Boris Katan flights 2016 -> Clusters + 3D Printing Fun <-

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Berwick felt like Rocket Heaven on Saturday. The Frenzy Massive and your Golden Arrow were the two best launches if the day.
 
Yea, that's what I said ... :)
Thanks for the corrections, always been better with numbers than names.

How did your onboard video come out?

V V VIDEO NEXT PAGE V V

Well continuing with the trend of not being prepared whatsoever for that day (I promise I will be next time...), I have no onboard video. Or at least I have some, but nothing in air. While there is still over 1GB left on the card (more than enough for two flights), the battery must have decided that 7 mins of sitting on the launch pad was enough.

Anyway, excellent flights and video as always. Unfortunate that the midnight express had a tough landing. Is there anyway you can send me the footage of my flight?

Edit: just saw your PM, thanks
 
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Berwick felt like Rocket Heaven on Saturday. The Frenzy Massive and your Golden Arrow were the two best launches if the day.

Thanks. It was a great rocket flying day.

the battery must have decided that 7 mins of sitting on the launch pad was enough.

Anyway, excellent flights and video as always. Unfortunate that the midnight express had a tough landing. Is there anyway you can send me the footage of my flight?

I sent you a PM after midnight last night with links. Sorry I didn't get more of your excellent flight, was prepping the Midnight Express as yours went up.
Would like a do-over on setting up the harness, but that's not the way life works...

With a full charge the 808 #16 battery should support 30+ minutes of video on a day that is not very cold.
I charge all cameras the night before each launch.
 
The Golden Arrow's bottom rail button had a significant amount of Nylon stripped at launch. Top rail button was undamaged.

The hard hitting motor, a K940 WT with 1100N peak thrust, did cause the rail (not the pad) to whip and rock immediately after launch.
As the 7ft 11lb rocket had a lot of inertia and speed, it launched very straight and fast.
However, the rail was pushed hard sideways away from the motor's exhaust in a whipping action as the rocket lifted off.

>> Has anyone else seen something like this after a similar launch?

I have not seen this level of damage to a rail button before.
It has been replaced.

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The RIMRA/CMASS joint launch this Saturday looks like it will have very nice weather:

Black powder with bursts of fire and smoke....

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Well the 6/11/16 RIMRA launch was cancelled due to rain...
And could not attend the 7/16/16 CMASS launch due to a party in the family :)
But the 8/6/16 CMASS launch is looking really good...
 
Consoled myself for all this not flying rockets by building a nice kit that had been patiently waiting its turn since last year.

The Rocketry Warehouse 4 inch fiberglass Patriot.
52.5 inch tall, flight weight just under 6 lbs without motor.
Can fly on anything from a hard pushing H to a 54mm L.

Purchased from the great folks at AMW ProX.

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Used 3/16" wire clamps to get the small U bolts I like to use for mid-sized projects.
JB Weld locks the nuts for the lovely Areopack 54mm motor retainer.

Tacked in the fins with CA then bonded with internal fillets of thickened West 206 epoxy plus one internal layer of 6 oz fiberglass.
With small external fillets and some sanding the airframe is looking good.
T nuts secured with 3 layers of 1oz FG anchor the rail buttons.

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Boris looks like you doing a nice job. I fly mine a lot on the 1 grain CTI 54mm motors. The 1 grain 54mm skid gives it a nice slow lift off. Question is that the nose cone that came with the kit? Mine is old enough to have the gel coat FG cone.
 
Used 3/16" wire clamps to get the small U bolts I like to use for mid-sized projects.
JB Weld locks the nuts for the lovely Areopack 54mm motor retainer.

Tacked in the fins with CA then bonded with internal fillets of thickened West 206 epoxy plus one internal layer of 6 oz fiberglass.
With small external fillets and some sanding the airframe is looking good.
T nuts secured with 3 layers of 1oz FG anchor the rail buttons.

Looking good so fair. I also grabbed one of the patriots from AMW. Are you using the motor ejection or adding an avbay?

Crossfire, AMW had a limited run made up for them with the metal tipped FW nosecone. It's a very nice piece. I wouldn't have picked up the kit if it had a gel coat nosecone.
 
As was mentioned, AMW got some of these kits upgraded with filament wound nose cones.
A nice upgrade, but this is a great kit either way.

As this is a fiberglass airframe, it can be pushed very hard, so building for dual deploy.
Also from a safety point of view, would much prefer to fly a rocket this heavy and hard as altimeter deploy with motor backup.

Some very nice Top Flight Recovery parts will handle recovery: 1/8in Kevlar, 12x12in Nomex and 45in chute.

> Cut 1 inch off the top of the main body tube
> Sanded carefully to get very square and clean edges
> bonded the 1 inch ring to coupler tube
> Epoxied fg plate intended as NC base to bottom of coupler tube
> 3D printing parts for top of coupler

Now coupler is altimeter bay, and nose cone is chute compartment.
This also placed enough weight forward in the rocket that no nose weight needs to be added.

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Your prints look good! What Slicer are you using?

Thanks. I was pleased to get good parts printed on the first attempt with both pieces pictured in my previous post.

Using MatterControl for slicing.
For those not familiar with 3D printing, the "slicer" is the software that takes a 3D model and turns it into instructions for a 3D printer by slicing the model into layers that can be printed starting with the bottom layer and building up one layer after another.

Mattercontrol does an excellent job with some parts and not others.
The flat bulkhead plate printed very cleanly and needed no clean up.
However, Mattercontrol often struggles to do ring shapes as cleanly as it could.

Picture in this post shows the ring shaped part before cleanup.
Printing ABS plastic because of its physical and heat toughness.
ABS cuts and sands a lot like a medium hardness wood like basswood, so a minute with 120 grit cleans things up fast.

Using Autodesk 123D Design to design parts. Seems like a good balance between ease of use and design capabilities that are a match for 3D printing.
It lacks some features present in professional grade CAD software, but many of those advanced features are not necessary for 3D printing plastic parts.
Also skips the eternal learning curve associated with pro CAD programs :facepalm:

Both programs are free downloads.

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Getting started with painting.
Planning to go with the white, red and yellow color scheme that is popular on models of the Patriot.

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Boris, the flight of the Soyuz was beautiful, but I never did get to look at it up close on the field. Nice! I didn't realize it was an outboard BP cluster with an APCP core motor. I'd love to talk to you at a launch some time about clustering (especially APCP motors, or a combo of BP and APCP - sounds tricky). I've only clustered up to 4 BP motors at a time, but I like it.
 
Boris, the flight of the Soyuz was beautiful, but I never did get to look at it up close on the field. Nice! I didn't realize it was an outboard BP cluster with an APCP core motor. I'd love to talk to you at a launch some time about clustering (especially APCP motors, or a combo of BP and APCP - sounds tricky). I've only clustered up to 4 BP motors at a time, but I like it.

Thanks.
The Soyuz is one of my favorite rockets.
Between building it initially and rebuilding it after the first flight, I put somewhere around 200 hours into it.
Unless a rocket will take me into space, I don't think I will spend that much time on a project again.

The key to successfully clustering hobby rockets is to make every step from the press of the launch button to motors thrusting hard happen as quickly and reliably as possible:
1) Lots of electrical power - high current cluster box with LiPo battery and automotive relays - mine can deliver 100A+ at 12v+ to the igniters. This set up has fired up to 30 motors repeatedly.
A typical club relay will usually do well with 4 motors and may handle 8.
With any cluster, always make sure there is a relay and power source at the pad. Long runs of lamp cord between the power source and the igniters must be avoided due to severe voltage line loss.
2) Reliable igniters with long leads and No clip whips - Rocketflite CF wires and pyrogen kits are what I use for almost all clusters
3) Only use motors that will come up to pressure very quickly - preferably under 0.3 seconds - all BP motors and most CTI motors will do this. Can use other motors if careful steps are taken to assure quick firing.
If these conditions are met then BP and AP motors can be mixed at will.
Please see website in my signature for more details.

I also prefer to have redundancy for recovery deployments for HP projects.
The Soyuz flies with motor deployment backup to the primary altimeter deployment.
 
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Got the Patriot painted and looking pretty.

Second pic shows coupler, and one inch from main body tube, converted to altimeter bay.
Also nose cone, which will be shear pinned to alt bay, ready to serve as main chute bay.

Third pic is 3D printed top of bay and alt sled.

Unfortunately, CMASS' Amesbury field has not been hayed due to recent weather conditions, so this Saturday's launch is cancelled.
There are other local launches coming up in following weeks, and my rockets are urging me to fly them ASAP...

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Looks pretty. I'm going to try and make it out to the next CMASS launch so I can see it. And fly smaller stuff like you tell me to do all the time :D
 
Wired up the alt bay for a Featherweight Raven and screw switch.
Two 10-24 threaded rods serve both to secure alt bay and as apogee conductors.
Makes for a simple and light weight setup.

Ground tests went well with 1gr to deploy the chute and 1.5gr for apogee separation.
The apogee separation test sounded like a cannon in the hard walled, thin fiberglass body.
My quiet neighborhood got quieter after that one... :wink:

I hope to do a moderate altitude first flight at RIMRA this Saturday and a much more enthusiastic fight at MMMSC a couple weeks later.
Also hope to make the CMASS launch in a couple weeks. May see you there Tom...

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Wired up the alt bay for a Featherweight Raven and screw switch.
Two 10-24 threaded rods serve both to secure alt bay and as apogee conductors.
Makes for a simple and light weight setup.

Ground tests went well with 1gr to deploy the chute and 1.5gr for apogee separation.
The apogee separation test sounded like a cannon in the hard walled, thin fiberglass body.
My quiet neighborhood got quieter after that one... :wink:

I hope to do a moderate altitude first flight at RIMRA this Saturday and a much more enthusiastic fight at MMMSC a couple weeks later.
Also hope to make the CMASS launch in a couple weeks. May see you there Tom...

That is a nice looking Av-Bay. For the shear pins did you tap the coupler directly or use a press in nut?
 
That is a nice looking Av-Bay. For the shear pins did you tap the coupler directly or use a press in nut?

Thanks.
Two 2-56 Nylon bolt shear pins secure the nose cone to the upper end of the coupler/av bay.
Both NC and coupler are thin-walled fiberglass.
Used a tap to thread the shear pin holes in the NC. Holes in the av-bay are just slightly larger and not threaded.
The fiberglass is much harder than the nylon and shears it cleanly.

In other cardboard tubed projects with the same shear pins, I create oversized holes for the shear pins and fill those with slow, hard epoxy first.
Then drill/tap smaller holes in the center of the now epoxy reinforced area as needed for the shear pins.

If a shear pin hole gets sloppy from use, I just re-fill it with epoxy and then later re-drill/tap.

With regard to av-bay wiring, I borrowed ideas from Featherweight Altimeter's design for their very cool 38mm alt bay kits.
Using relatively light threaded rods, that are both structural and conductors.
 
I hope to do a moderate altitude first flight at RIMRA this Saturday and a much more enthusiastic fight at MMMSC a couple weeks later.
Also hope to make the CMASS launch in a couple weeks. May see you there Tom...

Didn't know you were planning on an MMMSC trip. Maybe I'll see you up there as well.
 
The Patriot was looking too clean cut.
So I repainted it and added an awesome decal from Stickershock.
Now it has that delightful flaming death look...:shock:

The launch last Saturday at RIMRA had technical difficulties at the high power pads.
The wireless launch system was not synching / communicating properly.
So the good news was that all my rockets were in the still in spotless condition at the end of the day, and still have plenty of motors ready to go...:wink:

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The patriot looks killer-cool.

Despite the technical difficulties, we had a lively fire at RIMRA. My daughter has a great picture of the carnage. I'll post it after I download the pics from her camera. That, and the scorching heat, put a serious damper on HPR last weekend.
 
Thanks BDB.
Yes, there was a vigorous thermal incident at the pad. (not mine)

A flyer got his L1 on the Red Max.

And then there was a nasty fire.
A 4" Madcow Frenzy. The 54mm motor case and closure separated at ignition and totally torched the bottom half of the rocket.
The alt bay and up was singed but looked to be flyable again.

I was surprised to see what looked like a 4grain 54mm CTI motor in the debris,
Both because the CTI stuff is usually quite reliable, and because I would expect a motor that large to send that rocket much too high for that field.

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Great job with the paint and details. That looks awesome! Too bad there was problems with the launch system.

Regarding the CATO, aren't all the 54mm CTI's screw on to the aft with the drawn lip at the top? I would have expected failure at the rear by the nozzle. Given the pressurization of the compartment and subsequent flames from the top, it almost looks like either no delay grain was present or the delay was drilled super fine. What did the Root Failure Analysis turn up?
 
After the fire, the hard steel motor closure was still secured at the bottom of the motor tube by the Areopac retainer to the bottom of the rocket.
Where it all went bad, was that the aluminum motor case separated from the closure on motor ignition.
The case and burning propellant grains traveled up through the bottom of the rocket, striking and separating the top of the rocket.
Some grains remained inside the lower part of the rocket and some burned out on the ground. All propellant grains were consumed.
There was considerable scorching at the bottom of the aluminum motor case.

The threads at the bottom of the aluminum motor case were not as raised and defined as I would have expected.
While there was no gross damage to the threads, nor obvious signs of cross threading, I do believe the case closure threads were the point of failure.

I helped the flyer by carrying the upper part of the rocket and motor case back to his prep area.
So I had a pretty close look at things.
I did suggest to the flyer that the case and closure should not be used again going forward and he agreed.
 
CMASS Launch - 8/20/2016 - Acton, MA

The weather was generally nice, with temps in the low 80s. But very variable, starting with almost no wind, then picking up, a quick mid-afternoon rain shower, followed by clearing and low winds again...

Flew the Naked Finn's Canadian arrow twice on CTI G68-6 White with noisy liftoffs and good recoveries.
Turbine Rocket Saucer went up again on a cluster of D11-P engines.
Also sent up a couple 38mm Applewhite saucers on AT 29mm motors: Classic on an F40 White and Stealth on a G53 Smokey

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