Blue Tube Mega Vector Force

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That sounds like it should work well. At that point, though, couldn't you just make a card stock shroud rather than the 3D printed part?
 
That sounds like it should work well. At that point, though, couldn't you just make a card stock shroud rather than the 3D printed part?

Yes. But if I can get the 3d-printed shroud, it ought to be a lot more durable. I think cardstock would be OK if I glassed it, but ABS would/should be easier.
 
Update! Placed an order with Dave at Always Ready; Blue Tube bits and pieces are on their way. I hadn't really thought about how tight this is going to be. This is how it worked in my head:
transition.jpg
(ok, slightly apples to oranges but you'll get the idea in a sec)
...This is what the top transition will look like with actual scale dimensions:
toptransition.png
Those centering rings will be TINY. If my math is right (and it's late, so there's a decent chance it isn't) the small CRs will be 3.75mm thick, the big ones will be 7.25mm thick. But it should work!!
 
It's been a while; life is getting busy. BUT progress goes on.

Had a really wonderful "OH, PERFECT" moment:

I hadn't really thought a ton about how to join the new transitions to the body tubes. With the ABS printed bits, I used wood screws. But with only two layers of Blue Tube, I realized that I wanted something more secure. So I got some PEM nuts from McMaster and a small box of machine screws that are long enough to go through two layers of bluetube with plenty of clearance.

Then I realized...The screw has to go through three layers of bluetube (outer tube, inner transition tube, outer transition tube) and a gap:

toptransition2.png
So the screws I got from Mcmaster probably wouldn't work, another trip to the hardware store is...wait...
18928107_10155249317829303_1168517504_n.jpg
HA HA!!! You can see the tip of the screw poking through the inner wall of the transition. It's not huge, but it should be enough for the threads to grip. Now I just have to fiddle around with getting a PEM nut epoxied in there. Should be fun.
 
Update: First set of PEM nuts are in. They are not easy to work with, esp. tiny #4 ones. But they're in with some rocketpoxy and drying now.
 
Remaining pre-flight tasks:
-Drill and install PEM nut for camera mount
-Drill lower holes in 38mm section
-Fill and sand and prime 38mm section (it had to be replaced because the lower transition was epoxied in)
-Waiting on 3d printed bits. After they arrive:
-install & epoxy 3d bits
-finish new sled (holes, battery mount block, etc)
-Drill holes & put pem nuts in upper end of upper transition, upper end of lower transition
-Sand and prime
-paint
 
Flight day today, and lots to report.
First flight was on an Aerotech H100 DMS, delay drilled down to 10s. Hands were shaking a little as I got ready, this thing I'd been working on for months was going to go up.

One of the PEM nuts popped through in the upper section :mad: so I replaced the #4 screw and nut with a #6 screw. Cinched things down well.
Eggfinder got GPS signal fine and synced to the receiver.
Launch was utterly textbook. Nice loud roar from the 38mm motor and a quick flight up to 2020 feet. Max speed was 274 mph. Initial descent of 60 fps, and a gentle bump to the ground of 21 fps. Eggfinder lost signal (probably because the rocket fell behind a small ridge) but the coordinates let me right to it; when I was about 500 feet away, it started beeping again.
IMG_5865.jpg
[a few feet to the left and it would have been a wet day....]
So, full of hubris, I said "That went well, let's do something stupid!" and I put the I280 DMS motor in.
IMG_5866.jpg
[on the pad]
Got all the electronics set and ready to go, Eggfinder beeping a strong signal. Countdown and launch...
and that I280 kicked the rocket up like nobody's business. Nice crackling roar and seriously quick acceleration. Everyone watched as it went up and over...and we all lost it in the sun. A couple of minutes of peering into the sky and we said "well, time to start hunting".
No Eggfinder signal, so we went to the last known coordinate. Nothing. From there, we started following the wind. After about 5 minutes, the Eggfinder receiver started beeping and updated its coordinates. We found the rocket...in rough shape. The upper 29mm section (with the Eggfinder Tx) was missing. The 38mm "middle" section was lawn-darted about 3 inches into the dirt. The parachute was still neatly burritoed in its flameproof wrapper.

I scooped up the remains then realized I could still use the Eggfinder to find the nose. I poked around and found it a few minutes later, about 100 feet away. That really gave me an idea of the force involved with this thing coming down - I kinda wish I could have seen it! I took the remains back to the car...

IMG_5873.jpg

As I was getting stuff cleaned up, I found the culprit. The nose had not ejected at all because the DMS motor ring had snapped off under thrust. The motor slid forward in the rocket (but didn't dislodge the nose), but because it was free to move around, the ejection charge just slid the motor back instead of ejecting anything. No ejection meant a ballistic re-entry.

I can cut off the damage to the bottom section, glue in a coupler and fly this again. I'll need to refabricate the transitions (or I'll just make this a single-diameter rocket). Considering that the JL Altimeter 3 said a ground hit of almost 200 fps, I thought the blue tube held up well, and I was pleased that my fins were completely intact.

Lots of lessons learned today.
 
Are you sure that the thrust ring didn't break loose when it lawn darted? If it failed during thrust the inside of the MMT would be burnt to a crisp, I would think.
 
I've seen thrust ring failures before, and they aren't pretty. The motor topically goes through the rocket, leaving the fin can behind, separating parts prematurely, with the motor sky writing by itself. Failure of the thrust ring at ejection would put the motor out the back like a standard retention failure and it would be lost in the field somewhere.

I've heard the DMS motors need more powder for the same ejection force. They have a larger touch hole for lighting the charge, so more gas goes the wrong way. Then again, I have never flown them myself.
 
At least you got one good flight out of it. I'm curious how the electronics survived after such an impact.
 
Dang, this project has certainly been fighting back.

yeah. I will say: Both flights (the second one until I lost it in the sun, anyway) were gorgeous - needle-straight and beautiful recovery on the second. The second one got some "OOOhhhh"s from the crowd; it was disappearing into the clouds in a blink.I will rebuild!!
 
At least you got one good flight out of it. I'm curious how the electronics survived after such an impact.
Shockingly well.

Jolly Logic Chute Release was opened when I found it; I haven't tried re-arming but I'd guess it's fine.
Jolly Logic Altimeter 3 popped right up on my phone and gave me the flight data (I'll post later today).
Eggfinder, well....
The winds were blowing south to southeast and the last reading from the EF was at about 1000' AGL, 1200' to the northeast. Got to the spot and no beeping on the RX unit.. Started wandering south and after about 500 feet of walking, picked up a beep. EF updated its location and I was able to walk up to the rocket. Funny, though - I found the rocket but not the upper section which had the eggfinder in it. I checked my phone and I was about 100 feet away from the eggfinder's coordinates. I walked over and found the upper section, completely sealed up. As far as I know (I'm going to have to do some creative destruction to pull the sled out) the eggfinder is intact.
I'm 100% sure I lost signal because I didn't have a clear line-of-sight to the Eggfinder, I picked up signal maybe 600 feet away. I think it wouldn't have been an issue if there'd been a slow gentle descent with it beeping off locations on the way down. In any case, I think I'm going to upgrade to the rubber-ducky antennas. All that said, surviving a 200 fps impact (and not only still being connected, but functioning and beeping away location) is impressive. And a rubber-ducky antenna on the base unit will stop my fairly regular "OH@^%*$&$^ I JUST BENT THE ANTENNA AGAIN" cursing.
Side-note on the Eggfinder: On the first flight, I did lose signal after landing, but the Rx had an accurate enough location from the descent that I walked right up to the rocket.
Second side-note: I need some sort of iphone viewing hood so that I can punch the coordinates into my phone. I was huddled under any shade I could find trying to pull up my compass app and enter coordinates.
 
Oh, one more note of interest: I had this cool idea where I put a PEM nut in the bluetube and then put in a screw through my 808 camera to hold it in place. Though the camera didn't work :( and was broken on impact, the screw was still there and turns freely. 10/10 would recommend this mounting method.

Tired of 808 cameras that flake out, though. Two flights and both of them didn't record. Did EXACTLY THE SAME THING on the ground and recorded myself saying "testing, testing". Did the same thing on the pad and got nothing. Might be time to upgrade to a more reliable camera.
 
Update: I'm moving.
Good news: Rocket is in a box and I can't be tempted to work on it.
Bad news: I can't work on my rockets!:cry:

...But I did have a thought on simplifying my design. Obviously, the easiest thing to do would be eliminate the transitions altogether and make this a single-diameter rocket. But then I'd just have the Vector Force fins and the whole point was to upscale this thing...
So a compromise: I eliminate the top transition, buy a 38mm nose cone from Always Ready Rocketry, and make the sustainer longer (just in case tightly-packed laundry was the culprit) and the 38mm section longer, too. This also makes dual-deploy a lot easier to implement (if I want to do that down the road) as I could just stick an av-bay in the 38mm upper section, then have a drogue in there, and the main above the motor.

I think even with one transition it kinda keeps the Vector Force aesthetic. Kind of like a Vector Force grew up and married an Argent. Or something. I'm anthropomorphizing rockets, it's late and I should sleep.
Capture.jpg
 
Update:
BlueTube goodies have arrived and are sealed and sanded and filled and cut.
New plan for the rocket: 54mm diameter lower, 38mm upper, conical solid nosecone.

I have some epoxy on the way; while I waited, I build a new EF sled & screwed it to the NC:

nc2.jpgnc1.jpg

Up next: fabricating a transition and glassing it, gluing a coupler into the busted part and gluing on a new section, and (I hope) flying this thing in about 3 weeks.
 
Everything is on schedule, pics to come!!
I glued a coupler into the bottom section and epoxied it together.
I made some centering rings https://www.rocketryforum.com/showt...s-for-the-Stubborn-Fool&p=1727605#post1727605
I put the CRs on the upper section, put a bulkhead in a coupler, then glued the upper section into the coupler.
I fabricated a transition shroud out of a manila folder (which worked really well!) and glued it on.
I glassed the transition. With the glass, it's a TINY bit squishy, but pretty stout.

Up next: LOTS of sanding and filling on the transition (probably need to grab another tube of Bondo Spot Filler), screwing the nose cone/EF assembly in, then primer, then paint, then clearcoat, then another attempt at a flight.
Need a new camera, too, I think.
 
This project has been a bear.
I went for L2 with it in late October. Took the test (100%, woo hoo!), slapped a nice 3-grain 38mm I motor in it as a shakedown flight and ... Chute Release opened at apogee, it drifted half a mile and ended up in a tree. Called a tree guy, he climbed about 80' up (!!) and retrieved it.
Those were dark times. I actually said to my wife "You know... occasionally I see one of these 'getting out of the hobby, selling everything' posts on the forum. This may be my time". Naturally, I came to my senses ;)
Saturday I decided: I've had enough of "shakedown" flights - I've successfully launched it on an H (did great) and failed twice on an I (but both failures were recovery related; the "up" was fine). I was done with shakedowns, it was time to bite the bullet and go for it.
I got a low-end J (J270, a 5 grain CTI 38mm; the 13s maximum delay was perfect and meant I didn't have to mess with drilling it). Brought my checklist and followed it. Plan the work, work the plan, as they say. Everything went great. Conditions were about as ideal as they come. Got my witnesses; launch went beautifully. Nice straight boost; lost it in the clouds... and as we all squinted and looked around for signs of the rocket.... someone said "Hey, uh, it's over there". We all turned and it was drifting down lazily on its chute. Perfect landing 1500' from the pad. No damage. L2 has been achieved. Nice way to close out the launch season.

Lessons learned from that launch:
-A printed checklist is WAY better than an electronic one.
-My "8 feet of surveyor tape and a chunk of mylar" visibility streamer did nothing. Couldn't see it and the surveyor tape twisted terribly.
-Project for the winter: Drilling out the nose cone, maybe? I don't need the weight.
-The rocket absolutely can handle the power; with a larger field, a 6GXL 38 would be fine, I think.
-IF YOU'RE USING A CHUTE RELEASE, USE A NEW RUBBER BAND! That was what made me fail last time - my band that I'd been using since 2015 had failed during the previous launch. Don't blame the CR, it was my own fault for not inspecting a 2 year old band before each launch.
-I need a new 808 camera. This one worked but cut out about 3/4 of the way through the flight. No idea what happened, but I'm tired of cameras that mostly work. Going to put some LiquidFyre goodies on my xmas list.

Anyway, I'm happy, flight went well, and here's most of it:
[video=youtube;ll7Pi9902wQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ll7Pi9902wQ[/video]
 
Congratulations indeed! What was the altitude?

This rocket gas given you quite the adventure from project start to finish!

(I also just broke a CR band at apogee.....3600' up -> 3/4mi from the pads......)
 
Last edited:
This project has been a bear.
I went for L2 with it in late October. Took the test (100%, woo hoo!), slapped a nice 3-grain 38mm I motor in it as a shakedown flight and ... Chute Release opened at apogee, it drifted half a mile and ended up in a tree. Called a tree guy, he climbed about 80' up (!!) and retrieved it.
Those were dark times. I actually said to my wife "You know... occasionally I see one of these 'getting out of the hobby, selling everything' posts on the forum. This may be my time". Naturally, I came to my senses ;)
Saturday I decided: I've had enough of "shakedown" flights - I've successfully launched it on an H (did great) and failed twice on an I (but both failures were recovery related; the "up" was fine). I was done with shakedowns, it was time to bite the bullet and go for it.
I got a low-end J (J270, a 5 grain CTI 38mm; the 13s maximum delay was perfect and meant I didn't have to mess with drilling it). Brought my checklist and followed it. Plan the work, work the plan, as they say. Everything went great. Conditions were about as ideal as they come. Got my witnesses; launch went beautifully. Nice straight boost; lost it in the clouds... and as we all squinted and looked around for signs of the rocket.... someone said "Hey, uh, it's over there". We all turned and it was drifting down lazily on its chute. Perfect landing 1500' from the pad. No damage. L2 has been achieved. Nice way to close out the launch season.

Lessons learned from that launch:
-A printed checklist is WAY better than an electronic one.
-My "8 feet of surveyor tape and a chunk of mylar" visibility streamer did nothing. Couldn't see it and the surveyor tape twisted terribly.
-Project for the winter: Drilling out the nose cone, maybe? I don't need the weight.
-The rocket absolutely can handle the power; with a larger field, a 6GXL 38 would be fine, I think.
-IF YOU'RE USING A CHUTE RELEASE, USE A NEW RUBBER BAND! That was what made me fail last time - my band that I'd been using since 2015 had failed during the previous launch. Don't blame the CR, it was my own fault for not inspecting a 2 year old band before each launch.
-I need a new 808 camera. This one worked but cut out about 3/4 of the way through the flight. No idea what happened, but I'm tired of cameras that mostly work. Going to put some LiquidFyre goodies on my xmas list.

Anyway, I'm happy, flight went well, and here's most of it:
[video=youtube;ll7Pi9902wQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ll7Pi9902wQ[/video]

Congrats, nice looking flight! I think that's the most graceful deployment I've ever seen...

Do you live in CA? If not, and if you *really* want to wreck your beautiful Vector Force *and* trash your keychain camera with acceleration... Loki has not one but TWO 38mm K's, and several full J's...
 
Congratulations indeed! What was the altitude?

This rocket gas given you quite the adventure from project start to finish!

(I also just broke a CR band at apogee.....3600' up -> 3/4mi from the pads......)

Thanks! That reminds me, here are the juicy details, and a couple of shots
IMG_0415.jpg
IMG_0425.jpgIMG_0428.jpg

Also- there’s a huge chunk of white smoke in the video that’s not from me but from a massive K-powered rocket that went up before mine.

And trust me, I’ve ogled the Loki loads. Maybe at NY Power.


Sent from my iPhone using Rocketry Forum
 
:cheers:
Congratulations! Nice flight.

I had a key fob camera freeze on me on a flight before too. It still recorded audio but the video was hung on one frame. It has flown since and worked fine though. 8 bucks so not expected too much.

Again.. Congrats..finally. Whew :D
 
:cheers:
Congratulations! Nice flight.

I had a key fob camera freeze on me on a flight before too. It still recorded audio but the video was hung on one frame. It has flown since and worked fine though. 8 bucks so not expected too much.

Again.. Congrats..finally. Whew :D

Thanks. Now for some fun winter builds....
 
Woohoo congrats on your Level 2 certifiable certification!! Great looking rocket!


Sent from my iPhone using Rocketry Forum
 
Congratulations! For getting your L2 and for not giving up.

Awesome flight!
 
Congratulations on getting your level 2. I watched the flight, it was pin straight. It was also cool see you and your boys going to retrieve it. nice job.
 
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