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Helpful orientation gear...

Discussion in 'Cinestar Misc' started by Benjamin Rowland, Dec 10, 2012.

  1. Benjamin Rowland

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    Over the course of 2012 I've added various items to our Cinestar to aid in orientation and they have become very helpful in the wide variety of situations we've found ourselves shooting in.

    The most helpful was adding monokote coverings to 4 of the booms. I made the trailing boom orange, the lead boom green, and the right and left arm white. I've attached a picture that shows this. You can also check out the reel on our homepage at about the 30 second mark to see it even more clearly.

    orientation.jpg

    On the outside of three of the booms, I have LED lighting strips and I may eventually change these so that they match the monokote booms.

    Just inside of the booms, I've installed LED lights that can be switched off via remote. I have a solid red one in the trailing boom and a solid white one in the left boom and the right boom. They are fairly bright but only when that boom is pointed at you, which is helpful. Since I can switch them off via remote, they double as a safe way to do a range test at a new location. The LEDs were part of this lighting package: http://www.rc-lights.com/products/RCL5324.html

    On our trailing boom, I installed an additional landing gear near the hub that is pointed upwards. It has orange tape on it and has an LED that pulses red wedged inside. This upward pointed landing gear is helpful for orientation, is additional safety when flying under obstacles, and makes a great handle when hiking with the CS on your shoulder. This can be seen in the beginning of this video.


    Hopefully some of this is helpful. It may seem a bit overboard in terms of orientation aids, but for each there have been situations where I was glad I had them.
     
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  2. Steve Maller

    Steve Maller UAV Grief Counselor

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    Whatever you're doing, keep doing it. Your stuff ROCKS! Thank you for the tips!
     
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  3. Andy Johnson-Laird

    Andy Johnson-Laird Administrator
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    Thanks for the posting, Ben.
    Any tips for applying the Monokote?

    I'm still trying to figure the best way to put shrink wrap on the booms without getting some of it that will not shrink down properly.

    Andy.
     
  4. Benjamin Rowland

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    I used a heat gun. But an iron might work better. It definitely wasn't that easy.
     
  5. Pavlos Antoniou

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    Benjamin Rowland and Jeremy Muir like this.
  6. Dave King

    Dave King Well-Known Member

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    Andy

    The heat shrink tubing that comes with the cinestar kit doesn't work well. I didn't even use it, I bought clear heat shrink tubing from Grainger and it worked much better. It shrunk down very tight, no issues. Here's the link to what I bought.

    http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/3M-Thin-Wall-Heat-Shrink-Tubing-30N556?Pid=search
     
  7. Dave King

    Dave King Well-Known Member

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  8. Josh Lambeth

    Josh Lambeth Well-Known Member

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    I use the color tape as well.

    Ben, What type of red strobe are you using? Also what camera was the video in the first post shot on? Awesome footage!

    Josh
     
  9. Andy Johnson-Laird

    Andy Johnson-Laird Administrator
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  10. Gary Haynes

    Gary Haynes Administrator
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    Josh

    I bought a smaller kit from rc-lights and am trying their 3 light controller and several different LED's, strobe, green and red. Also plugged in a pair of Superbrights from NTE. I need to get someone to shoot a picture outside but flying today, first day above 30 in weeks, with all two of the superbrights and one of the strobes from rc-lights the lights were clearly visible and I could tell when the back boom where they were mounted was pointing at me.

    Photo shows them tucked into the rear boom and one with them turned on indoors. Power is off of my main batter harness to a DBCAV voltage regulator adjusted to 5 volts. After I decide on a final setup I'll do a neater more semi-permanent install.

    IMG_0756.JPG IMG_0759.JPG

    Superbrights are 8mm NTE30059.
     
  11. Gary Haynes

    Gary Haynes Administrator
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    Just did another quick test flight. Exchanged the white 8mm for two 4mm red and the white strobe unit from www.rc-lights.com. Think I like the red better. Here's a 15 second video from a Hero2 to give you an idea of the brightness. Distances wer 50-90 feet or thereabouts.

     
  12. Andy Johnson-Laird

    Andy Johnson-Laird Administrator
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    Don't have permission to view the video, Gary! Waaa!

    Andy.
     
  13. Gary Haynes

    Gary Haynes Administrator
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    Try it again and let me know.
     
  14. Andy Johnson-Laird

    Andy Johnson-Laird Administrator
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  15. Gary Haynes

    Gary Haynes Administrator
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    That wide FOV of the Hero doesn't do the reality justice. The two Red LED's just about overwhelm the single white strobe. More of a twinkle than a bright strobe. I to had one of the Flytron's and it doesn't compare. Couldn't see it in daylight more than about 20 feet away.
     
  16. Pavlos Antoniou

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    oups soz for the late reply..!
    I am using HFpro with the stock CF battery tray.. :)
     
  17. Andy Johnson-Laird

    Andy Johnson-Laird Administrator
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    @Gary: Yeah, the Flytron's really don't hack it in daylight, especially not in sunlight.

    Andy.
     
  18. Dave King

    Dave King Well-Known Member

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    Gary do you have a part number for the regulator you used? Did you just wire the regulator in parallel to one of the existing LED's?
     
  19. Gary Haynes

    Gary Haynes Administrator
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    Dave since this was a test I bought the RCL-5075 led controller from www.rc-lights.com (here). The device wants 3.6-7.4 volts and I used an adjustable power converter from DPCAV (here) to put out 6 volts from my main LiPo distribution setup. Alternative might be using the same BEC, like a Castle BEC, to drive the lights along with the Video/Radian. Didn't do that since I didn't know if I would get any noise from the LED strobes. But also didn't test it that way yet.

    After I shot the video I took out the strobe and just left 2 red led's connected. Hard to tell from the video but they are BRIGHT. Much better than a flashing white strobe LED. For my rebuild I just ordered one of their other controllers that has a strobe circuit built in and will try that with the red leds.
     
  20. Dave King

    Dave King Well-Known Member

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    Gary thanks for the sources!!! Did you ever think about supplying the input voltage for the power regulator from the extension PCB board? That way if the LED boom lights start flashing for low power warning the RC lights will also flash? Where did you mount your regulator? Also just curious why the NTE lights and not the 3mm or 5mm lights from RC-lights?
     

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