I had a successful KAP outing last week. As an architect, while "working", I took some photos of possible sites for a new building at Purdue North Central.
In the KAP traditional, my first posted KAP photo is a self portrait.
This is a sculpture at PNC called "My victory".
Some of the interesting grass paths through the south of the Campus.
This is the kite I used, its called "Star" and is from Premier Kites. Its not my first choice, but did meet my number one requirement: it was cheap. I briefly had a solid red 6' rok from spectra sport (or spectra star). The model name was meteor. It flew really well, was really well constructed, lightweight, and was reasonably priced on sale. I didn't properly anchor the kite line while prepping the camera and lost the kite to a tree. Kneeling on ones kite winder is not a recommended way to keep the line secure. I've tried in vain to get another Spectra Rok (in fact I tried ordering 3 from a website), but they seem to no longer be made or available.
I had similar luck with kite line. I had been using 1000 feet of 200 lb test braided mason's line from Lehigh. It also seems to be no longer made or available. They have similar looking line, but it isn't load tested. I bought a spool and was able to easily break the string. I am switching to 200 lb braided dacron sold with the intention of being kite line. 6000 feet should be interesting.
I'm currently waiting for my new Rok from Gomberg kites. I also am getting a large delta to be prepared for different wind. I am hoping their quality is like the spectra kite and not the premier (whose seams are coming apart). And most in theme with the other content of this site, I am THINKING ABOUT MAKING a sparless kite: a ram air sled, big mouth sled, or a nasawing.
The photo of the kite was taken with my wife's camera: Panasonic DMC-FZ8K. I do not have a steady hand, but the optical Image stabalization took a crisp shot even at max zoom. I need to state here that you do not want to buy anything from www.digitalnerds.com or trust any reviews on www.everyprice.com. Lets just say that I had to cancel a credit card and feel that I was lucky that it wasn't any worse. They call you and try to sell you the most over priced memory cards and batteries ever. This is what clued me in that something wasn't right so I searched a bit harder on the internet. They've got quite a history of dishonest dealings. Anyways the DMC-FZ8 I ordered through a www.pricewatch.com retailer works great.
On the topic of shady, I ordered two 2GB memory stick pro for my KAP camera off ebay. The price was great. A little too great? They were "new", but didn't come in a retail package. I looked at them for all the clues that they might be counterfeit, but they are indistinguishable from the genuine thing. I tested them and they work to full capacity (advantage of an autocap setup is that it will take pictures to fill the card). The only shady thing is that they have the same serial number. So if they last a few 100 write cycles I'll be happy with the price I paid, genuine or not.
This is my second camera rig, a 4' long wood pendulum hanging from about 20' of line tied 200 or more feet from the kite. The first version was bent wire and tended to swing a lot. This version is stiff, has a large resistance to swing with its large moment and resists spin with its directional fins.
This is the camera end of the rig. The camera is a sony dsc-p100 I got from my brother after he broke the lcd. Thanks Ben! I don't need the lcd for autokap. I've got a battery powered lcd monitor i can hook up with a video cable to change settings in the camera. It would be easier if the camera had a working lcd, but this works.
The camera is held on with a 1/4 20 bolt and tightened down with a wing nut. The angle of the camera can be adjusted this way. I prefer portrait format because I think the pictures look best when they include the horizon.
You can also see the small circuit that triggers the shutter. The innovative thing about it is that it has no external power source, drawing power from the voltage normally present across the shutter button. It is a flip flop circuit with resistor values chosen so that in one state, the camera sees the button as open, and in the other state, the camera sees the button as closed.
There is a jumper to choose between 3 second, 10 second, or 20 second delay between photos. I got about 200 highest quality photos on my 512 mb cards and get 1200 highest quality photos on my 2gb cards. It takes about 1 hour to fill the 2 gb card at 3 second intervals. I haven't tried the 2 GB cards in the air yet, but I suspect one could get a kite very high in an hour.
This is the upper end of the pendulum. It has two vanes that give that are adjustable and give a general direction to the rig. It still twists a bit, but never more than 90 degrees from the set direction. I've already made some larger vanes. They extend above the tie point and raise the center of drag nearer to the tie off point. If I can get the center of drag to the same location as the tie point, then the wind would not push the pendulum out of plumb. I have put some thought into motorizing these to rotate for a full autokap setup. Better yet I am thinking about using a little propeller, driven by the wind, geared down to slowly rotate the vanes.
Although the long pendulum and long attachment string help tremendously over my first rig, I still need to keep the shutter speed up. Photos at or above 1/600 seconds were typically clear, but a few were good at as slow as 1/250 seconds. Often the exposure gets fooled by shadows and overexposes. My next outing I plan on setting the exposure manually, thereby avoiding the overexposure, using the largest aperture, and fastest shutter speed.
I've also got a backburner Idea on Balloon areal photography. Instead of using a large latex balloon, use a 30 gallon trash bag or two. This would prevent my concerns over back-pressure from the balloon forcing the caustic solution used to produce the hydrogen from spraying out from a leak and also gets past the high price of significantly sized latex balloons. With a lightweight camera of 6 oz and a reduced frame, I should be able to lift it with about 6 cubic feet of hydrogen. At 7 gallons per cubic foot, and one oz of lift per cubic foot, a 45 gallon trash bag should lift with 6 oz of lift. With the weight of the bag itself, it will probably require two bags to lift the camera and string.
FYI - Hydrogen production involves water, lye, and aluminum foil. Hydrogen from this reaction should not be confused with being an almost "free energy" source, as many fools on the internet have mistakenly assumed. The aluminum is corroded in the process. Refining aluminum take a tremendous amount of energy. If we ran all of our cars by consuming old aluminum cans (as some have suggested) the availability and price of aluminum would go out of control. People are even investing in this "new technology". As early as the civil war, hydrogen was produced using this same "new technology". If you can't tell, this is one of my pet peeves: this continued pursuit of a near sited plan being touted as an end all solution.
Now if someone was researching how to refine aluminum without huge amounts of heat and energy, that would be something.
In the KAP traditional, my first posted KAP photo is a self portrait.
This is a sculpture at PNC called "My victory".
Some of the interesting grass paths through the south of the Campus.
This is the kite I used, its called "Star" and is from Premier Kites. Its not my first choice, but did meet my number one requirement: it was cheap. I briefly had a solid red 6' rok from spectra sport (or spectra star). The model name was meteor. It flew really well, was really well constructed, lightweight, and was reasonably priced on sale. I didn't properly anchor the kite line while prepping the camera and lost the kite to a tree. Kneeling on ones kite winder is not a recommended way to keep the line secure. I've tried in vain to get another Spectra Rok (in fact I tried ordering 3 from a website), but they seem to no longer be made or available.
I had similar luck with kite line. I had been using 1000 feet of 200 lb test braided mason's line from Lehigh. It also seems to be no longer made or available. They have similar looking line, but it isn't load tested. I bought a spool and was able to easily break the string. I am switching to 200 lb braided dacron sold with the intention of being kite line. 6000 feet should be interesting.
I'm currently waiting for my new Rok from Gomberg kites. I also am getting a large delta to be prepared for different wind. I am hoping their quality is like the spectra kite and not the premier (whose seams are coming apart). And most in theme with the other content of this site, I am THINKING ABOUT MAKING a sparless kite: a ram air sled, big mouth sled, or a nasawing.
The photo of the kite was taken with my wife's camera: Panasonic DMC-FZ8K. I do not have a steady hand, but the optical Image stabalization took a crisp shot even at max zoom. I need to state here that you do not want to buy anything from www.digitalnerds.com or trust any reviews on www.everyprice.com. Lets just say that I had to cancel a credit card and feel that I was lucky that it wasn't any worse. They call you and try to sell you the most over priced memory cards and batteries ever. This is what clued me in that something wasn't right so I searched a bit harder on the internet. They've got quite a history of dishonest dealings. Anyways the DMC-FZ8 I ordered through a www.pricewatch.com retailer works great.
On the topic of shady, I ordered two 2GB memory stick pro for my KAP camera off ebay. The price was great. A little too great? They were "new", but didn't come in a retail package. I looked at them for all the clues that they might be counterfeit, but they are indistinguishable from the genuine thing. I tested them and they work to full capacity (advantage of an autocap setup is that it will take pictures to fill the card). The only shady thing is that they have the same serial number. So if they last a few 100 write cycles I'll be happy with the price I paid, genuine or not.
This is my second camera rig, a 4' long wood pendulum hanging from about 20' of line tied 200 or more feet from the kite. The first version was bent wire and tended to swing a lot. This version is stiff, has a large resistance to swing with its large moment and resists spin with its directional fins.
This is the camera end of the rig. The camera is a sony dsc-p100 I got from my brother after he broke the lcd. Thanks Ben! I don't need the lcd for autokap. I've got a battery powered lcd monitor i can hook up with a video cable to change settings in the camera. It would be easier if the camera had a working lcd, but this works.
The camera is held on with a 1/4 20 bolt and tightened down with a wing nut. The angle of the camera can be adjusted this way. I prefer portrait format because I think the pictures look best when they include the horizon.
You can also see the small circuit that triggers the shutter. The innovative thing about it is that it has no external power source, drawing power from the voltage normally present across the shutter button. It is a flip flop circuit with resistor values chosen so that in one state, the camera sees the button as open, and in the other state, the camera sees the button as closed.
There is a jumper to choose between 3 second, 10 second, or 20 second delay between photos. I got about 200 highest quality photos on my 512 mb cards and get 1200 highest quality photos on my 2gb cards. It takes about 1 hour to fill the 2 gb card at 3 second intervals. I haven't tried the 2 GB cards in the air yet, but I suspect one could get a kite very high in an hour.
This is the upper end of the pendulum. It has two vanes that give that are adjustable and give a general direction to the rig. It still twists a bit, but never more than 90 degrees from the set direction. I've already made some larger vanes. They extend above the tie point and raise the center of drag nearer to the tie off point. If I can get the center of drag to the same location as the tie point, then the wind would not push the pendulum out of plumb. I have put some thought into motorizing these to rotate for a full autokap setup. Better yet I am thinking about using a little propeller, driven by the wind, geared down to slowly rotate the vanes.
Although the long pendulum and long attachment string help tremendously over my first rig, I still need to keep the shutter speed up. Photos at or above 1/600 seconds were typically clear, but a few were good at as slow as 1/250 seconds. Often the exposure gets fooled by shadows and overexposes. My next outing I plan on setting the exposure manually, thereby avoiding the overexposure, using the largest aperture, and fastest shutter speed.
I've also got a backburner Idea on Balloon areal photography. Instead of using a large latex balloon, use a 30 gallon trash bag or two. This would prevent my concerns over back-pressure from the balloon forcing the caustic solution used to produce the hydrogen from spraying out from a leak and also gets past the high price of significantly sized latex balloons. With a lightweight camera of 6 oz and a reduced frame, I should be able to lift it with about 6 cubic feet of hydrogen. At 7 gallons per cubic foot, and one oz of lift per cubic foot, a 45 gallon trash bag should lift with 6 oz of lift. With the weight of the bag itself, it will probably require two bags to lift the camera and string.
FYI - Hydrogen production involves water, lye, and aluminum foil. Hydrogen from this reaction should not be confused with being an almost "free energy" source, as many fools on the internet have mistakenly assumed. The aluminum is corroded in the process. Refining aluminum take a tremendous amount of energy. If we ran all of our cars by consuming old aluminum cans (as some have suggested) the availability and price of aluminum would go out of control. People are even investing in this "new technology". As early as the civil war, hydrogen was produced using this same "new technology". If you can't tell, this is one of my pet peeves: this continued pursuit of a near sited plan being touted as an end all solution.
Now if someone was researching how to refine aluminum without huge amounts of heat and energy, that would be something.
posted by nate at
7:04 AM
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2 comments
