RC India

RC Equipments => Tools, Materials and Building Techniques => Topic started by: avinashpudi on September 03, 2016, 06:19:28 PM



Title: Material For Blimps
Post by: avinashpudi on September 03, 2016, 06:19:28 PM
Hii i am not new to rc flying now my interest turned towards blimps. I came to know that ripstop nylon and mylar material are used for making them, but i am un-able to find that material. Can you guys please help me with that? Right now i am living in mumbai


Title: Re: Material For Blimps
Post by: Mohammed Naveed on September 04, 2016, 04:15:38 PM
blimps are beautiful flying  machines . i wanted to make a blimp myself but scraped the idea for two main reasons.

1) the amount of helium needed to fill a blimp is a a lot. the price to get that much amount of helium is too expensive

2) the material that i have tried working is mylar. you can get mylar from space blankets they look like silver foils. the issue is to make the blimp envelope the mylar has to be heat stuck together much like covering an aircraft with monokote. the issue is the space blankets dont have any heat contact adhesive to them so they cant be heat stuck together.

this is why i didn't proceed further with blimps.

to make a blimp you need to have helium which you can get from a balloon store and the mylar that you need should have heat activating adhesive.

There isnt much data regarding blimps on this forum.


Title: Re: Material For Blimps
Post by: avinashpudi on September 04, 2016, 04:22:58 PM
Thanks for ua valuable advice. I think materials for blimps and parachutes are same and I found some stores for parachute material in Mumbai I think they may work. I will go to store on Tuesday. Hoping that this will work.


Title: Re: Material For Blimps
Post by: sanjayrai55 on September 04, 2016, 05:39:50 PM
Helium will definitely permeate through parachute material

With the second lowest molecular weight of any molecule, Helium is commonly used in leak detector testing as the small molecule can escape through the nanometer sized pinholes.Especially used for steel vessels for high pressure hazardous gases eg Uranium Hexaflouride

http://www.heliumleakdetection.net/Helium-Leak-Testing/what-is-helium-leak-detection.html


Title: Re:
Post by: v2 eagle on September 04, 2016, 09:24:05 PM
One info learned today. You can fill hydrogen in small sized blimp despite its explosive nature. Cheaper too. You can make a structure like blimp out of cf rod and cover the outer with any covering and use large balloons to fill h2 and place them inside similar to zepplines. A bit eloborate task but foolproof from leaks.

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Title: Re: Material For Blimps
Post by: Mohammed Naveed on September 04, 2016, 09:46:01 PM
You do realize it's hydrogen and it's placed with electrical components and a lipo battery. Somebody did make that mistake long ago!


Title: Re:
Post by: v2 eagle on September 05, 2016, 01:29:36 AM
Yep, but a helium may not be feasible at small scale. I worked briefly with h2 but not pressurised ones, an occasional spark while connecting the lipo is harmless and given that the gondola is placed well below and operated in outdoors it will be safe. BTW what is your expected size of blimp. And for what purpose.

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