSparrow — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:53:04 GMT

Ive just registered to these forums as they seem to have the most helpful people on them :D

I have to do a massive school project and i chose to make a blimp with a camera. I have made many types of RC models before (gliders are by far my favorite) So I'm only new to blimps.

Basically I'm having a problem with controls, I want to use my JR x2610 with two speed controllers, and two small motors for differential thrust. I have set up my controller to mix elevator and rudder so that pushing the stick up makes both go up, and then pushing the stick left or right increases the power to one or the other motor.
But, I cant find a speed controller which supports reverse throttle, and is very light. This blimp is only going to need to lift about 500g and so for its size I think that a 7.2 volt battery with 200mah is enough.

I would just like to know if there are cheap lightweight speedcontrollers, or if you guys have a better way of doing things.

Sorry i cant post any pictures, since I am on the designing phase.

thanks in advanced, and tell me if you need more information.

Im editing this in since I'm not sure about one thing, if I need to lift 500 grams, I worked out that I need about 0.6 cubic meters of helium? Based on 1m3 helium lifts about 1kg

Discussion Will a Party City balloon lift 2.6 ozs?

gtfreeflyer — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 20:19:45 GMT

I made a little container with 2 motors and all electronics necessary for a cheap blimp, I just need a balloon. Don't know how big a balloon I need to carry this 2.6 oz contraption I made. Will I find something at Party City or a local grocery store?

Question Starting a Blimp Business

Petew15 — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 19:16:37 GMT

Hi all,

I have been following this forum for about a year now and love the idea of a blimp business. I see that many here are running such a business and I have a few questions.

1- What makes more sense starting a aerial photography business or starting a blimp advertising business. It seems as if you could do both but which one would be better to start with?

2- Depending on the answer for #1 what is the best size blimp to start with. I have seen links to West coast blimps and others. I am not looking for the cheapest way in, I am more interested in the most versatile blimp that I could achieve the greatest revenue with.

3- Is this a full time job or just a hobby that sounds like a great business?

Any way I have hundreds of questions but this would be a great start!

Thanks
Pete:)

Help! Programming a RC Blimp

racer1 — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 04:22:15 GMT

I am involved in an RC blimp for the local university.

At the moment the blimp uses a motor with a prop in the back for Right and Left. (Not very good).

What I would like to do is to change the two thrusters that provide forward and upward motion into thrusters. I want to use two separate speed controllers (instead of one, to give a right and left vectoring for turning.

Example is both motors run when the throttle is moved forward. When you moved the right and left aileron one motor would reverse while the other one would go forward and also using the tail motor to help it turn.

With only the tail motor the unit will hardly turn right or left, and there is some strong air-conditioning at the stadium.

Any thoughts would be great. At this time I would setup the radio as a delta, but I have not figured out how to program the Jr radio to mix the throttle into making one reverse and the other move forward.

Thanks
Clay

Discussion Building an advertising blimp

b-29er — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 03:12:07 GMT

I am looking at building an advertising blimp for indoor use. I plan to use the envelope off of the west coast blimp's 7' indoor, and use the following

3x 3.4g servos (elevator, rudder)
1x 9g servo (motor
1 v-tail mixer
2x 3 gram brushless edf (44g of thrust per motor)
2x micro esc (1 gram)
1 850mah lipo (maybe larger, depends on weight)
1 72mhz radio

My question is: how do i move the engines? I was thinking of putting 2 pieces of carbon fiber pipe into each other to act as a hinge, and gluing 2 plates to the inner pipe, and a carbon fiber servo arm for control.

Alert How to connect a cabin to a blimp

coolbudz223 — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 03:04:55 GMT

I would like to know of the best way to connect
a cabin to a blimp that is lightweight and
easily removable but at the same time strong enough
to keep the cabin attached to the blimp

Thanks guys

Alert How muchdoes helium and hydogen lift per cubic foot

coolbudz223 — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 03:01:19 GMT

i'm creating a 2 blimps that one will be filled with
hydrogen and the other with helium. I would like to
know how much weight in grams helium can lift per cubic foot.
I would also like to know how many grams hydrogen can lift
per cubis foot thanks.:)

Discussion Hot Air Blimp Flight

pyronaught — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 03:51:33 GMT

I took my hot air blimp camping this weekend. I was getting 20 minute flights on one fuel load.

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Discussion Building an hyperblimp these days

philgib — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:34:41 GMT

My car being 15 feet long, I am thinking about some 20 feet-long permanent tube on the roof of my car to be the parking place of an hyperblimp.

I need the tethered hyperblimp to load 100 grams of hardware (camera + tx + antenna + lfepo 3,3v) and 200 grams of tethered line. No servos, no engines.

Would a 20 feet hyperblimp be long enough to lift 300 grams ?

Thank you.

Discussion Polyethylene for envelopes

baccayarro — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 19:27:46 GMT

So, after a spectacular crash destroyed my solar powered blimps envelope, I'm looking for a new material to make the next one out of. The last envelope used balloonkits.com's laminated nylon. The biggest issue I had was I could not transport the blimp to a wide open area to fly it, so I was always in danger of hitting trees and the like.

The envelope was about 16 feet long, and about 9 feet wide. The shape is a little unusual, like a large squashed egg. The idea is to have enough room for a large thin film solar panel at the top. But it doesn't fit in any trailer, so I was stuck trying to fly it near the warehouse where I built it.

Now I would like to make a more flexible envelope. I'm hoping I can transport it deflated, then fill it at the location where I will be flying. I was going to try polyurethane, but API wanted $800 for a roll I could use, then stopped returning my calls. I'm hoping to get something working with more readily available materials. The balloonkits laminated nylon seemed too brittle to stand constant deflating and re-inflating.

Has anyone tried polyethylene? You can get that almost anywhere. Helium retention is almost irelavant, since it will be stored deflated. My first airship (model of a WW1 zep with a rigid balsa structure) used polyethelene gas cells. It was cheap, if inelegant, and it did not stay up long. Or does anyone know a different polyurethane supplier that might be more willing to work with me?

Discussion minizepp's blimp flying over a big city?

powerblimp — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 10:09:49 GMT

hy guy's here we are over Copenhagen (Denmark)

nice shots no?

this is our new hybrid zeppelin

now with much more silent 4 stoke motor...

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xb0...e-motor-h_tech

have fun ... i have!

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Question Nylon Ripstop supplier

krazoide — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 11:30:24 GMT

Does anyone know where can I find a Nylon ripstop supplier for blimps?

Discussion Hot Air!

avoidingexpert — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 19:38:10 GMT

I got to see a show on the History Channel last night, Monsterquest. They were looking for the yeti in the Himalayan mountians. I noteced early on they were hailing a huge healum tank ( a unhappy serpa) to inflate a portable camera balloon. I just seems like you would be better of trying to minutareiz a hot air balloon system. I was wondering if anyone had any experience with this they would like to share. Thanks