The City Slicker: was The Space Cowboy rides again

Onebadhawk
Shop deals on ebay
The Rocketry Forum

Help Support The Rocketry Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Thanks guys!


I ordered the Telemetrum this morning. That's the last major piece I needed. Someone loaned me a Teledongle and Yagi antenna for the launch so I think I have the tracking end covered.

I think I'm going to add a pair of 2-56 flat head screws countersunk into the body tube for shear pins. The parachute compartment is only 2" long so it looks like my deployment charge only needs to be .2g. :y: My scale is only accurate to .1g so that's going to be hard to measure accurately.
 
Aeronaut at Black Rock. July 31st - August 2nd.

The Openrocket is currently simming to 27400'. RASaero says 32700'. It'll be interesting to see if either one is close.
 
Great work Chris! Looking forward to meeting you out on the playa. I'll be there with cameras and shamefully hacked together AV bays.

5 weeks out!

Alex
 
If you get good wind conditions, & you are near Optimum weight, I would bet, on you hitting between those numbers!

My buddy hit around your low end [at The Rock] with a K-300 in 20-30MPH winds and it rain- bowed quite a bit, landed 3-4 miles away. He just opened a streamer at the top and let it fall, the old Kiss method.
 
Last edited:
Today I added two 2-56 flat head nylon screws as shear pins and shot the first coat of primer. Then I designed a template for a Faraday cage for the camera board and printed it on card stock. I cut it out and then backed it with aluminum tape. The mail man dropped off my Telemetrum so I got it mounted and then of course I had to fire it up and monitor it on my laptop. It was pretty cool to see it get a GPS lock and then pull up the map and see that it was in the back yard.

ImageUploadedByRocketry Forum1435469318.882141.jpg

ImageUploadedByRocketry Forum1435469328.990325.jpg
 
Is your setup going to be interchangeable with your other rockets?
Also, if you haven't read yet look like LDRS is going to b in your neck of the woods next year, time to plan more builds.

I am watching your thread closely - especially since I just lost on of my rockets on Friday at LDRS .. My next purchase is going to be a tracker of some sort - but prefer to have a GPS tracker not radio. Looking great so far.
 
No, it's intended to be just for this build.

Yes, I saw that. I attended LDRS XX at Lucerne. I might have to attend this one with the family.

I looked at other systems, but I was really impressed that they squeezed a dual deploy altimeter, accelerometer, GPS and telemetry/RDF link into one package. The price was comparable with buying separate DD altimeter and GPS systems.

I resisted getting into tracking in the past due to the cost and skill needed to use them, but with the prices coming down and GPS systems taking a lot of technique out if the equation it seem like a no brainer if now.


Nick@JET said:
Is your setup going to be interchangeable with your other rockets?
Also, if you haven't read yet look like LDRS is going to b in your neck of the woods next year, time to plan more builds.

I am watching your thread closely - especially since I just lost on of my rockets on Friday at LDRS .. My next purchase is going to be a tracker of some sort - but prefer to have a GPS tracker not radio. Looking great so far.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
I've been concerned that the camera might interfere with the GPS on the Telemetrum so yesterday afternoon I had a little field test in the back yard. It turns out that it can take the TM up to 10 minutes to get a GPS lock even if nothing else is powered up. I did have to do a little more shielding on the camera module to get a lock with it on but once I got the shielding in place the times were comparable even with the camera and RRC2+ turned on.

I've tried to paint it twice and wound up with a poor finish both times. I was painting from right to left and the wind was coming from the left and blowing overspray all over. :facepalm: I need to pick up some 800 and 1200 grit paper on the way home so I can wet sand it. I'll try to reshoot it in the morning before the wind comes up. Funny how when you don't want them there are these 100F windless days, but when you'd like one the forecast is upper 80s and windy for the next few days.
 
I attempted to lay a finish coat on this rocket again yesterday. It was in the mid 80s and windless. I put on two wet coats and let it dry in the sun. It looked pretty good, but later in the day I flipped it over and the nose cone has a section where the paint wrinkled. I guess I shouldn't have let it dry in the sun. :(

I'm going to wet sand it with 2000 grit and call it done. The rocket is probably going to get scratched up flying out of the tower and landing on the lake bed anyway. Maybe I'll try adding a coat of Future if I'm feeling energetic.
 
ChrisAttebery said:
I decided to add a backup altimeter to this project. It's going to be flying ~3x higher and ~1.5x faster than anything I've flown before. I also read somewhere that TRA recommends redundant electronics if you're flying an L or larger motor. I was able to stack a Missile Works RRC2+ on the opposite side of the tray from the Mobius ActionCam board. I also machined a switch mount out of delrin to hold two Missile Works screw switches. The switches are 120 degrees away from the camera so they will be in line with the fins and won't be blocked by the launch tower rails. An Altus Metrum Telemetrum will be mounted above these two. I needed to keep the space behind it clear so that it's GPS antenna won't be blocked. I also finished mounting the Mobius camera's logic board. I think this is rev 4 of the tray now. :blush:

View attachment 265857

View attachment 265858

View attachment 265859

View attachment 265860
Click to expand...


Great build Chris. I am just catching up on your thread. The nosecone bulkhead is exactly what I have been looking for. Do you have any plans to sell these bulkheads, or bulkhead / sled combos?
 
Thanks Chris. I designed the tray and bulkhead in TurboCAD. They are specific to this project. This is not like the altimeter bay systems I normally sell. There's a lot more work involved. If you're really interested let me know and I can work out a price for you. Just send me a PM.
 
ChrisAttebery said:
Thanks Chris. I designed the tray and bulkhead in TurboCAD. They are specific to this project. This is not like the altimeter bay systems I normally sell. There's a lot more work involved. If you're really interested let me know and I can work out a price for you. Just send me a PM.
Click to expand...

Hi Chris,

I am mainly interested in the nosecone bulk head that can be screwed into the nosecone. I am also interested in your nice space saving screw switch system. I would want the bulk heads and screw switch system in my own av bays. I will send you a pm. Best of luck with your flight.
 
The City Slicker flew on saturday. There was a little wind from the South West and the rocket weather-cocked into it roughly 5 degrees about 50' off the pad. It then straightened out and flew laser straight until burnout. It went to 24,737 and 1219 mph. I decided to keep it simple and just deploy the main at apogee. It came down at 30 mph and landed 3 miles WNW. The Telemetrum worked great and I was able to follow the flight up and down from the laptop. I drove straight to the rocket and it was within 100ft of the last reported GPS coordinates.

20072561600_673b93904a_h.jpg

20234309196_86a29730e7_o.jpg

20073951069_1309a6e4f5_o.jpg

20072539510_d1edf1fc51_o.jpg

20260545625_24e8b26560_o.jpg

11807757_1634293626810304_2665530258835068214_o.jpg

11412091_1634293623476971_3021027801744573937_o.jpg
 
Great job Chris. That had to be fun. I am nearly done attaching your fins to my Space Cowboy Redux build. Starting to get excited. Now to get to a launch! Looks like you had a lot of different successes on that flight. Congratulations.
 
Here's the video I got Chris. Good looking boost!
[video=youtube;WqyUMKY7j1w]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqyUMKY7j1w&feature=youtu.be[/video]

Great meeting you out there!

Alex
 
ChrisAttebery said:
The City Slicker flew on saturday. There was a little wind from the South West and the rocket weather-cocked into it roughly 5 degrees about 50' off the pad. It then straightened out and flew laser straight until burnout. It went to 24,737 and 1219 mph. I decided to keep it simple and just deploy the main at apogee. It came down at 30 mph and landed 3 miles WNW. The Telemetrum worked great and I was able to follow the flight up and down from the laptop. I drove straight to the rocket and it was within 100ft of the last reported GPS coordinates.


View attachment 269172

/QUOTE]

What type of chute did you use and how big was it?
Click to expand...
 
Cool rocket, great flight. Have you posted the onboard video?
 
I had trouble seeing the LED on the camera. I wound up turning it on and then back off before the flight. 😡
 
Bringing this thread back from the dead...

Last week Darryl Paris posted the XPRS altitude contest rules for this year. He also posted the winning altitudes for each motor size from last year. The winning L altitude was a little over 12k. I think I can top that. :wink:

Today I picked up a CTI L640 Dual Thrust reload. This motor should yield 57g off the pad and roughly 25,000'. It should be a much more vertical flight than the L265 from last year. One change from last year, I won't be screwing around with the Mobius camera.
 
Today I replaced the two 1" EMT tubing guide rails on my launch tower that were bent in a CATO at Aeronaut last summer(not mine). I also replaced the bottom ring with a full blast plate like all of the towers I've sold since last summer. I need to redo the teflon tape on the rails and it should be good to go.

I took a look at the rocket. I think I'll repaint the nose cone. The strips of paint that pealed off during the first flight are pretty deep and ragged. Other than that I don't think there's much to do. It's in pretty good shape.
 
Last edited:
I applied new teflon tape to the rails this weekend. I also got the nose cone repainted. I think this rocket is ready to go.
 

Similar threads

dvdsnyd
GPS DriftCast (GPS Drift 2.0) Vastly improved landing location prediction based on winds aloft forecasts
Replies
16
Views
617
wclaybaugh2
wclaybaugh2
Neutronium95
Highperion - My attempt to break the Tripoli H altitude record
2 3
Replies
83
Views
8K
Neutronium95
Neutronium95
n3tjm
Secret Santa 2023
7 8 9
Replies
262
Views
11K
MrSnappyTurtles
MrSnappyTurtles
beezwax
Show some love for Crazy Jim!
2 3
Replies
80
Views
7K
beezwax
beezwax
D
Adjustable Launch Tower Build
Replies
7
Views
3K
Hobie1dog
Hobie1dog

Latest posts

Back
Top