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That might be too nice to fly...
L3 Cert Project - Experiencing a Significant Gravitas Shortfall (Formula 200)
- Thread starter NateLowrie
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Barkley
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Sorry to necro this post, but that plate is _awesome_. Thanks for sharing.
Barkley
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Absolutely....Gorgeous.
Great looking rocket... looking forward to the flight and a successful cert....
blackjack2564
Crazy Jim's Gone Banana's
Kooolsville... Daddio...........Koolsville,......can ya Dig It?
For some reason takes me back to the "day".
Good luck with the flight!!
For some reason takes me back to the "day".
Good luck with the flight!!
Smoking paint job to go with the smoking harnesses you made for me. Thanks again for the custom work.
I am sure it's not a wrap. My cousin Arti really outdid himself this time. Crazy thing is he taught himself.
I know this flight goes perfect. I already told my wife after this flies it's going in the foyer for decoration...
Things are fast approaching. The TRS is almost done. Put it mostly together last night. It passed the preliminary tests and synced with the LCD receiver and spat back good coordinates.
Tonight's agenda:
Tomorrow's Agenda:
Got the deployment charge canisters done. They are 9in long because I needed to get them above the main chute D-Bag. The long length should help BP fully burn. I used 8in canisters on my L2 so I know they work well. I drilled a hole in the bottom for a #4-40 screw to attach to the bulk plate. That screw is then sealed with epoxy. There is also a hole on the side (see 2nd pic) that goes through the cap and tube for the E-Match. When I make the charge, I insert the match and then hot glue to seal the hole. Add powder through the top, then stuff with dog barf and tape with masking tape. The E-Match leads go directly through the hole right above the ARRD and then a well nut goes in the hole to seal everything.
Tonight's agenda:
- Solder remaining 5 components on TRS.
- Wire the sled.
- Program TRS and RRC3
- Vacuum test the whole setup a few times using LEDs on the deployment channel.
- Mount eggfinder in nose.
Tomorrow's Agenda:
- Make up charges and ground test the setup (I would have ground tested before painting but time was short. Thankfully only the nosecone breaks).
- Final mounting of ActionCam and programming it's settings.
- Final weigh in and update weight and CD of simulation.
Got the deployment charge canisters done. They are 9in long because I needed to get them above the main chute D-Bag. The long length should help BP fully burn. I used 8in canisters on my L2 so I know they work well. I drilled a hole in the bottom for a #4-40 screw to attach to the bulk plate. That screw is then sealed with epoxy. There is also a hole on the side (see 2nd pic) that goes through the cap and tube for the E-Match. When I make the charge, I insert the match and then hot glue to seal the hole. Add powder through the top, then stuff with dog barf and tape with masking tape. The E-Match leads go directly through the hole right above the ARRD and then a well nut goes in the hole to seal everything.
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Hey,, you guy's r always speaking of ground testing..
Not sure if you know,
but I'm a big advocate..
I ground test before a maiden until I like what it looks like..
No matter how many times that takes..
It should look smooth and easy,, the nosecone should hit the ground at about 3/4 the length of the mains harness..
But anywhoosie,,
I just thought I'd show you guy's this---
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Single-Cue...6th-Version-/291402738315?hash=item43d8f4ea8b
I really love it...
There are always lots of questions about routing shooters wire and everything..
This thing just makes the whole ground testing process so easy it's fun again....
Teddy
Not sure if you know,
but I'm a big advocate..
I ground test before a maiden until I like what it looks like..
No matter how many times that takes..
It should look smooth and easy,, the nosecone should hit the ground at about 3/4 the length of the mains harness..
But anywhoosie,,
I just thought I'd show you guy's this---
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Single-Cue...6th-Version-/291402738315?hash=item43d8f4ea8b
I really love it...
There are always lots of questions about routing shooters wire and everything..
This thing just makes the whole ground testing process so easy it's fun again....
Teddy
Attached are the checklists for this airframe. If you have a chance, I would appreciate a once over to make sure everything is accurate and I didn't forget anything. Comments and thoughts are definitely welcome. The checklist has double checks for critical items like connecting harnesses to the airframe.
Also, feel free to use and modify the checklist for your own rocket.
Notes:
View attachment Experiencing A Significant Gravitas Shortfall - Checklists.xlsx
Also, feel free to use and modify the checklist for your own rocket.
Notes:
- Charge sizes will be updated when I have actual values.
View attachment Experiencing A Significant Gravitas Shortfall - Checklists.xlsx
Teddy,
That's awesome! For my testing I just use the launch controller I have and run the ematch wires out of the vent holes in the Av-Bay. Makes it super simple to hook up to a launch controller.
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yeah,, definitely Nate,,
some are easy,, some not so much..
This helps on some that can be a bit more difficult...
Teddy
I couldn't find any problems, insofar as I have never used an ARRD. Do you have a dowel for your igniter, and a way to retain the igniter?
I have a 1/8in dowel that the quickburst fatboy igniter will be taped too. I know it's not necessary with the pyrodex in the CTI motors but it's nice to have extra insurance. Thinking about putting a marshmallow at the end to get lightly toasted by the flame front...
On the retaining front, what's the preferred best practice? Back in the day we stood the dowel on a standoff.
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I always keep dowels and pyrodex pellets and super long e matches if you need...
Teddy
Teddy
Ooh, check with Robert before you combine a pellet and a dipped igniter. I've heard stories about over-pressurizing the core.
For retention, a piece of duct tape would probably work. I was planning to try that.
Checklists look good.
I would add a couple of extra checks "Check all items on checklist completed", and "Designate photographer" and "Pause for Photos". Having somebody do the checklist for you during prep can be good too.
It really helps if you have someone as a designated photographer to capture what is going on without taking your attention away from stuff that is more important at the time. Make sure they get the whole rocket in the pic when you are standing next to it at the pad (sounds obvious but some photographers don't think so ).
It gets stressful as you work towards racking it up. Don't be afraid to take a small breather to relax occasionally
I would add a couple of extra checks "Check all items on checklist completed", and "Designate photographer" and "Pause for Photos". Having somebody do the checklist for you during prep can be good too.
It really helps if you have someone as a designated photographer to capture what is going on without taking your attention away from stuff that is more important at the time. Make sure they get the whole rocket in the pic when you are standing next to it at the pad (sounds obvious but some photographers don't think so
).It gets stressful as you work towards racking it up. Don't be afraid to take a small breather to relax occasionally
Scott is right, no pellets installed in the 75 and 98 CTI motors.
Nate, I have a boat load of pellets if that is the way you wish to go. All you need is an e-match and a pellet and your stick; show and tell if you want it. On the other hand, if the motor comes with an igniter, use that-- no need to reinvent the wheel.
Nate, I have a boat load of pellets if that is the way you wish to go. All you need is an e-match and a pellet and your stick; show and tell if you want it. On the other hand, if the motor comes with an igniter, use that-- no need to reinvent the wheel.
The igniters for the larger CTI motors have additional pyrogen on them. No additional pellets normally required. Just make sure you have a stick of some sort to hold it in place at the top. I think the CTI motors come with a thin cardboard tube which does a perfect job at this.
Well, LDRS was a whirlwind of a trip. First off, a full round of thanks is in order because without a bunch of people this project would not have gotten off the ground:
Prepping the flight:
Friday
I was planning on flying a few rockets on Friday. After putting my Super Batray in a tree 1/2 mile down range I decided to bag the rest of the flights and prep the rocket instead of prepping it that night. It was so windy and cold we rearranged the trailer as a mobile prep area and we took Friday to fully prep the flight. It was pretty toasty in there compared to outside. We got the avionics tested and prepped. The charges were 4.5g and 5.0g respectively. Got the ARRD built and then assembled the Av Bay.
With the switches 1/2in apart alignment was supposed to be easy, but when I torqued the allthread I wasn't holding the lid steady and it shifted the screw switches away from the hole. So I unscrewed the allthread and went about resetting the lids. That's when the first and only problem happened. The back lid was tight and came off forcefully and pulled the wire from the SMA female end on the patch cable. After talking to a few folks we felt comfortable we just re-crimp. So, we recrimped and I did a signal test with the receiver. Then, I super glued the connection to make sure it wasn't coming apart again. Problem solved. Got the Av-Bay buttoned up moved on to the payload bay.
Tom Cohen and I went through packing the rocketman. I ended up liking the way he did his shroud lines better than my method so I ended up going with that. I packed the DBag and got all the recovery gear in. Then, I buttoned up the noseconse, installed the shear pins, and set the upper assembly down. It was ready.
Saturday
Got to the site around 8:15. Went to get the motor case from Gloria to discover that it was still loaned out. Fortunately she coordinated with Tom and Tom talked to Dennis and I got to use his case. Dennis showed me the motor construction and how it went all together, then watched me put it together. Tom came in to do a double check and spotted a misalignment of the inside o-ring on the nozzle retainer. Thanks Dennis and Tom! Note, I am adding a spot to my SOP on future flights to get a 2nd set of eyes on the motor assembly.
Last thing to do was do the final positioning of the downward facing camera. I have to come up with a better method of determining if the camera is on because the yellow LED is almost impossible to see through the hole in mid-day sunlight. I had to cup my hands into a shroud and nose up to the rocket to see it. Got that buttoned up and the rocket was ready to go.
I got a final CG fully loaded. 80in actual CG to 91.742in CP. 1.46 calibers stability. Fred came by and did the pre-flight inspection and was RSO. Then Tom pulled up to take another other project out. At that point I was ready and no sense on waiting so we loaded it and off we went to the pad.
She looked beautiful on the pad. Electronics armed without a hitch. I have more pictures at the pad when I get them from my dad's camera. We backed away to the flight line and waited. I was getting great packet updates so we were ready to rock and roll.
Then the launch came. I had 2 people assigned to take pictures and video. The first rocket on the away pads was announced. They gave a countdown and pushed the button. All of the sudden the rocket next to mine leaps off the pad, then 2 seconds later my rocket and the other rocket come up to pressure. Whoops said the LCO. I said a few choice words while I was tracking. All 3 rockets weathercocked into the wind. I need to pull the data but it looks like mine was going around 100-150 fps when it deployed.
Tracking was easy for the entire flight. Drifted about 3/4mile away and we had it insight the entire time. I also got clear data packets right up it landed. We hopped in the truck, had a quick 1/2mile jaunt into the field and got it back. Everything was in one piece and the paint job was pretty much unscathed. Fred looked it over and the paperwork is signed. Successful cert.
If anyone has pictures or video of the launch, please post! My crew didn't get anything because of the surprise drag race.
- My parents for trucking out everything and being my ground crew.
- My brother for being the muscle on Saturday.
- Tom Cohen for the amazing away cell support and advice on the main chute D-Bag pack. And for the borrowed paper clip at the away cell.
- John Sigmon for double checking my simulations and offering sound advice.
- Dennis P for lending me the 75mm 5G case and adapter and taking the time to watch and guide me building the motor.
- Fred Wallace and Robert DeHate for being awesome TAPs.
Prepping the flight:
Friday
I was planning on flying a few rockets on Friday. After putting my Super Batray in a tree 1/2 mile down range I decided to bag the rest of the flights and prep the rocket instead of prepping it that night. It was so windy and cold we rearranged the trailer as a mobile prep area and we took Friday to fully prep the flight. It was pretty toasty in there compared to outside. We got the avionics tested and prepped. The charges were 4.5g and 5.0g respectively. Got the ARRD built and then assembled the Av Bay.
With the switches 1/2in apart alignment was supposed to be easy, but when I torqued the allthread I wasn't holding the lid steady and it shifted the screw switches away from the hole. So I unscrewed the allthread and went about resetting the lids. That's when the first and only problem happened. The back lid was tight and came off forcefully and pulled the wire from the SMA female end on the patch cable. After talking to a few folks we felt comfortable we just re-crimp. So, we recrimped and I did a signal test with the receiver. Then, I super glued the connection to make sure it wasn't coming apart again. Problem solved. Got the Av-Bay buttoned up moved on to the payload bay.
Tom Cohen and I went through packing the rocketman. I ended up liking the way he did his shroud lines better than my method so I ended up going with that. I packed the DBag and got all the recovery gear in. Then, I buttoned up the noseconse, installed the shear pins, and set the upper assembly down. It was ready.
Saturday
Got to the site around 8:15. Went to get the motor case from Gloria to discover that it was still loaned out. Fortunately she coordinated with Tom and Tom talked to Dennis and I got to use his case. Dennis showed me the motor construction and how it went all together, then watched me put it together. Tom came in to do a double check and spotted a misalignment of the inside o-ring on the nozzle retainer. Thanks Dennis and Tom! Note, I am adding a spot to my SOP on future flights to get a 2nd set of eyes on the motor assembly.
Last thing to do was do the final positioning of the downward facing camera. I have to come up with a better method of determining if the camera is on because the yellow LED is almost impossible to see through the hole in mid-day sunlight. I had to cup my hands into a shroud and nose up to the rocket to see it. Got that buttoned up and the rocket was ready to go.
I got a final CG fully loaded. 80in actual CG to 91.742in CP. 1.46 calibers stability. Fred came by and did the pre-flight inspection and was RSO. Then Tom pulled up to take another other project out. At that point I was ready and no sense on waiting so we loaded it and off we went to the pad.
She looked beautiful on the pad. Electronics armed without a hitch. I have more pictures at the pad when I get them from my dad's camera. We backed away to the flight line and waited. I was getting great packet updates so we were ready to rock and roll.
Then the launch came. I had 2 people assigned to take pictures and video. The first rocket on the away pads was announced. They gave a countdown and pushed the button. All of the sudden the rocket next to mine leaps off the pad, then 2 seconds later my rocket and the other rocket come up to pressure. Whoops said the LCO. I said a few choice words while I was tracking. All 3 rockets weathercocked into the wind. I need to pull the data but it looks like mine was going around 100-150 fps when it deployed.
Tracking was easy for the entire flight. Drifted about 3/4mile away and we had it insight the entire time. I also got clear data packets right up it landed. We hopped in the truck, had a quick 1/2mile jaunt into the field and got it back. Everything was in one piece and the paint job was pretty much unscathed. Fred looked it over and the paperwork is signed. Successful cert.
If anyone has pictures or video of the launch, please post! My crew didn't get anything because of the surprise drag race.
Congratulations on the successful flight and L3 Certification. Well done
Bummer about the pics/video...
It might be useful to others' if you put together a bit of a discussion on what you think worked well for the project, what could have happened better, and what you have learned along the way. Have a good think about it and post it in a few weeks.
What's the next project?
Bummer about the pics/video...
It might be useful to others' if you put together a bit of a discussion on what you think worked well for the project, what could have happened better, and what you have learned along the way. Have a good think about it and post it in a few weeks.
What's the next project?
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WWWWHHHHHHOOOOOOPPPPPPPPPP.........
Congrats on that smokin flight Nate....
Good for you man..
That was just a bit too easy Nate,,,
Tracking worked the whole time it was in the air,,,
Drivin right up to it on the ground with Tom C and loadin it up in the truck for the ride back...
It was almost like it wanted to go up one more time,, lol...
Teddy
Congrats on that smokin flight Nate....
Good for you man..
That was just a bit too easy Nate,,,
Tracking worked the whole time it was in the air,,,
Drivin right up to it on the ground with Tom C and loadin it up in the truck for the ride back...
It was almost like it wanted to go up one more time,, lol...
Teddy
Teddy,
Sorry I missed you. Every time I wanted to stop over it was late in the day and you had already packed up. I still had 1/2 mile in and out to get it but it wasn't bad. One of the easier recoveries of the day. John's was a lot harder. I thought long and hard about putting it up on Sunday but I was way too tired.
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Congrats on the L-3!
Congratulations on the successful flight and L3 Certification. Well done
Bummer about the pics/video...
It might be useful to others' if you put together a bit of a discussion on what you think worked well for the project, what could have happened better, and what you have learned along the way. Have a good think about it and post it in a few weeks.
What's the next project?
Well, I learned a hell of a lot through this build and during the launch. Here's my initial assessment and it's thoughts based on both my flight and some of the other L3 flights that took place. I wanted to get it down now. I am sure I will think of some other things:
What went right:
- The Rocket storage rack I had designed and put together Wed Morning held up beautifully. It worked really well. So did transporting the rocket in the trailer. This is the first time we used the trailer and it was well worth it.
- The Av-Bay was an all around improvement.
- The 3D printed av-bay sled worked really well. That was definitely an improvement not having to assemble a sled and drill templates manually.
- Using minifit jr connectors and crimping the igniter connections gave me peace of mind they weren't going to come out of a screw terminal.
- The minifit jr's are also a much better connector for the battery connections.
- Lastly, the screw switches worked much better when I had them spaced 1/2in apart and could drill 2 holes right next to each other. I still think that exploring a different switching method would be desiresable in the future.
What needs work:
- I need to get better in general about production schedules for projects. I was working up through the last minute on Wed (ground tested Wed. night at 2230) and it was 1) unneccessarily stressful and 2) I wasn't as prepared as I wanted to be. Normally, I like to pre-prep all of my rockets so all that needs to be done at the field is to take them out of the vehicle, put a motor in them, and fly. I had to prep the L3 Friday, which took away from some of the day.
- The rail buttons got really chewed up during the flight. Almost half the web is gone on every one.I think that the wind was causing some binding on the rail, though the fit was slighltly tight to begin with on every button. The rails were pretty corroded and I need to remember to bring a wipe or scrub brush to wipe the channel down.
- Launch Day operations were choatic and undefined
- Set a time that you are launching and tell people. I felt bad I missed John's Friday launch because I didn't know he was launching and didn't here it on the PA over the howl of the wind. If I knew I could have helped him get it out to the pad and provided a second set of eyes. Same thing with Matt's flight. We were in the field recovering and didn't know he was going.
- Need a better system for video.
- Boris had a really nice setup that was a tripod mounted Go Pro and a shoulder mounted steady rest that supported both a camera and a video camera. The Go Pro on the tripod would solve the unexpected launch issue, though the shoulder mount would not have made a difference.
- I found https://www.rocketryphotography.com/ about 2 weeks ago and REALLY like the idea of tying in the camera activation and movement to the launch control. The advantages of the system is that I wouldn't need to assign people to do it and it's LCO mistake proof.
- I think to start with, just have 2 Go Pro's or ActionCams on tripods would work well, eventually leading up to mast cameras and some of the other more exotic setups.
- Would love to get some input on what other people are doing for this. Boris, if you read this thread could you post details for that shoulder rest you were using?
- ​Need to reconfigure the recovery procedures.
- My recovery was easy. In sight the whole time and full lock on the GPS receiver all the way down. But, it could have been as challenging as Matt's. Based on some of the recoveries I witnessed I feel like some changes are in order.
- 2 trackers for sure. Redundancy always helps. Consider getting a RDF tracker just to run 2 different types.
- a person just for looking at GPS/RDF and 2-3 people spotting would be ideal. Spotters are spread out to get 2-3 different lines on the rocket.
- Have a idling vehicle ready to go for recovery. If we had one ready to go for Matt's attempt we could have probably stayed close to it and kept it in sight until touchdown or at least had a much better idea of the touchdown point. I also saw no less that 6 rockets being drug across the sod by chutes and stopping that as soon as possible is ideal. This won't work in all instances. Another possibility is pre-positioning your spotters downrange.
Next projects in order:
- 54 and 38mm motor making
- Refurbishing a Polecat Goblin I got from another rocketeer
- Finishing/fixing a partially built 4in Big Bertha upscale
- A honking big 12in diameter 20' rocket. Need to Rebuild the fin can (1x98, 3x75 motor configuration) and reconfigure the upper sections. This is going to be a small team project.
- The AGM-33 Pike Gus delivered to me at LDRS.
Thanks! Learned a lot in the process for sure.
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