Battery for StrattologgerCF and RRC3

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DEmery

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I am building a minimum diameter Wildman 3" rocket. I will be using an Adaptive Aerospace 54mm printed altimeter sled. I would like to mount a Missile Works RRC3 on one side, and a PerfectFlite StattologgerCF on the back. I am trying to figure out how to power them both with the one 9V sized battery holder. The RRC3 will run on 3.7V, but the StattologgerCF requires higher voltage.

1) I could power the altimeters in parallel from a standard 9V alkaline battery.

2) I could try to fit LiPo into the holder. A 1S 3.7V to the RRC3, and either a 2S 7.4V or two 1S in series to the StattologgerCF, and all these together must be the size of a 9V battery or less.

Electronics are not my strong point. Would this work? Anyone done this?

Dale
 
My first question is why are you using a 54mm sled in a 3" MD. I would scrap the 54mm sled and make your own with one altimeter, battery, and switch on one side, and the other set-up on the other side. If you're are going to go down the road or redundancies then it does not make any sense to me to have a single point of failure on the power side. Especially when the most common issues I hear have to do with power, such as a failed switch, weak battery, disconnected battery, etc.
 
Don't try and power both on one battery. There goes the redundancy and reliability if your power goes off. That happens and both deployment devices die. Not too cool if you ask me. The safest would be two 9V batteries each inverted against thrust blocks. You are using a nose mounted tracker right? Again, use two separate batteries one for each deployment device. A 9V for each would be the simplest and most reliable. I wouldn't diddle with LiPo's for a project like this at your experience level. If you mess with lipos do it in smaller projects so you can adjudge the reliability first.

So you're going to stuff a 76mm motor in that Wildman rocket or are you going to use a 54mm motor mount. You do 76mm and an L will get you above 10k easily. Might be way above 10k. If you haven't tracking experience and you go ahead with this, you better find somebody who knows how to track rockets with whatever tracker you are using. Kurt
 
I have flown over 10K multiple times. I will have a Multitronix (Kate) in the nose cone. I see the point about one battery for two altimeters though. I have flown Ravens with the supplied LiPo, but getting LiPos otherwise seems confusing.
I have made a lot of altimeter sleds before, but the printed ones look so much nicer :)
 
Yes...2 3.7 LiPo's will fit perfectly in the black plastic battery box that Missleworks sells.

I run 5 Strato's on 1 cell 3.7 LiPo's in various rockets, as long as fully charged 4.1-4.2 they will run a Strato for weeks. No need for 2.

Just 1 for each altimeter. 1 to RRC3 [or RRC2+] and 1 to Strato.

I use Turnigy cells.
 
I run both of the altimeters you mentioned SLCF-RRC3 on 2S lipos. Buy 2 of these (or more, they come in handy) and you will be set. They will also fit in Missile Works/Additive Aerospace 9v battery box side by side.
 
I have flown over 10K multiple times. I will have a Multitronix (Kate) in the nose cone. I see the point about one battery for two altimeters though. I have flown Ravens with the supplied LiPo, but getting LiPos otherwise seems confusing.
I have made a lot of altimeter sleds before, but the printed ones look so much nicer :)

Ewwww K, That said, I still think two 9V batteries would be your best bet for said project if you haven't had any experience with Lipos nor have a proper charger, nor have the proper knowledge working with Lipos. That includes knowing that if you are going to
store lipos for any length of time, it's best to have a charger that will either charge them up or down to the proper storage/voltage capacity to preserve long term life of the cells.

Yes the above 1S cells likely work coming from Jim's background but I get a little nervous with cold temps and long pad wait times. With small "no wait" club launches the little 180mah 1S cells fire up a Raven III very nicely.

Wait. You were willing to risk a Multitronix setup on one battery to two deployment devices? I'm mean'in no disrespect but I sure as heck wouldn't be fly'in a setup like that unless I was really confident with the rocket and the recovery system. Kurt
 
Reading this over again, I agree with Kurt. There is a bit of a learning curve to using, charging and storing lipos properly, your best bet is probably sticking with the 9v for now. You can still run 2 9v batteries on the 3D sled-one in the battery box and one zip tied directly behind it. There are cutouts for the zip ties already on the sled.
 
I have room in the coupler for 1 1/2 sleds, so I think I will cut a (partially broken) sled in half and mount the second 9V to the 1/2 sled. Then I can have the other 9V and both altimeters on the main sled. I will get some of the above LiPos and start playing with them on the bench. I want to learn about LiPos, but I don't want to let the magic smoke out of my altimeters or crash rockets.

Altimeter.jpg
 
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I’m going to have to stop by and see this, Dale.

For those of you who don’t know Dale, he’s very humble, but also very knowledgeable. He regularly (nearly every month at our club launches) flies over 20k. Each month I call him to see how high he’s going to fly before I activate our waiver. I’ve watched as he tracked a Walston about 7 miles and found it laying in a field of alfalfa, just the transmitter. He’s very intelligent also; in spite of his humility he’ll pick up on LiPos just fine.


Steve Shannon
 
the stratologger input voltage ranges from 4v - 16v, fully charged a lipo cell is about 4.15v. the other consideration is current the slcf has an upper limit of 5amps(battery limited) so carefull choice of the rating is important. the slcf should run on any lipo pack from 1s - 3s as long as the firing current does not exceed 5 amps. a small 2s or 3s pack would work. downside is that the slcf doesn't have a low voltage cutoff so running the pack flat would kill it. the manual does list a few alternative batteries.
Rex
 
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