L1000w thrust ring

I purchased a Aerotech L1000 DMS last month at FITS front the on site vendor . I don’t currently have it in front of me for the date code so don’t know when it was made. My question/concern is that when I opened it it doesn’t have a thrust ring but has instructions for friction fit using masking tape which might be alright except I want to use it with a 75 to 54 aero pack adapter which doesn’t have much of any surface area for friction. I thought they had this issue fixed. Is this the way all current motors are or did I just get an old one?

Garrace said:

Is this the way all current motors are or did I just get an old one?

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Old one. The newer ones use 3d printed thrust rings. It's been at least a year and a half since, IIRC.

Make sure it isn't one with incorrect fiberglass wrap angle. I have used masking tape thrust ring with an aero Pac adapter without any problem, you can use half inch masking tape or just use one inch masking tape and then trim it to about half an inch long.

How can you tell about the wrap angle?

I'd email Karl at Aerotech and give him the motor code.

burkefj said:

I'd email Karl at Aerotech and give him the motor code.

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I think that is the best course.

Thanks I will do that as soon as it get it unpacked. I do get a little irritated trying to support the on site vendor and then you get old stock without any mention a possible issue. I guess I should have checked the date but I really don’t know how to decipher the code anyway.

Garrace said:

Thanks I will do that as soon as it get it unpacked. I do get a little irritated trying to support the on site vendor and then you get old stock without any mention a possible issue. I guess I should have checked the date but I really don’t know how to decipher the code anyway.

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That motor has only been out a few years and the early ones had thrust rings (and issues with the thrust rings).

When the L1000 thrust ring failures happened I think AT shipped motor with no thrust ring until a fix was designed. On the AT site there is a section on doing tape thrust rings. What is the motor code?

It looks like the code is 102386

Here you go:

1st digit & 6th digit = year of manufacture
2nd digit & 5th digit = month of manufacture
3rd digit & 4th digit = day of manufacture

You're looking at August 23, 2016 if my sleep deprived eyes aren't fooling me .

The one I had was a run after thrust rings were re-added(3d thrust ring) last year and that was the one that failed due to fiberglass tubing wind angle. This is what I received and dealers should have received in June last year: No mention of date code but I listed my date code, not sure how long it was impacted or when it started.

I received this yesterday, didn't see it on their facebook page, home page or listed here anywhere...I had one of the "small number" of L-1000's this last weekend at NXRS mfg november 15, 2016 that had the casing separate and cato, a reminder for the date code, for it's YMDDMY 111516 so first and last make the year, ie 16, second and fifth make the month, ie 11, 3rd and forth make the day, 15. I did have two that I had previously flown from May and August that worked fine. Gary was there at NXRS and looked at it and thought the wind angle may have been at fault, which this confirms.

Dear AeroTech Retailer,

We have recently received reports of a very small number of case failures of the 54mm J450DM and L1000W, and the 75mm M1350W.

After investigation, we discovered that the wind angle on the fiberglass cases used in these motors is out of specification. This reduces the strength of the case and could result in an increased incidence of motor failures.

Please pull any of the above mentioned motors from your stock that have been received since January 1, 2016. Also, return the M1350W case assemblies (nozzle, case & liner) you currently have to AeroTech/RCS as soon as possible. Do not sell any of the M1350Ws until the case assemblies have been replaced.

Please contact any customers you may have sold these to and let them know so they can be replaced if not already used.

Let us know the number of these motors that you have in stock and we will send you replacements as soon as possible.

We apologize for the inconvenience, and thank you for your continued support.

Thanks. I just sent a message to Aerotech but sent to warranty because I could only find sales or warranty listed in their contacts so hopefully will get to the right person.

Either way it will probably be Karl or Charlie responding, great guys both.

Yeah, warrantee is Karl....I seem to remember the motors seemed to be impacted from october 2017 through maybe june when I had my failure and they debugged it....I'd check just to be safe.

If it was me, I'd get ahold of Aerotech and ask for a replacement. Your chance of a problem with that old motor is 50-50, at best...

I flew two of them at LDRS 2016, they both came with the thrust ring but I CA'd them on anyway. Both experienced forward closure failures. The first one occurred right after ignition and blew the unburned grains out the back and sheared off the Aeropack retainer (fortunately leaving the base intact). This rocket had a sealed hard point/bulkhead just ahead of the motor, so no damage was done other than the retainer ring. The replacement motor (which Charlie cheerfully replaced on-site) appeared to fire OK and went to over 12K... when I got it home and took out the case, it came apart in two pieces. Apparently it had separated late enough in the burn that it didn't affect the performance, but if I didn't have that hard bulkhead it probably would have gone through the body tube just before burnout.

As problematic as the L1000 has been, I wonder why people are not flying the L1090 reload instead. It is cheaper and it looks like it has the same thrust curve (and the 2800 case completes your 54 mm collection).

In my case I don’t have any 54 hardware and thought that because I was only planning to fly a couple of big 54s this year it didn’t justify the $200 for the hardware. But I might have to rethink that. Lol. I did have a good flight with a K535 DMS motor but I think there were some problems with early ones of those too. I will have to see what happens. I don’t want to just sit on this $220 motor but don’t want to unnecessarily risk my much more expensive rocket and electronics either.

I've had good luck with the 535's, I have not flown an L-1000 since my failure, but had flown two others previously, since that ruined my heavy Redstone Missile, I didn't have anything that needed L-1000's so had them replace it with a K-535 and a J-270 or two, whatever was the equivalent value.

Frank

Just an update. I sent Karl pictures and he confirmed this motor is one that was wrapped incorrectly. Bad news is it looks like I need to make the long drive to NXRS to get it replaced or a refund.

Well glad I brought it up, better a long drive than a short walk of shame to flaming wreckage. Here's what mine looked like..

Update to the update. Karl from Aerotech is shipping me a new motor and wants me to burn the old one in the ground to see if it fails. Should be interesting. Lol. What great customer service from Aerotech!
Gary

Take video!

Karl actually suggested I do it at the next launch I attend so I might wait and bring it to the Labor Day One and we can all watch

I'll bring the post hole digger!

Garrace said:

Karl actually suggested I do it at the next launch I attend so I might wait and bring it to the Labor Day One and we can all watch

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Do it at Friday or Saturday night! Ill be there those two nights! I wanna watch!

rharshberger said:

I'll bring the post hole digger!

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Surely there has to be a big enough gopher hole out there, right?

You callin' me a gopher! [emoji1]

I'll bring the video camera!

Smores over 1000N’s of white lighting

Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, who's bringin' the chips....err wrong party[emoji3]