* Posts by adamnewt

2 publicly visible posts • joined 18 May 2012

LOHAN ideas..

adamnewt
Black Helicopters

Mechanical Trigger Failsafe

I was thinking of utilising the fact that there'll be tension in the chords between the truss and the balloon just before it bursts and none just after. I was also thinking about those spring loaded tape measures that snap back when you pull out the measuring ribon. You could have some kind of spring loaded system such that there's a chord connecting the truss to the balloon at tension while the balloon is ascending, that will snap back into the truss when the balloon bursts. The end of the chord attached to the balloon could form an electricital contact for the trigger that will make contact with the other... um... contact when the chord retracts back into the truss.

adamnewt
Black Helicopters

Re: LOHAN ideas..

In the spirit of KISS - and I know it's nowhere near as fun as GPS or pressure related ideas, why don't you just set a timer to trigger the launch after the time you estimate it'll take the the balloon to reach roughly the desired height? It won't be an exact science but it should be close enough for jazz. If you have any data from PARIS on how long it took the payload to reach it's max height, that should help you make an educated guess as to when to set the timer to go bang.

It sounds too easy, am I being thick?