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My two cents: The catalog is a marketing tool, not a reference tool. It took me a while to figure out all I needed was the motor matrix (which reloads fit which cases), and the price list for the up-to-date list of products. Realistically, catalogs are dated artifacts the day they are published. If the motor matrix allowed you to click on the reload to display the Thrustcurve information, you'd have a useful reference for day-to-day use.

That's an interesting idea... I could make that if I ever had a few spare hours. Actually, making a Google Doc that could be bookmarked like an app would be a piece of cake... Hmmmmmmmmm... I'll add that to the list of projects to do over winter break.
 
Mark, unfortunately it is not as simple as that when you are dealing with a very specialized product. The catalog is being worked on but if you really want an up to date listing of products there is still no better source than the pricelist, found here:

https://www.aerotech-rocketry.com/uploads/a6d3a73c-c611-4be5-a792-94737902ae02_Model_and_hp_of_12_05_16.pdf

Charlie, I do understand, and just to be clear I was not tying to be a wise guy. I know everyone is working hard- hence the suggestion of hiring someone to do the catalog. The least expensive rout no, but quite possibly the most time efficient.

Happy holidays to you and the rest of the AT family.
 
We just recently updated the Master Motor Matrix which contains the specific information you are looking for. I put the matrix ahead of the catalog as far as priorities though a new catalog is in the works. This should be easy to print and something you can keep in your range box for reference.

https://www.aerotech-rocketry.com/uploads/52c84807-b6e7-405d-95b7-4e102a5ca724_AeroTech%20Master%20Motor%20Matrix%20Sheet1.pdf

Hi Charlie,
This Master Motor Matrix is nice, thanks! If I could make a few comments:

1) Could the column headers please be at the top of every page, not just the first? Pretty sure this is just a checkbox in Excel.
2) The final column (Notes) calls out when some special hardware is required, but seems to miss other cases. Like aren't there some 38mm motors that require a special forward closure? And I know there are two sizes of aft closures for 38mm, but not which loads require which one. Similarly, it should be marked which loads require the FSD vs. loads that don't. So I think there needs to be a lot more notes making it clear any time special HW is needed.
3) There's an extra "m" in the J510W-14A's Length column. This column is also inconsistent on when there's a '"' mark vs. not, the header states the units as inches, so having the inch mark in some of the cells seems redundant, but this is mostly my OCD speaking. :)
4) Any chance this could also be published in Excel form? For example I'd prefer to see the Peak Thrust column in lbs to make the T:W math easier, would be easy to add a new column and hide the existing one if I had the 'source', but a lot harder when I only have a PDF of it. :)

If something like this was always kept up-to-date that would be fantastic, I could keep a copy (for me the pages starting at 38mm) in my range box and always have the reference on what motors fit (based on the cases I have and the length of each rocket) as well as the basic details I need to decide if it's a motor I want to try (appropriate for the rocket's weight & weather conditions, a propellant I like, etc).

Something that confuses me a bit (never really noticed it until looking at this sheet, assuming it isn't a typo), how are the fastest and the slowest burning motors both Warp9 propellant? I.e. H669N/I49N, and I59WN/I1299N. Is that really just the difference between a cored grain and an endburner? If so, wow. :)
 
Something that confuses me a bit (never really noticed it until looking at this sheet, assuming it isn't a typo), how are the fastest and the slowest burning motors both Warp9 propellant? I.e. H669N/I49N, and I59WN/I1299N. Is that really just the difference between a cored grain and an endburner? If so, wow. :)

Pretty much :).
 
Something that confuses me a bit (never really noticed it until looking at this sheet, assuming it isn't a typo), how are the fastest and the slowest burning motors both Warp9 propellant? I.e. H669N/I49N, and I59WN/I1299N. Is that really just the difference between a cored grain and an endburner? If so, wow. :)

Pretty much :).

Geometry (specifically surface area) matters!


Steve Shannon

And I think that basically tells you that if you made an end burner out of any of the slower-burning propellants, you'd end up with a motor that burner forever and produced no thrust at all.
 
And I think that basically tells you that if you made an end burner out of any of the slower-burning propellants, you'd end up with a motor that burner forever and produced no thrust at all.

This is exactly how delay grains (J/FJ propellant) work. Good for gas expansion / base bleed / drag reduction / tracking.

I wish someone would make a disposable 13mm endburner smokey, just an inch or two stick of blackjack and a paper wrap, pintle, no nozzle. If it's sold as a smoke device you can't launch it. If it's sold as an A.1P, fire away :)
 
This is exactly how delay grains (J/FJ propellant) work. Good for gas expansion / base bleed / drag reduction / tracking.

I wish someone would make a disposable 13mm endburner smokey, just an inch or two stick of blackjack and a paper wrap, pintle, no nozzle. If it's sold as a smoke device you can't launch it. If it's sold as an A.1P, fire away :)

I would love to have a smoke generating "motor" with little or no thrust. It would be useful for a lot of cool effects. It would look great used in clusters, especially designs with outboard "pods", where you want smoke, but not necessarily thrust.
 
Charlie, I do understand, and just to be clear I was not tying to be a wise guy. I know everyone is working hard- hence the suggestion of hiring someone to do the catalog. The least expensive rout no, but quite possibly the most time efficient.

Happy holidays to you and the rest of the AT family.

Mark, no worries I understand that perspective. At the end of the day I end up being the graphic designer and it is a large undertaking. With that said I have been chipping away at it over the past few months with the goal of an updated catalog for early 2017.

Thank you for the holiday wishes, we hope that you also have a nice holiday and a great 2017!
 
Hi Charlie,
This Master Motor Matrix is nice, thanks! If I could make a few comments:

1) Could the column headers please be at the top of every page, not just the first? Pretty sure this is just a checkbox in Excel.
2) The final column (Notes) calls out when some special hardware is required, but seems to miss other cases. Like aren't there some 38mm motors that require a special forward closure? And I know there are two sizes of aft closures for 38mm, but not which loads require which one. Similarly, it should be marked which loads require the FSD vs. loads that don't. So I think there needs to be a lot more notes making it clear any time special HW is needed.
3) There's an extra "m" in the J510W-14A's Length column. This column is also inconsistent on when there's a '"' mark vs. not, the header states the units as inches, so having the inch mark in some of the cells seems redundant, but this is mostly my OCD speaking. :)
4) Any chance this could also be published in Excel form? For example I'd prefer to see the Peak Thrust column in lbs to make the T:W math easier, would be easy to add a new column and hide the existing one if I had the 'source', but a lot harder when I only have a PDF of it. :)

If something like this was always kept up-to-date that would be fantastic, I could keep a copy (for me the pages starting at 38mm) in my range box and always have the reference on what motors fit (based on the cases I have and the length of each rocket) as well as the basic details I need to decide if it's a motor I want to try (appropriate for the rocket's weight & weather conditions, a propellant I like, etc).

Something that confuses me a bit (never really noticed it until looking at this sheet, assuming it isn't a typo), how are the fastest and the slowest burning motors both Warp9 propellant? I.e. H669N/I49N, and I59WN/I1299N. Is that really just the difference between a cored grain and an endburner? If so, wow. :)

Now we are getting somewhere :)

All good recommendations and I will use the notes section as suggested regarding the hardware. Both the excel and PDF file for this matrix will be kept on the website. I will post the links later for everyone's reference. The matrix will be updated whenever something is updated/added/edited, etc. The date of revision will be in the top left corner.

If there are other ideas please let me know, thank you.
 
I would love to have a smoke generating "motor" with little or no thrust. It would be useful for a lot of cool effects. It would look great used in clusters, especially designs with outboard "pods", where you want smoke, but not necessarily thrust.

Truely, someone wants to turn his money into smoke!
 
I would love to have a smoke generating "motor" with little or no thrust. It would be useful for a lot of cool effects. It would look great used in clusters, especially designs with outboard "pods", where you want smoke, but not necessarily thrust.

Off the cuff, I would say that you should be able to do this without too much difficulty. RCS has delay grains (Black Jack Propellant) for 18, 24 and 29mm motors sold in sticks about 8" long. With a small amount of work, you should be able to use an 18/20 reload case and one of these propellant sticks in an end-burn configuration as a smoke generator. I don't think you could get an appreciable thrust in that configuration, and I certainly wouldn't want to use it to set off a deployment charge, but to make smoke, I would think it would work.

I'm not sure HOW MUCH smoke it would make, mind you... But then, if you wanted more smoke for a larger rocket, you could always use the 29mm or 38mm BlackJack propellant grains in a similar setup...

Note: These are estimations, and I have not tried this type of configuration, but I understand some folks use the propellant sticks as full-size delay grains in some EX rockets.
 
If you use an 18mm case, try HDK 22 or HDK 23. I'm guessing you'll get about 15 and 20s of smoke, although I think the smoke on the 23 will be thinner / lighter.
 
Something that confuses me a bit (never really noticed it until looking at this sheet, assuming it isn't a typo), how are the fastest and the slowest burning motors both Warp9 propellant? I.e. H669N/I49N, and I59WN/I1299N. Is that really just the difference between a cored grain and an endburner? If so, wow. :)

Absolutely! Come to lunch and we can talk grain geometry some time.

ThirstyBarbarian said:
And I think that basically tells you that if you made an end burner out of any of the slower-burning propellants, you'd end up with a motor that burner forever and produced no thrust at all.

That too. Will, were you at XPRS for my EX flight? It came in nearly ballistic due to some bonehead misconfiguring the altimeter, then sat on the ground burning. Everyone watching thought it caught fire after hitting hard, but what truly happened was that I tried leaving the top grain solid. The other grains burned about two seconds, then upward coast, then downward coast, hit the ground and sat there for a while, still burning. That tells us how the top grain produced practically no thrust, and that it burned ten or twenty times longer.
 
Charlie,

I see that valuerockets.com is gone (well, the domain is out there but it's not rocket motors any more). I also see on the Aerotech web store that you only have D21s in 4 and 7 second delays listed (and for quite a bit more than the last ones I got from valuerockets.com). Are there more D10s in the pipeline (I hope)?
 
Charlie,

I see that valuerockets.com is gone (well, the domain is out there but it's not rocket motors any more). I also see on the Aerotech web store that you only have D21s in 4 and 7 second delays listed (and for quite a bit more than the last ones I got from valuerockets.com). Are there more D10s in the pipeline (I hope)?

D10's are available in 3, 5, and 7 second delays https://www.buyrocketmotors.com/aerotech-d10-white-lightning-3-pack-single-use/ There's also a plugged option of the D10 available, and if you really want to be adventurous you can go the reload route using the RMS 18/20 hardware and the D13W and D24T reloads, both in 3 packs.
 
Saw the SUPER THUNDER H283 DMS passed certification. . Is it class 1 under 125g of propellant ?

Kenny
 
Any chance of different propellants for RMS 18/20 hardware?

Always wanted to try a sparky reload in some of my LPR.
 
Charlie,

I see that valuerockets.com is gone (well, the domain is out there but it's not rocket motors any more). I also see on the Aerotech web store that you only have D21s in 4 and 7 second delays listed (and for quite a bit more than the last ones I got from valuerockets.com). Are there more D10s in the pipeline (I hope)?

Valuerockets.com was discontinued about a year ago in order for us to expand the distribution of the smaller 18mm and 24mm motors. Many dealers had requests for these motors but they were only available on VR. We decided to close VR and let the dealers include these with their orders.

The D10s for whatever reason were not added to the AT store but they will be added today, thanks for pointing that out.
 
Any chance of different propellants for RMS 18/20 hardware?

Always wanted to try a sparky reload in some of my LPR.

Without a new shipping exemption we will not be able to offer any sparky reloads smaller than 38mm. However, we can ship S/U hobby sparkys so if we were to make an 18mm sparky it would have to be single use for now.
 
Without a new shipping exemption we will not be able to offer any sparky reloads smaller than 38mm. However, we can ship S/U hobby sparkys so if we were to make an 18mm sparky it would have to be single use for now.

So much for the 24 and 29mm sparkies in the pipeline... :(
 
I was hoping for some 29mm sparkies but short of that, I'll be happy with some Super Thunder.
 
They can be single use 24 and 29mm
Nothing wrong with an aerotech single use motor

29mm G75 Metal Storms already exist. Just need 24mm Es and 29mm Fs.

18mm are neat and all, but unless it is an 18mm min diameter, there is no reason you can't build with a 24mm mount. The smaller composite motors are a PITA to get igniters into. My 2 cents at least. D21s are at least Blue Thunder so they light easily and have a decent size nozzle.

Thinking the igniter problem isn't too bad if the smaller motors are bates grains instead or C-Slot. My 4 cents now.
 
Valuerockets.com was discontinued about a year ago in order for us to expand the distribution of the smaller 18mm and 24mm motors. Many dealers had requests for these motors but they were only available on VR. We decided to close VR and let the dealers include these with their orders.
And I've had two vendors tell me they have them, one in this thread and one in PM, so I know they're out there. I'll need to check my current stock to see how soon I need to reorder.

The D10s for whatever reason were not added to the AT store but they will be added today, thanks for pointing that out.

You're welcome.
 
So much for the 24 and 29mm sparkies in the pipeline... :(

During the latest episode of the Rocketry Show, Charlie mentioned that a 24mm single-use 'Sparky' 'E' motor may become available...:wink:
 
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