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This Ible describes the build of indoor RC blimp propulsion around 10g, suitable for use with a common 11” latex balloon. With a 14” or larger balloon it has a payload capacity for a miniature camera for living room (or workshop) aerial filming.
Building tiny RC blimps has become very accessible with the ultra micro RC-gear available today at affordable prices. Plantraco’s awesome Nanoblimp, a RTF featherweight dog fighting champion, illustrates that. It is just new on the market and if I see it right it must be under 6g, allowing for the use of a 9” balloon. It follows the line set with Plantraco’s earlier Microblimp, with its gondola at 10-12g. The Ballooncraft micro blimp on the other hand has been on the market for quite a while, but using a 17” balloon (putting it near 30g without payload), that’s has become a heavyweight in the Microblimp League.
Anyway it is always more fun making one yourself. For me the trigger was the market appearance of the wonderful tiny DelTang DSM2 receivers, with a weight of 0.23g or 0.65g including connectors. And hacking sub micro servos makes the rest of the build quite simple.You only need to be willing to work with the tiny gear, keeping the total weight near or under 10 g (situating it between Plantraco’s Microblimp and Nanoblimp). Check it out in this video:
I have been building indoor RC blimps for about 12 years now, and dismantling servos has often been the main source for reversible motor controllers and small motors, mainly for the for the tail rotors. For this project the complete three axis propulsion is based on hacked servos.
The servo circuits do not give a perfect proportional control. Actually the concept makes use of the imperfect on/off working of these circuits. In a servo, gets power as soon as the potentiometer is not in the desired position corresponding to the transmitter’s stick position (for some more "theory of operation" on servos check here). But the analogue circuits in ordinary servos do not give full power when the deviation is small. The ones in digital servos do, so these are not suitable for this hack.
As people building tiny RC stuff know, at this scale wiring and connectors become important in the weight. But for this Ible I kept things basic,holding on to the connectors and avoiding soldering. In general soldering is not difficult, but at this scale it does need some experience and the right gear. Obviously this means there is some room for further weight loss, and in step 7 I list some tips for more experienced builders.
You can fly your blimp around in at home and if you have two you can go for a "Plantraco style dogfight" attaching a short pin on the front of each balloon.
Or you can go for a payload version and add a miniature camera. With a large enough balloon a wireless camera is possible, but I kept to a miniature recording camera giving a total weight for camera + propulsion of about 20 g (see last step). Here is a video of the camera version:
If you like this Ible, please don’t forget to give it your vote. Many thanks for your attention!
Building tiny RC blimps has become very accessible with the ultra micro RC-gear available today at affordable prices. Plantraco’s awesome Nanoblimp, a RTF featherweight dog fighting champion, illustrates that. It is just new on the market and if I see it right it must be under 6g, allowing for the use of a 9” balloon. It follows the line set with Plantraco’s earlier Microblimp, with its gondola at 10-12g. The Ballooncraft micro blimp on the other hand has been on the market for quite a while, but using a 17” balloon (putting it near 30g without payload), that’s has become a heavyweight in the Microblimp League.
Anyway it is always more fun making one yourself. For me the trigger was the market appearance of the wonderful tiny DelTang DSM2 receivers, with a weight of 0.23g or 0.65g including connectors. And hacking sub micro servos makes the rest of the build quite simple.You only need to be willing to work with the tiny gear, keeping the total weight near or under 10 g (situating it between Plantraco’s Microblimp and Nanoblimp). Check it out in this video:
I have been building indoor RC blimps for about 12 years now, and dismantling servos has often been the main source for reversible motor controllers and small motors, mainly for the for the tail rotors. For this project the complete three axis propulsion is based on hacked servos.
The servo circuits do not give a perfect proportional control. Actually the concept makes use of the imperfect on/off working of these circuits. In a servo, gets power as soon as the potentiometer is not in the desired position corresponding to the transmitter’s stick position (for some more "theory of operation" on servos check here). But the analogue circuits in ordinary servos do not give full power when the deviation is small. The ones in digital servos do, so these are not suitable for this hack.
As people building tiny RC stuff know, at this scale wiring and connectors become important in the weight. But for this Ible I kept things basic,holding on to the connectors and avoiding soldering. In general soldering is not difficult, but at this scale it does need some experience and the right gear. Obviously this means there is some room for further weight loss, and in step 7 I list some tips for more experienced builders.
You can fly your blimp around in at home and if you have two you can go for a "Plantraco style dogfight" attaching a short pin on the front of each balloon.
Or you can go for a payload version and add a miniature camera. With a large enough balloon a wireless camera is possible, but I kept to a miniature recording camera giving a total weight for camera + propulsion of about 20 g (see last step). Here is a video of the camera version:
If you like this Ible, please don’t forget to give it your vote. Many thanks for your attention!
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Signing UpStep 1Required RC gear
Three ultra micro servos at around 2.5g or less: I used the ones branded Blue Arrow. These allow for an easy fit of the propellers (motor shaft of 0.7 mm).
An ultra micro receiver: I used DelTang Rx33. In any case, chose one below 2g and working on a single LiPo cell (commonly referred to as 1s). Actually many receivers do work on 1s, even if not documented as such. Make sure your servos’ and receiver’s connectors are compatible, or you’re in for some soldering after all. Both the DelTang DSM2 receivers and the blue arrow servos come in a number of connector versions. Specialised online shops like Micron Radio Control. Plantraco or Aether Sciences RC can help in this.
Obviously you will need a compatible transmitter. The simplest one with 3 or more channels will suffice.
A 70 to 140 mAh 1s lipo battery (and a suitable charger): The smallest batteries (around 2.5 g for a 70 mAh) are needed to keep the weight under 10g. A larger battery obviously gives you a longer flight time, but even as flight time is very dependent on flying style, it is easily half an hour with a 125 mAh (weighing 3.5g). A smaller battery will still easily last 15 min or more and it will make a latex balloon last longer (making room for more ballast to compensate for lost helium).
Leads to connect your battery to your receiver (again the specialist RC shop can help in this).
Three small propellers: I used the Plantraco 32 mm “butterfly” propellers. These are some amazing high performance tiny propellers that fit a 0.7mm shaft. The "AES-H34 - Hélice Micro" from Aether Sciences RC looks very suitable too.
A 1mm carbon rod, about 30 cm long
A piece of Depron, about 10 cm by 10 cm, 1mm thick (if not available 3mm thick Depron can be used too).
Some putty as ballast.
Finally, you will need some cellophane tape (sellotape, scotch tape), a pair of small pliers, a couple of small elastic band, superglue and a pair of scissors. A scale, accurate to 0.1g or better, comes in handy. Soldering is optional.
The balloon is described in the next step, the camera and related stuf is described in the last step.
If you already have a transmitter and a charger for the flight battery, the materials needed will cost up to 80 EUR. If you source your servos and propellers cheap you can bring this down significantly. If on top of that you go for a slightly larger version with a 2g receiver, you can you bring it down to under 30 EUR.
A suitable transmitter and charger shouldn’t set you back more than 50 EUR. That is slightly more than the complete Plantraco NanoBlimp, but then we are talking of a DSM2 system, with far more than 4 frequencies available.
An ultra micro receiver: I used DelTang Rx33. In any case, chose one below 2g and working on a single LiPo cell (commonly referred to as 1s). Actually many receivers do work on 1s, even if not documented as such. Make sure your servos’ and receiver’s connectors are compatible, or you’re in for some soldering after all. Both the DelTang DSM2 receivers and the blue arrow servos come in a number of connector versions. Specialised online shops like Micron Radio Control. Plantraco or Aether Sciences RC can help in this.
Obviously you will need a compatible transmitter. The simplest one with 3 or more channels will suffice.
A 70 to 140 mAh 1s lipo battery (and a suitable charger): The smallest batteries (around 2.5 g for a 70 mAh) are needed to keep the weight under 10g. A larger battery obviously gives you a longer flight time, but even as flight time is very dependent on flying style, it is easily half an hour with a 125 mAh (weighing 3.5g). A smaller battery will still easily last 15 min or more and it will make a latex balloon last longer (making room for more ballast to compensate for lost helium).
Leads to connect your battery to your receiver (again the specialist RC shop can help in this).
Three small propellers: I used the Plantraco 32 mm “butterfly” propellers. These are some amazing high performance tiny propellers that fit a 0.7mm shaft. The "AES-H34 - Hélice Micro" from Aether Sciences RC looks very suitable too.
A 1mm carbon rod, about 30 cm long
A piece of Depron, about 10 cm by 10 cm, 1mm thick (if not available 3mm thick Depron can be used too).
Some putty as ballast.
Finally, you will need some cellophane tape (sellotape, scotch tape), a pair of small pliers, a couple of small elastic band, superglue and a pair of scissors. A scale, accurate to 0.1g or better, comes in handy. Soldering is optional.
The balloon is described in the next step, the camera and related stuf is described in the last step.
If you already have a transmitter and a charger for the flight battery, the materials needed will cost up to 80 EUR. If you source your servos and propellers cheap you can bring this down significantly. If on top of that you go for a slightly larger version with a 2g receiver, you can you bring it down to under 30 EUR.
A suitable transmitter and charger shouldn’t set you back more than 50 EUR. That is slightly more than the complete Plantraco NanoBlimp, but then we are talking of a DSM2 system, with far more than 4 frequencies available.
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What do you want your servo to do? Just run continuously in one direction? Run it from one direction to another or have it make controlled movements as a servo originally does (but without an RC receiver I suppose)?
thank u
To make controlled movements without a receiver or Arduino, you will need a so called servo tester. You can buy one ready made, build it from a kit or build it from scratch like this simple one.
Hacking a micro servo for continuous rotation, is done just the same way as for standard servo's. This is just one of many descriptions available. Many hacks, like the one mentioned above are meant for use with a receiver, an Arduino or a servo tester. If you want to run it without, you need to remove all electronics and connect directly to the motor. Like this. With this option changing the direction of rotation is done by reversing the polarity, for example with a switch wired like this.
I hope this gets you started.
Succes!
Thanks
You're close. Indeed, you take out all the gears and keep the motor and the potentiometer AND the servo electronics. The latter serves as reversible throttle output (with the potentiometer determining the middle zero throttle point). The servo's original lead is attached to any channel output of the receiver, just as a normal servo.
Some receivers have built in speed control, which you could call a direct throttle output. That is not used in this concept. It is used in the alternative shown in step 7, but then a motor (possibly also from a servo, but without the potentiometer and without the electronics) is connected to that output directly.
One can build airplanes or helicopters suitable for flying at home, in your living room, but that is something quite different.
really liked this instructable! keep up the great work.
Indeed, once you start soldering, enamel coated wire is the way to go.
Im intrigued about the filming aspect of it, so I went looking for a vid on YT of that camera - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEupsuwdFQo
This quality isn't half bad, and only has poor panning performance due to not being able to encode the rapid image changes, or no able to write to the memory card quick enough.
Are you seeing this quality, because I wouldn't be at all disappointed to see that quality in something costing a tenner!
I'm still not sure about water on the camera component itself. Will its lens and packaging protect the sensor? It could very well be, but I wouldn't be surprised if water gets in by some capillary effect. It should be dust tight, but not necessarily waterproof. What do you think?
But indeed, at this price...
I actually bought one of the 808 cameras since your recommendation, thinking for the future as I want to build an RC blimp too.
I have to say, the footage from my camera is about as good as some of the YT vids make out.
Looking at the footage from your camera, I'd have to say your footage doesn't look as good as mine. The image quality is about the same, but yours appears to be recording at a much lower Frames Per Second rate.
It could be the camera itself, or it could be a very slow memory card.
I bought mine off Ebay for £11, and I chose an auction that came also with a 4GB card bundled!
Dare I suggest it, but you might want to look at buying another of the 808 cams, or at least changing over the uSD card.
The footage is definitely lacking in the fine detail areas of the footage, but I really couldn't be much happier with it for the price.
I'm also thinking of getting hold of the slightly costlier genuine 720p models, which look really impressive for the price.
...
Is there any news on your wide angle lens yet? The angle on mine is quite limiting I have to say.
In the meantime the lens arrived. I will test it soon.
Following your recommendations, I checked the micro SD card and although it is a class 6 (good sequential writing speed), it has a pretty low random writing speed.
So I will try and pick up a better micro SD card and do some tests.
Thanks for the input!
When looking through with the naked eye I wouldn't call what I see a spectacular fish eye effect either. The distortion is more obvious at the edges.
With cap, string, jelly ring removed and eyelet cut off, it weighs 2.1 g. Maybe I can remove some more plastic.
Whatever increase in viewing angle you can get, the better.
Can you let us know where you got this 'jelly lens' from?
I was thinking actually what if you put a small bulbous drop of water on the basic lens? I will get round to trying that myself probably tomorrow. Of course its not a very permanent or resilient solution, its worth a try and the surface tension might last for one whole flight.
.
For your info, the ebay seller bundled in the uSD card, its a non-branded ebay job, marked at class 4. But is clearly sufficient.
Whilst more expensive, its always worth going for a well branded card such as a sandisk. If the price gets a bit silly, perhaps its worth upgrading to a true 720p 808 keyfob camera! :-)
Do you plan for any protection of the camera from water?
Hi
I just tried the drop of water approach, no real joy.
I used a very sharp implement and let a tap drip onto the end until a drop was suspended, then guided it into the lens opening. Tried this three times.
The first and second attempts resulted in totally blurred video, I had managed to smear the water all around the lens casing.
The third attempt resulted in a perfect dome of water protruding from the lens casing, It gave the video a well focused image, but it wasn't at all 'fisheyed' or wider at all, and it had the side effect of weird lighting anomalies entering the lens. I think part of the problem is that the lens is slightly recessed into the lens casing, making it difficult to get water right onto all the glass.
I also accidentally let a load of water into the keyfob casing, some of it got onto the circuit board, I dried it off, and its still working fine.
By the way, a simple dab with a piece of kitchen roll cleared the water from the lens completely, the quality has returned to normal, dare I say it, a little better!
Oh well, perhaps you might get better luck, its all down to getting the water to completely cover the lens glass, and make an almost perfectly round dome of water protrude, I got the dome, but it clearly didn't get to all the glass.
Yeah there could be an issue with the vibration.
But ultimately we're talking about only micro-litres of water, so it would be nearly impossible to short circuit any part of a modern production PCB.
The boards are designed with multiple layers of material, one of which is that green protection layer. Sure enough there are bare metal solder areas, but drops of water would have to miraculously bridge a connection between two of these spots to *potentially* cause an issue - but remember also that electricity always takes the easiest path, and an intact PCB offers the electrons a far better path to follow than through water with a relatively higher resistance.
Still I admit all this is theory only! ;-)
If you're concerned about it, I would imagine a small amount of clingfilm sandwich wrap, surrounding the camera PCB, would suffice.
.
Today I've bought myself some small props, and some 175mAH LIPO batteries from a nearby helicopter shop! My blimp build is nearly in progress! ;-)
If you wish, you could get almost the same concept as mine if you take the servo motors out of the receiver unit and fit them with propellors. You will need to solder longer leads, at least to the tail motor though.
Yours is definitely the best method. Very, very clever!
Cheers!
Site
The control is made quite easy by adding the tail fin.
BTW its sellotape, not cellotape, that must be tape for repairing a certain musical instrument! ;-)
I made corrections. I hope I did not miss one.
hihihihihi lol :)
I see three approaches:
1. Use a sensor to actively control height (set destance from the ceiling should be sufficient and relatively simple) and one or more front (and maybe back) sensors to avoid obstacles. The bouncy character of a balloon makes this all less critical.
2. You mainly count on near neutral floating and bouncing from obstacles and give the blimp some purpose, some stimuli like Ollie. The path of the blimp will be "bouncy", but it will get there. Actually that seems easier than option 1, as you take advantage of the properties of the balloon.
3. A combination of 1. and 2.
In any case I would protect the propellers from hitting anything (or use fins like Ollie). And as you will need more and somewhat heavier gear you will need a larger balloon, closer to conventional indoor RC blimps (range of 36" round balloons)
Veerle xx