Jump to content
KiteLife Forum

Kitelight - Dynamic Kite Lighting/Sensor Project


qDot
 Share

Recommended Posts

I've been working on a sensor reactive lighting system for my kites recently. For sake of simplicity and rapid development, the system is currently Arduino based, running 2 panels of 4 superbright RGB LEDs. I just took it out on its first test flight last night.

Video at http://www.vimeo.com/1392439

Pictures at http://www.flickr.com/photos/qdot76367/set...57606246910762/

This is all mounted on a Trick and Track at the moment, because it was just a nice, already fairly heavy, precision kite. The whole system adds around 60g of weight to the kite, making flight experience something like driving a late 80's model volvo (especially in the 6-8mph wind I was getting last night). I can still axel/backflip it, but it's not too happy about the idea.

Now that I at least have proof that it will both fly and look pretty, I'm going to start working on scaling all the circuits down to smaller, surface mount based boards, and redesigning the power supply to be something that's not a 9v battery. I'm also starting to spec out quad line and stack setups.

I'm working on multiple control interfaces for this in parallel with the actual system design. Playing with all sorts of different sensors (ultrasonic rangefinders, which will probably be far too noisy in this environment, photoresistors, accelerometers, etc...), and I have Zigbee boards on order so that I can do radio control and relay (for music based light control, etc...) from the ground and possibly across multiple kites. I'm also working on design ideas for light node mounts, with the possibility of using the sail for color diffusion and blending (which is why I need to buy a silver fox UL soon :) ).

If anyone has idea ideas they'd like to see implemented, I'm open to suggestions. :)

Also: I'll be at the Berkeley Festival this weekend with the kite, if anyone is interested in seeing it in action (though it's not all that impressive in the daytime)

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

what i like about it is the fact that it lights up the whole kite nicely.. the downside that i see without flying it is that it looks like a heavy setup that will need a good breeze to fly it ..as many fliers here know the night time can mean low winds so im wondering if that setup would be a weight issue for the lighter stuff??as for my 2 cents on the whole thing i love it and i really hope you get it going my friend

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'll have a 10-man iQuad team at Berkeley, we'd love to take a look... We do night shows sometimes.

Awesome! Yeah, I've got a lot of ideas about doing multikite tracking and communication for performance. Whether any of them will actually work is a completely different question.

what i like about it is the fact that it lights up the whole kite nicely.. the downside that i see without flying it is that it looks like a heavy setup that will need a good breeze to fly it

This version of the system was built top to bottom in the space of 3 days using nothing but through-hole components and prototyping boards, hence the size and weight issues. If I actually put some serious time into engineering, it could easily be 1/5th the footprint using application specific boards. However, I just wanted to make sure it was going to fly and look pretty before I sunk more serious amounts of time into it. :)

Really, most of the weight issue is the power supply, which, at the moment, is a single 9v battery (which is about 35-40g). A solution to this might be using coin batteries wired in series and placed around the kite, plus a boost/buck regulator. Wouldn't expect a ton of flight time out of that, though. Waiting for parts to come in so I can test that theory now. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...