Quest How High Altimeter

[Marlin523]

Anyone used one of these?

http://www.questaerospace.com/itemdesc.asp?ic=7820&eq=&Tp=

What's your opinion?

[Handeman]

I haven't use the quest altimeter. It sounds like a good value for what you get.

I do have a Perfectflite Alt15K. It will fit into a BT-20 tube, measure altitudes to 15,000 ft and store the flight profiles. It beeps out the altitude instead of an LED so you can hear the altitude instead of having to disassemble the rocket to see the LED flash. You can then download the data and see and calculate various flight profiles. It will store 2 or 3 fights in memory.

The best price I've seen for the Alt15K is $71.20. It's another $20 for the USB interface cables to download the data.

[mikec]

Anyone used one of these?

http://www.questaerospace.com/itemdesc.asp?ic=7820&eq=&Tp=

What's your opinion?

Yes. Works fine (I used one on my L1 and L2 flights), and I believe Quest is having a sale this weekend so you may be able to pick it up cheaply.

[MarkH]

I've used mine about 5 times and had no problems. It's pretty simple to use. Plus it's tiny; it fits in an 18 mm engine tube. Altitudes are matching about what I'd expect, so accuarcy seems to be decent.

[dedleytedley]

I haven't use the quest altimeter. It sounds like a good value for what you get.

I do have a Perfectflite Alt15K. It will fit into a BT-20 tube, measure altitudes to 15,000 ft and store the flight profiles. It beeps out the altitude instead of an LED so you can hear the altitude instead of having to disassemble the rocket to see the LED flash. You can then download the data and see and calculate various flight profiles. It will store 2 or 3 fights in memory.

The best price I've seen for the Alt15K is $71.20. It's another $20 for the USB interface cables to download the data.

I'm curious to know exactly what info a flight profile includes? Ted

[Handeman]

I'm curious to know exactly what info a flight profile includes? Ted

Here is one from the Alt15K. It lists altitude readings. A reading is taken every 0.10 seconds.

The attached file is from my G Altitude contest flight. Each rocket had to have some part of it that was at least 54mm, no minimum diameters.

Of course you can import the file into Excel and graph all kinds of things.

[dedleytedley]

Thanks Handeman. I'm leaning toward the Quest unit but it doesn't hurt to know the alternatives. Ted

[Handeman]

I understand.

My first altimeter was the Perfectflite HiAlt45K. It's only slightly more expensive then the Alt15K, actually less if you include the data cable, but it does dual deployment. You can use it for just altitude measurements, but it is bigger and heavier then the Quest or Alt15K and uses a 9V battery for power.

[Larry Curcio]

Here is one from the Alt15K. It lists altitude readings. A reading is taken every 0.10 seconds.

The attached file is from my G Altitude contest flight. Each rocket had to have some part of it that was at least 54mm, no minimum diameters.

Of course you can import the file into Excel and graph all kinds of things.

Thanks for the data!

Regards,

LarryC

One advantage of a recording altimeter is that you can beat the data to death with numerical differentiation. Here are estimated velocity and acceleration data. (Method: Savitsky/Golay filter of order 4 and radius 20)

Maximum velocity is typically a tiny bit short. Very beginning values are a little iffy. Otherwise, the velocity curve is normally pretty good; acceleration is squirrely - mostly fantasy.

One piece that is normally righteous is the recovery system terminal velocity, which looks to be about 65 ft/second here - quite fast.

Graphs are in the .doc file. Comma delimeted data are in the .txt file.
(If you give the attached .txt file an extension of .cvs, Excel will read it directly.)

[bobkrech]

http://www.wingedshadow.com/howhigh.html

is the company that makes the Quest unit.

If you only need apogee info, $39.95 is a great price.

Bob

[tbzep]

http://www.wingedshadow.com/howhigh.html

is the company that makes the Quest unit.

If you only need apogee info, $39.95 is a great price.

Bob

The altimeter has been around for a good while in the R/C world from Winged Shadow, as noted in Bob's URL. It's a good little altimeter. However, his link is for the version powered by the R/C receiver/battery. Here is the self powered one that Quest sells. http://www.wingedshadow.com/hhsp.html

[BEC]

I have a couple of these How High SPs and have used them in several rockets (and also in a couple of cases to get peak altitude on a RC airplane). They are simple, light and generally seem to work quite well.

One quirk: if you put one in a clear payload section, it's sunny and your chute causes the payload section to spin or swing quite a bit it seems to fool the unit into thinking you want to read it and by the time it lands the reading is lost. It takes all three to cause this to happen.

There really is no simpler or lighter way to get a peak altitude reading that I know of.

I am also using a Winged Shadow battery board to power an Eagle Tree Systems altitude sensor for rocket use. This also seems to work well.

[Commonwealth.Net]

Quest does not make this unit!
We sell the exact same unit for less.

See our electronics section and look for :
The How High SP Altimeter by Winged Shadow. Same as Quest 7820 but less expensive. WSHOWHIGHSP Quest $60.00 Commonwealth $42.00

[BEC]

Or direct from the maker for $44.90 with $2.50 shipping. http://www.wingedshadow.com/hhsp.html (same link as tbzep posted above).

The Eagle Tree altitude sensor is the first item here: http://www.eagletreesystems.com/Standalone/standalone.htm but it needs power. The Winged Shadow battery board http://www.wingedshadow.com/batbd.html is an easy way to do it and is what I flew this morning. I'm looking at even lighter alternatives for future use.

[KerryQuinn]

Here is a link to a discussion on TRF last fall on the QuEST HowHigh...


http://www.rocketryforum.com/showthread.php?t=6125&highlight=howhigh

[rokitflite]

Quest does not make this unit!
We sell the exact same unit for less.

See our electronics section and look for :
The How High SP Altimeter by Winged Shadow. Same as Quest 7820 but less expensive. WSHOWHIGHSP Quest $60.00 Commonwealth $42.00

Quest did not sell it for $60 They sold it in the low 40s as well... You're mad at Quest, we get it. Get over it, move on.:rolleyes:

[kjohnson]

I dug up my order confirmation from Quest-

SL# ItemCode Item Description Ordered Price Discount Amount
1 7820 Quest How High Altimeter 1 $45.00 $0.00 $45.00


We all know they are made by Winged Shadow, but the Quest site had them for $45, so yes, Commonwealth sells them for a whopping $3 discount. Bravo.

kj

[foose4string]

You're mad at Quest, we get it.

... and Aerotech...and once Estes stars selling direct, I'm sure it'll be the same thing. Bashing the companies on which this hobby is founded doesn't seem very productive. It's slim pickins for everyone. I think these companies are doing what they can to stay afloat. Sucks for the 3rd party vendors, no doubt. You(commonwealth) proved your point by not carrying the line anymore(while making everyone aware of it and and reasons why). That should have been the end of it. If rocketry is causing the much heartache, perhaps he should concentrate more on Aquarium supplies????:rolleyes:

[dedleytedley]

Well it looks like Quest is no longer selling the How High altimeter as it's no longer on their website. Apogee is still listing it and the maker Winged Shadow sells them of course. Ted

[MarkII]

Well it looks like Quest is no longer selling the How High altimeter as it's no longer on their website. Apogee is still listing it and the maker Winged Shadow sells them of course. TedThey are probably just out of stock. I'll bet they sold a big bunch last weekend. Same thing happened last weekend with the standard launch controller (sold by itself), and I know that they haven't discontinued that one.

MarkII

[rokitflite]

They are probably just out of stock.
MarkII

Correct!:)

[MarkII]

Quest is showing the How High altimeter on their website now.

http://www.questaerospace.com/items.asp?Cc=electronics&iTpStatus=0&Tp=&Bc=

MarkII