Failsafe parachute ideas...

thewineguy · Mar 15, 2017

Has anyone tried any parachute mounts to save the drone if a fallout happens? Was thinking about how I could "fallsafe" the drone and create a universal chute that you could activate with the remote.

Murray Martz · Mar 15, 2017

thewineguy said:
Has anyone tried any parachute mounts to save the drone if a fallout happens? Was thinking about how I could "fallsafe" the drone and create a universal chute that you could activate with the remote.

Iguess it would depend on the drone and radio. My Typhoon H uses the ST16, but there are no open channels so I need to use a second radio to do it. I am going to use a cheap radio and servo to pop open the lid for the chute. Making it in a large plastic pill bottle to hold the chute with a high tension spring to propel it out and above the drone.

thewineguy · Mar 15, 2017

Murray Martz said:
Iguess it would depend on the drone and radio. My Typhoon H uses the ST16, but there are no open channels so I need to use a second radio to do it. I am going to use a cheap radio and servo to pop open the lid for the chute. Making it in a large plastic pill bottle to hold the chute with a high tension spring to propel it out and above the drone.

Sounds interesting.. upload pics once you have it done please... I have a friend that is an electrical engineer and I have him working on a chute system

Steve Carr · Mar 15, 2017

Most chutes will deploy a few seconds after impact.

Eagle's Eye Video · Mar 16, 2017

Steve Carr said:
Most chutes will deploy a few seconds after impact.

or how many times the lines would just get tangled in the arms/props creating a falling pig in a blanket...
6 motors and the ability to maintain control with 5 is your redundancy, not a chute. I'd have to see a lot of
video documentation of successful deployments from users, to even consider it.

gwhuntoon · Mar 16, 2017

The Hubsan X4 Pro has one which I think was debuted at the 2015 CES. It has to be armed and when the drone hits a 90° pitch it deploys automatically. I'm sure this chute is much too small for the Q500 or H though.

Amazon.com: Hubsan H109S-27 Parachute Recovery System X4 Pro: Toys & Games

gwhuntoon · Mar 16, 2017

Here's another one for DJI and other larger drones
MarsParachutes.com

skrubol · Mar 16, 2017

Eagle's Eye Video said:
or how many times the lines would just get tangled in the arms/props creating a falling pig in a blanket...
6 motors and the ability to maintain control with 5 is your redundancy, not a chute. I'd have to see a lot of
video documentation of successful deployments from users, to even consider it.

Q500's only have 4 motors..

Eagle's Eye Video · Mar 17, 2017

skrubol said:
Q500's only have 4 motors..

Yes I understand that, and that was one of the reasons that I chose to go with the Typhoon H... I guess was I was saying was,
if the possibility of failure can be minimized by going with a hex design, I would (and did) opt for that, before trying a chute system,
unless there was sufficient previously documented success with such a system.

skrubol · Mar 20, 2017

Eagle's Eye Video said:
Yes I understand that, and that was one of the reasons that I chose to go with the Typhoon H... I guess was I was saying was,
if the possibility of failure can be minimized by going with a hex design, I would (and did) opt for that, before trying a chute system,
unless there was sufficient previously documented success with such a system.

There I'll agree with you. Adding redundancy is easier than adding a relatively complicated layer of safeguard (that could cause as many problems as it solves.)