Rocketry Warehouse X-Celerator assembly photos

I'm very close to finishing the X-Celerator I got during the black Friday sales. A few photos:




The motor mount. RW sent a longer one at no charge, which I needed to install an Aeropack tailcone. I used Rocketpoxy. Since the dyes were included free with the BS sale, I added some color to try it out on the kevlar strap. The dye helped me see the epoxied strap through the fin slots. I checked fit before it fully cured and had to scrape a little so it wouldn't interfere with the fin joint.

I also added a fourth centering ring so all fins would be butted against CR's on both ends.



I used a cardboard fin alignment tool. My eyes aren't calibrated enough to do it without one. The level and clamps keep the fore and aft fins aligned.

**See below for the rest of the photos**

I did a test launch last weekend on a CTI J410.
It went 1,680 feet (both alts beeped out apogee less than 10 feet of each other) and 211 MPH. Thrustcurve simmed around 1,670 feet.

Stratologger was the primary altimeter with 2g FFFFG on the drogue, 3g on the main. Charges were sized by ground testing.
RRC2+ was back-up with 3g on drogue, 3.5g on main.
Since I could see the entire flight, I was able to confirm the primaries worked. The backup drogue charge looked and sounded like a cannon.
A small drogue kept the payload above the fin can. The main Rocketman 9ft chute opened nice and slow and brought the rocket down gently.

Since I was working a little smoothing out the fillet ends, only the top half of the rocket was painted, The bottom half was only primered. So it didn't fly naked. Just bottomless.

Photos of the flight are pending Caveduck's ability to download from his camera. I did get one after landing:



It earned its bottom paint. Duplicolor engine enamel red. Fin tips and nose are regular Rustoleum enamel yellow.



I'm happy with how the fillets turned out. Learned how from KenRico.



No idea why this is sideways or how to fix it, but you get the idea.



Shark mouth sticker from Stickershock. Mark does nice work!

More photos pending, once I get some Stickershock lettering on and the test flight photos from CaveDuck.

It should be ready for the AT L1000 at our March launch, if AT can get it shipped by then (been waiting since the BS sale). Thrustcurve shows it going to 7,330 feet and 650 mph.

Looking good !

Congratulations on a successful DD flight and recovery.

Looking forward to seeing a big motor in that now that you put the pants on.

Kenny

I couldn't get them back in the original post. Here they are.



I added black dye to the epoxy so I could see the fin-to-mmt joint. I didn't inject internal fillets since the Rocketpoxy's pretty thick. Instead I double buttered (sometime triple if I had enough) the fin roots. Looks like there's a decent amount at the joint.



Pulled the external fillets with some 1/2" PVC dipped in denatured alcohol.



1010 Rail buttons and tailcone on.



Av bay. 100% redundant altimeters, Stratologger and RRC2+. Both are excellent altimeters. Sleek aluminum charge wells by CaveDuck (soot courtesy of the test launch.) I did 100% redundancy because I don't want 13 lbs of pointy fiberglass coming in ballistic if I have a loose connection or botch a charge. Switches are the 110/220V type mounted on the switch band.




Nose cone with wood centering ring, t-nuts and bulk plate to hold the Eggfinder.



Thanks to KenRico and CaveDuck for the advice and help!

Glad to see you used 1010 buttons. I was wondering if I should have gone with 15s.

I'll get pics of my X-Celerator up next week. Got 1/3 of my wrap on. Hardest parts still to go. Ground testing on Saturday. Then I'll take some shots.

Launch on 2/21, Lord willing.

My X-Celerator weighed in at just under 12 lbs. I reset the Cd in Thrustcurve to .6 after several flights that exceeded the altitude Thrustcurve predicted. I think it's because of the tailcone, which looks great on your rocket. Nice paint job too. I didn't add the Eggfinder to mine, just used the CSI RF tracker. It's not gonna fly out of sight with any 54mm motor I can think of. I do like the modifications you made to the N/C to add the EF though. Is it attached to anything inside the N/C? Where did you get those forged eyebolts? Look like some military surplus parts from WW 2...:grin:
Be sure to tape over your terminal blocks, BP residue will corrode them and eventually cause a failure.

I had to go over and look at mine, after seven flights, it's a little scratched up, but still looks pretty good:

Bat-mite said:

Glad to see you used 1010 buttons. I was wondering if I should have gone with 15s.

I'll get pics of my X-Celerator up next week. Got 1/3 of my wrap on. Hardest parts still to go. Ground testing on Saturday. Then I'll take some shots.

Launch on 2/21, Lord willing.

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It worked fine with the 1010. I think I read on here that the 1515 are for the bigger guys (maybe 30#+?). Whatever the weight was, I remember it being above my pay grade for the near future.

Can't wait to see the photos of yours.

Wayco said:

My X-Celerator weighed in at just under 12 lbs. I reset the Cd in Thrustcurve to .6 after several flights that exceeded the altitude Thrustcurve predicted. I think it's because of the tailcone, which looks great on your rocket.

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I remember you saying yours was 12 pounds and that was my target but I blew right past by a full pound. I wonder if it's the redundant altimeter set-up?

Wayco said:

I didn't add the Eggfinder to mine, just used the CSI RF tracker. It's not gonna fly out of sight with any 54mm motor I can think of. I do like the modifications you made to the N/C to add the EF though. Is it attached to anything inside the N/C?

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The 54mm L1000 is sim'ing to 7,500 feet, and I'm not sure I'll be able to see it that high. CaveDuck is excellent at tracking at high altitudes, but I don't want to put it on him to not lose my rocket. Plus out here, if we go outside of our "launch bowl" area, there's some desert brush that's big enough to lose a rocket in. I figure it's insurance. I'm going to wrap the EF in bubble wrap and stuff it in. It won't be anchored to anything but the board it's on.

Wayco said:

Be sure to tape over your terminal blocks, BP residue will corrode them and eventually cause a failure.

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I swear I know I'm supposed to do that, especially after changing out the terminal blocks on my Pike av bay for that exact reason, but it's the last step on the av bay and I always forget. Thanks for the reminder.

Wayco said:

Where did you get those forged eyebolts? Look like some military surplus parts from WW 2...:grin:

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HOW DARE YOU? You have offended the honor of my av bay. I challenge you to a rocket duel. X-Celerators at dawn. Or whenever we're at the same launch and winds are favorable with an appropriate cloud ceiling. If someone else sees Wayco before I do, please slap him with an empty glove for me. :bangbang:

I bought them from RW when I bought the kit. They were beautiful and rust free before they got hit with a few BP charges.

Wayco said:

I had to go over and look at mine, after seven flights, it's a little scratched up, but still looks pretty good:

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Looks good! You should bring that out to one of our SD launches. Or I could bring mine to AZ. There's been discussion of attending NARAM in Tuscon.

Dueling L935s in the Desert ? RIGHT ON !

That is a great pic Wayco and Hardline !

I know I sanded a pound of epoxy off of my Vindicator DD fillets after they cured , Marks fillets turned out very well.

Kenny

Paint done and stickers by Mark at Stickershock.

My boss named the rocket. He likes NASCAR, so I asked Mark if he could give me a "Fairly Fast Finch" with a NASCAR look. He nailed it.







I like the "chrome tailpipe" look the machined aluminum Aeropack tailcone gives.

I still want to give it one last coat of gloss. I have some Future acrylic I can apply or Mother's spray on car wax. I think the wax has less chance for runs and drips, but the Future will provide more protection.

Test launch photos courtesy of CaveDuck:









I believe that little puff of smoke is the main back-up charge.

Wayco, you know what you're doing, and I see you have a tailcone on yours.

Where is your CP located?

Exactimator said:

Wayco, you know what you're doing, and I see you have a tailcone on yours.

Where is your CP located?

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Mine is at 58.75" and the Cg is 50. This is using Open Rocket. I checked it with the L935, brings it down to .5 calipers of stability, but no warnings.Largest motor I have flown in mine is the 5 grain K650 SS.

Thanks Wayco. If you're at .5 cal with the L935, I'll probably be close to the same.

I loaded my rocket with everything except the bp charges and did a real-time test with an L1000. I'm at over one full caliber of stability, so I'm all set. Looks like the majority of the weight is in the top half of the rocket.

Final weigh-in with the painted bottom and eggfinder is 13.4 lbs.

If the conditions are right this Saturday, I'll be putting it up on an AT K535. Thrustcurve is showing about 3700 feet and 360 mph.



Again, not sure why this is rotated or how to fix it, but you get the idea. That's the L1000 on the bottom and the K535 on top.

Oh K !

Kenny

Exactimator said:

Again, not sure why this is rotated or how to fix it, but you get the idea. That's the L1000 on the bottom and the K535 on top.

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You have to save the file to your PC, rotate it left, rotate right, and resave it.

Today's cameras try to "help" you by encoding your image with a "this end up" bit sequence. The forum doesn't recognize that bit sequence, and puts it in sideways, which is the natural orientation. By rotating and resaving the image, the bit sequence gets overwritten.

How quaint.



I must be doing it wrong.

If you took that pic. with an Iphone, good luck getting it upright. We have a bunch of those, and re-saving it doesn't work.
Hard to believe your rocket came out over a pound heavier than mine, must be those "historic" eye-bolts. :roll:
I adjusted the Cd in Thrustcurve to .5 after a few flights, now it can predict altitude pretty accurately.
Good luck on your next flight, wish I could see it.

Wayco said:

If you took that pic. with an Iphone, good luck getting it upright. We have a bunch of those, and re-saving it doesn't work.
Hard to believe your rocket came out over a pound heavier than mine, must be those "historic" eye-bolts. :roll:
I adjusted the Cd in Thrustcurve to .5 after a few flights, now it can predict altitude pretty accurately.
Good luck on your next flight, wish I could see it.

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Fortunately rocketeers are used to seeing rockets in all orientations, so hopefully interested folks can rotate the photos in their head, cause it ain't happening on my computer.

I think I'm a pound AND A HALF heavier than yours. Maybe I should have called it The Fairly Fat Finch.

Depending on how confident I feel on launch day, I might put a keychain cam on it and send it up.

Guessing mine will come in at about 11 pounds fully loaded, but haven't weighed it yet. I don't want to unwrap a motor until closer to launch. Also, I'm a bit stuck. My small postal scale is only good up to ten pounds, and my bathroom scale starts at 20 pounds. Not sure how to weigh it.

I guess I will stand on the scale holding it and without it, and take the difference. Not super accurate....

Weigh the fincan, weigh the avbay and weigh the payload-N/C separately, then add them together. :cyclops:

I might try that. Be kind of tricky weighing the upper parts without the laundry falling out. Hmm...

Wayco said:

Weigh the fincan, weigh the avbay and weigh the payload-N/C separately, then add them together. :cyclops:

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Agreed. My scale only goes to 11 pounds and I usually weigh all my larger rockets (I have nothing over 4" diameter) in sections.

By the way I'm curious, my Rocketry Warehouse Formula 75 didn't come beveled, but yours appears to be. Do Rocketry Warehouse bevel all their fins or only on select models?

My X-Celerator with a K540M, two chutes, garmin DC40, etc load to fly weight in at 16 lbs on club scale at RSO desk. Rocksim margin is 1.9... flys straight.

It's more of an economy kit.
At one point they were selling it a little more than a nose cone cost by itself.
Higher end kits have larger profit margin allowing for more features.
Anything under $100 is a economy kit.

JD

taiwanluthiers said:

By the way I'm curious, my Rocketry Warehouse Formula 75 didn't come beveled, but yours appears to be. Do Rocketry Warehouse bevel all their fins or only on select models?

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It's easy to throw stones from the cheap seats. It's just as easy to mock eyebolts from the other side of a computer monitor several hundred miles away. It takes real character to stop by a launch and take a few minutes to mock eyebolts in person.



Always good to see you, Wayco!

I launched the 13 pounds of rusty, WWII-era eyebolts and half pound of other assorted rocket parts and stickers yesterday on the AT K535. With 5-7MPH winds at ground level, it got a few hundred feet up and made a hint of a right turn, then boosted straight.

Stratologger reported 3,934 feet and 364 MPH.

RRC2+ reported 3943 feet. Once again the two altimeters were within 10 feet of each other.

Thrustcurve sim'd 3,746 feet and 364 MPH. It was a little short on altitude but nailed the speed dead on.

The Eggfinder (with longer antenna researched and purchased by KenRico) kept a fix all the way to apogee and back, only losing communication with the LCD receiver shortly before landing. This was expected from both the instructions ad posts here on TRF.

The Rocket Locator app on my Samsung cell phone crashed for some reason every time I clicked the "Rocket Compass" option. After a few tries I just put the lat and long in the maps app. When I got within several hundred feet the LCD re-aquired the signal and guided me right to my rocket. For a while I thought it might be incorrect because I couldn't see my rocket or gigantic parachute anywhere. But I kept following the signal and it turned out my rocket had landed in a small shallow with heavy brush. I didn't see it until I was within 15 feet. If I hadn't had the tracker I probably would have lost the rocket.

It may be time to start using noisemakers on our rockets. The brush at our new location is problematic.

Photos of the launch are pending downloads from the people with cameras (who are most appreciated). I did get this photo of the landing spot:


The launch rail put a big scratch down my rocket:



So I threw everything into the street and shouted "ROCKETRY'S CANCELLED!" :roll:

I was looking at the pic and saying to myself..wow, he looks just like Wayco in that pic... zooming in to see photoshop tells i see in the report that Wayco did travel to bless your Red Rocket before its flight. Or like Scotty ..'handle her ample avBay'

Great flight ! Next flight you are joining the Mile High Club and in style ...

Kenny

robbdm said:

My X-Celerator with a K540M, two chutes, garmin DC40, etc load to fly weight in at 16 lbs on club scale at RSO desk. Rocksim margin is 1.9... flys straight.

View attachment 256497

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If you're at 16 lbs witht the motor, you must be at around 13 lbs without it, correct? I like the the deep red and black. That must be easy to find on all the green grass.

Kenny, thanks for the Eggfinder LCD loaner. I would have been in trouble without it.

Exactimator said:

It may be time to start using noisemakers on our rockets. The brush at our new location is problematic.

Photos of the launch are pending downloads from the people with cameras (who are most appreciated). I did get this photo of the landing spot:
View attachment 257056

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So your "brush" out west replaces our "corn" here on the right coast. A "corn beeper" might be just the thing you need.

We have also used a method, very rarely, but it has worked, of having two spotter separated by a hundred yards or so that get a line on where the rocket landed. They each have a radio and you give the searcher a radio and one of those 8 - 10 ft fiberglass rods with the florescent orange flags on it. As the searcher walks around the corn field (brush in your case) the spotters watch the flag and direct him to the line they have on where the rocket landed. When the searcher is on the line from both spotters, he's also on the rocket. It's really old school and can take some practice, but it does work.