@@PS-nf3xw Yes, I'm trying to put enough information out there that people could make their own blimps and fly them around. I did make a tutorial on how to make an envelope. The tutorial uses cheap safety blanket mylar, but the same basic technique works with a wide variety of materials. You can see it here: th-cam.com/video/56KqPMobyJw/w-d-xo.html
@@BaccaYarro yes, I saw that. Quite informative. But the silver foil makes visibility bit low. An instructable helps to make references easier. Further, you may also do something on heat sealables. But ofcourse take your time, quality over quantity.
Quite epic indeed. The new royal navy ship you have showcased here is quite the looker! Although I must ask what resource pack you are using. I have never seen minecraft in such a high resolution before.
I wonder about rolling the entire body, so there's just one long blade jutting out the side. That way, the blimp doesn't need to be very stiff. You just have a ring around the body, or a spar through the body. The blade on one side is counterbalanced by the battery and control electronics on the other side. You mount an off-the-shelf motor/prop to the blade. The blade zooms around the blimp at airplane speeds, so there's no need for gearing or anything. It's basically like a simple airplane flying around the waist of the blimp. This system places the prop some distance away from the blimp's skin, so it should be pretty robust. The blade could include a flexible wire bumper to prevent hard impacts. For control, you cyclically "pulse" the motor as it goes around the waist. It's kind of like a sideways helicopter, with just one blade.
I sketched how this waist fin would work: pluspora.com/posts/a81c5ab06b1e01391f5f005056264835 To make the "blade" easier to make and mount, it's a helical strip of plastic cut from a drink bottle. That way, it can be attached simply with two pieces of tape. The helical shape gives two attachment points a lot of leverage, but it still has a lot of "bounce" for dealing with collisions. The motor/prop is attached to this helix. You do want to pay attention and turn off the prop if it's about to hit something (like the ground). But other than that, it should take collisions all day no problem. The battery and electronics are taped to the opposite side of the bag for balance. You only need two lines, wired directly to the motor. Hmm ... you could even run the lines around the waist in opposite directions, which might be a convenient way to tape the battery/electronics to the bag. So basically, the lines are pretty short, and there's no need for dead weight to balance anything because it's all around the waist. The prop spins fast. The blade spins slow. No need for gearing losses or noise.
Bacca, youve made me obsessed with airships! How about adding a ducted propeller to improve efficiency? Would it be benificial to have the propeller in the very centre of the structure so it becomes an elongated toroid? And what safety systems could be used to allow hydrogen to be used as a lifting gas once again?
I am curious to the pros and cons of using a ducted fan instead of an open prop. Also curious about the pros and cons of using dual coaxial counter rotating props. The second counter rotating prop ought to be able to extract a lot of thrust from the wake of the first prop.
Very interesting listening to you explain this! Keep up the good work Bacca! Which out of curiousity what about just forgetting the propeller and put a jet turbine or rocket on a blimp instead? lol
I actually would like to see a serious attempt at high speed airships. In theory it should be possible if the (admittedly pretty difficult) problem of making the structure strong enough can be overcome.
@@BaccaYarro I wanna see that too, idk why no one has seriously attempted those AFAIK (even now, 5 years later). I guess because they might gain most lift aerodynamically and wind up just being useless as a result? still worth a shot, maybe carbon fiber could work for the structure?
Another possibly dumb question. I first found this channel because I wanted to make a blimplike drone, but I wanted to see how feasible using an air bladder for up/down movement would be? Something like a pump connected to a balloon. The problem with this design (I think) is that it would not work unless your hull had no give. If your hull is expanding/contracting along with your air bladder, the air density inside would be mostly unchanged. I'm not sure what type of materials a person could even use that would be lightweight enough, and also stiff enough. You might have to scale it up to an unreasonable size to hit the sweet spot.
Where do you get all this in-depth information Blimp God? Never have I come across such detail before. Can you recommend any further watching/reading etc? Fascinating stuff! Thank you 🙌🙌🙌
So I'm trying to do something similar, but I don't understand the power leads going to the tail. It seems that there would have to be power to the tail from the batt, and then power back to the receiver from the ESC. I'm not very conversational with these systems, could you splain it to me? I want to have a 2s batt powering my system but have the BEC supply 3.7 to the motor. Maybe I'm trying to do something that requires more wires.
Where do you get the foil that you use for the envelopes of your airships, and how does one get their hands on polyethylene coated aluminum foil for an airship envelope?
The airship pictured was made using Dyneema Composite Fabric. That is expensive and difficult to work with, but makes the strongest and lightest envelopes I am aware of. I recommend beginners use aluminized mylar, which is much cheaper and easier to work with. I made a video talking about how to make an envelope using safety blanket mylar, which you can find here: th-cam.com/video/56KqPMobyJw/w-d-xo.html. It sounds like you may be referring to "balloon foil", which is basically aluminized nylon with a heat sealable layer which I think may be polyethylene. Unfortunately the one guy that used to sell that material to the public no longer does. There is a guy in the UK I know of that will sell it, but he doesn't have an online shop.It's on a person by person basis.
I did a little testing, and airsoft pellets will penetrate a simple safety blanket mylar envelope. Actual drones shooting each other down sounds like a lot of fun >.>
Maybe this is a dumb question, but If you use copper rods as support for your structure, could you also use them to transport power to the back propeller? Replacing most of the wire and therefore weight?
How do they scale? Presumably doubling the gas volume is also going to hugely increase the weight of the balloon? Is there some kind of ratio? And then you also presumably need more, and more rigid, materials as the craft increases in volume?
Yes, in general airships scale very well from a physics standpoint. Volume increases with the cube of scale, while surface area (IE: envelope weight) increases with the square of scale. That is a simplification, there are other factors. Past a certain size blimps no longer make sense, and rigids are lighter and stronger. And the big one for me is large airships are expensive and difficult to manage. And, if filled with Hydrogen, dangerous.
Hello Sir if you made envelopes that would have hooks on the outside, which would allow frames and decorations to be put outside of the blimp in order to perhaps create airship pirates with models, like thomas and friends.
Thks: I want to make a drone airship & have a few requests/questions. 1 ?Hows-abouts a TH-cam playlist on your blimp drone? 2 ?Where do I find the best DIY info? 3 Thks again
A playlist is a good idea. I want to make a new channel, although I that will mean losing any subscribers. You may want to look at the Silent Runner project here: www.silent-runner.net/index.php/Main_Page Which has some instructions. That isn't my page, but I know the guys that run it. That project assumes you can get weldable balloon foil. I also made a video showing how to make an envelope with cheap emergency blanket Mylar: th-cam.com/video/56KqPMobyJw/w-d-xo.html
Not a stupid question at all. Unfortunately the motors we have available are terribly inefficient at low RPM. Some of that is because the motors are designed for airplanes, which want higher pitch speed with lower thrust than blimps do. And some of that is simple mechanical limitations. Small diameter stators just naturally want to spin faster.
That envelope is a custom made composite of PVOH (polyvinyl alcohol) and DCF (Dyneema Composite Fabric, itself a composite of UHMWPE fibers in between thin BoPET layers). The PVOH is a gas barrier, and the DCF is lightweight and high tensile strength. The material is difficult to work with, but extremely light. About 14 grams per square meter combined. Compare that to about 30 grams per square meter for typical "balloon foil". The sealing was done using Hysol U-09LV glue. The envelope was 2 meters by 0.33 meters, and had a volume of 0.1 m3.
how do you do the elevation(ascend and descend) for your ships? never quite figured that out also wouldnt it be possible to make the envalope out of say aluminum sheets to act as armor(from say airsoft guns) ? same principles, dont armor the bottom or other places that dont really get hit
Well, make it out of Dyneema like the blimp you see here and I don't think airsoft guns could penetrate it. But that's no fun... :P You ascend and descend simply by pointing the blimp up or down, it doesn't have complicated balloonets or anything like that.
I have worked on making a duct blimp, and succeeded in making one of them. I think there is potential there and would like to explore it further once I finish a few other things.
Hi. Do someone have a .craft files ? I made my own server with movecraft, but i do not have a .craft files. Dropbox link is not working. If someone have them, please contact me.
You are now the TH-cam authority on blimps
High praise indeed :D
Well deserved in my opinion! I urge you to make an instructable of some kind.
@@PS-nf3xw Yes, I'm trying to put enough information out there that people could make their own blimps and fly them around. I did make a tutorial on how to make an envelope. The tutorial uses cheap safety blanket mylar, but the same basic technique works with a wide variety of materials. You can see it here:
th-cam.com/video/56KqPMobyJw/w-d-xo.html
@@BaccaYarro yes, I saw that. Quite informative. But the silver foil makes visibility bit low. An instructable helps to make references easier. Further, you may also do something on heat sealables. But ofcourse take your time, quality over quantity.
This is so cool! So glad to see more of these blimp videos
Great overview. Accurate and very practical considerations.
Quite epic indeed. The new royal navy ship you have showcased here is quite the looker! Although I must ask what resource pack you are using. I have never seen minecraft in such a high resolution before.
super i fallow your videos since3 years. first video solar blimp. this also a legendary
Man, you are the best. Looking forward for new videos about the blimps
I wonder about rolling the entire body, so there's just one long blade jutting out the side. That way, the blimp doesn't need to be very stiff. You just have a ring around the body, or a spar through the body. The blade on one side is counterbalanced by the battery and control electronics on the other side.
You mount an off-the-shelf motor/prop to the blade. The blade zooms around the blimp at airplane speeds, so there's no need for gearing or anything. It's basically like a simple airplane flying around the waist of the blimp.
This system places the prop some distance away from the blimp's skin, so it should be pretty robust. The blade could include a flexible wire bumper to prevent hard impacts.
For control, you cyclically "pulse" the motor as it goes around the waist. It's kind of like a sideways helicopter, with just one blade.
I sketched how this waist fin would work: pluspora.com/posts/a81c5ab06b1e01391f5f005056264835
To make the "blade" easier to make and mount, it's a helical strip of plastic cut from a drink bottle. That way, it can be attached simply with two pieces of tape. The helical shape gives two attachment points a lot of leverage, but it still has a lot of "bounce" for dealing with collisions. The motor/prop is attached to this helix. You do want to pay attention and turn off the prop if it's about to hit something (like the ground). But other than that, it should take collisions all day no problem.
The battery and electronics are taped to the opposite side of the bag for balance. You only need two lines, wired directly to the motor. Hmm ... you could even run the lines around the waist in opposite directions, which might be a convenient way to tape the battery/electronics to the bag.
So basically, the lines are pretty short, and there's no need for dead weight to balance anything because it's all around the waist.
The prop spins fast. The blade spins slow. No need for gearing losses or noise.
Bacca, youve made me obsessed with airships!
How about adding a ducted propeller to improve efficiency?
Would it be benificial to have the propeller in the very centre of the structure so it becomes an elongated toroid?
And what safety systems could be used to allow hydrogen to be used as a lifting gas once again?
This is great!
I am curious to the pros and cons of using a ducted fan instead of an open prop. Also curious about the pros and cons of using dual coaxial counter rotating props. The second counter rotating prop ought to be able to extract a lot of thrust from the wake of the first prop.
God, so much useful information. THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!
Please publish something for us for diy, like a 3 gore envelope tutorial for say the 'silent runner'
At what point does the blimp become a proper dirigible? Is a more rigid structure desirable for aerodynamic purposes?
Dorigible basically means when your 'thing' becomes controllable or drivable. It has technically nothing to do with rigidity.
Dirigible pretty much includes blimps and airships, when controllable, but airships are rigid.
Very interesting listening to you explain this! Keep up the good work Bacca!
Which out of curiousity what about just forgetting the propeller and put a jet turbine or rocket on a blimp instead? lol
I actually would like to see a serious attempt at high speed airships. In theory it should be possible if the (admittedly pretty difficult) problem of making the structure strong enough can be overcome.
@@Jarred-J254 Airships are hard to sheild due to size and life issues.
@@BaccaYarro I wanna see that too, idk why no one has seriously attempted those AFAIK (even now, 5 years later). I guess because they might gain most lift aerodynamically and wind up just being useless as a result? still worth a shot, maybe carbon fiber could work for the structure?
Another possibly dumb question. I first found this channel because I wanted to make a blimplike drone, but I wanted to see how feasible using an air bladder for up/down movement would be? Something like a pump connected to a balloon. The problem with this design (I think) is that it would not work unless your hull had no give. If your hull is expanding/contracting along with your air bladder, the air density inside would be mostly unchanged. I'm not sure what type of materials a person could even use that would be lightweight enough, and also stiff enough. You might have to scale it up to an unreasonable size to hit the sweet spot.
Putting the propeller within the blimp has the best conditions when it comes to wind hitting the propeller
Nice video
thank you for this useful info, great job!
Where do you get all this in-depth information Blimp God? Never have I come across such detail before. Can you recommend any further watching/reading etc? Fascinating stuff! Thank you 🙌🙌🙌
So I'm trying to do something similar, but I don't understand the power leads going to the tail. It seems that there would have to be power to the tail from the batt, and then power back to the receiver from the ESC. I'm not very conversational with these systems, could you splain it to me? I want to have a 2s batt powering my system but have the BEC supply 3.7 to the motor. Maybe I'm trying to do something that requires more wires.
Where do you get the foil that you use for the envelopes of your airships, and how does one get their hands on polyethylene coated aluminum foil for an airship envelope?
The airship pictured was made using Dyneema Composite Fabric. That is expensive and difficult to work with, but makes the strongest and lightest envelopes I am aware of. I recommend beginners use aluminized mylar, which is much cheaper and easier to work with. I made a video talking about how to make an envelope using safety blanket mylar, which you can find here: th-cam.com/video/56KqPMobyJw/w-d-xo.html. It sounds like you may be referring to "balloon foil", which is basically aluminized nylon with a heat sealable layer which I think may be polyethylene. Unfortunately the one guy that used to sell that material to the public no longer does. There is a guy in the UK I know of that will sell it, but he doesn't have an online shop.It's on a person by person basis.
Seems like everyone is using external wool these days..
Could you shape a blimp to be a lifting body?
could it confuse radar if we glued some aluminium tabe strips under it?
Beautiful!
You should make 2 blimps, and put mini-airsoft turrets on them, and then get someone else to fly one, and then battle
I did a little testing, and airsoft pellets will penetrate a simple safety blanket mylar envelope. Actual drones shooting each other down sounds like a lot of fun >.>
Maybe this is a dumb question, but If you use copper rods as support for your structure, could you also use them to transport power to the back propeller? Replacing most of the wire and therefore weight?
How do they scale? Presumably doubling the gas volume is also going to hugely increase the weight of the balloon? Is there some kind of ratio? And then you also presumably need more, and more rigid, materials as the craft increases in volume?
Yes, in general airships scale very well from a physics standpoint. Volume increases with the cube of scale, while surface area (IE: envelope weight) increases with the square of scale. That is a simplification, there are other factors. Past a certain size blimps no longer make sense, and rigids are lighter and stronger. And the big one for me is large airships are expensive and difficult to manage. And, if filled with Hydrogen, dangerous.
Bacca will you ever look at airship pirates again
Hello Sir if you made envelopes that would have hooks on the outside, which would allow frames and decorations to be put outside of the blimp in order to perhaps create airship pirates with models, like thomas and friends.
A 2nd prop at the front would give counter rotation, balance, increased speed, and improve airflow.
Thks:
I want to make a drone airship & have a few requests/questions.
1 ?Hows-abouts a TH-cam playlist on your blimp drone?
2 ?Where do I find the best DIY info?
3 Thks again
A playlist is a good idea. I want to make a new channel, although I that will mean losing any subscribers. You may want to look at the Silent Runner project here: www.silent-runner.net/index.php/Main_Page
Which has some instructions. That isn't my page, but I know the guys that run it. That project assumes you can get weldable balloon foil. I also made a video showing how to make an envelope with cheap emergency blanket Mylar:
th-cam.com/video/56KqPMobyJw/w-d-xo.html
Have you come across any hybrid airfoil and also this new induction hairdryer as thrust?
th-cam.com/video/pXRxjckDYgU/w-d-xo.html
Nice landscape at 0:25: where is it?
This is probably a stupid question but instead of a gear to slow the RPM couldn't one just lower the power to the propeller so it is spinning slower?
Not a stupid question at all. Unfortunately the motors we have available are terribly inefficient at low RPM. Some of that is because the motors are designed for airplanes, which want higher pitch speed with lower thrust than blimps do. And some of that is simple mechanical limitations. Small diameter stators just naturally want to spin faster.
What material is used for the envelope. The technical name, the market name, important dimensions, and the sealing.
That envelope is a custom made composite of PVOH (polyvinyl alcohol) and DCF (Dyneema Composite Fabric, itself a composite of UHMWPE fibers in between thin BoPET layers). The PVOH is a gas barrier, and the DCF is lightweight and high tensile strength. The material is difficult to work with, but extremely light. About 14 grams per square meter combined. Compare that to about 30 grams per square meter for typical "balloon foil". The sealing was done using Hysol U-09LV glue. The envelope was 2 meters by 0.33 meters, and had a volume of 0.1 m3.
nice. how much usable payload ?
☑cool!
hi. Can you tell me the name of the motor and prop you used? I am building a blimp. A link would be helpful
I had a Ida that it should be a wing s it makes lift
What Material do you use for Hull? 🤔
how do you do the elevation(ascend and descend) for your ships? never quite figured that out
also wouldnt it be possible to make the envalope out of say aluminum sheets to act as armor(from say airsoft guns) ? same principles, dont armor the bottom or other places that dont really get hit
Well, make it out of Dyneema like the blimp you see here and I don't think airsoft guns could penetrate it. But that's no fun... :P You ascend and descend simply by pointing the blimp up or down, it doesn't have complicated balloonets or anything like that.
How about an internal ducted fan at CG with the duct running from nose to tail? 🤔
I have worked on making a duct blimp, and succeeded in making one of them. I think there is potential there and would like to explore it further once I finish a few other things.
top speed?
What is the music you use in the video?
Good math
Hi. Do someone have a .craft files ? I made my own server with movecraft, but i do not have a .craft files. Dropbox link is not working. If someone have them, please contact me.
yess this is the shit
When I heard 3D Printable I lost interest.