Raven with a broken wing. Fixable?

Adrian?

This was Wildman entry in the mach-madness.

Lightweight tubing-carbon fins- Raven 38 av-bay-lite weight spun Von Karmon NC - only weighed 10oz.

Tracker in NC.

J-530 I max for propulsion.


Unfortunately after all this miniaturization when the button was pushed. BOOM.. nozzle blew off, all the grains remained stacked in the tower, but the hardware flew through the airframe and impaled on the av-bay.
fracturing the bottom BP. and well the pics show it...

First flight of the bay & alt. Hopefully it may be repaired to fly again or at least gather data.

1 prong on the BP, which is base of fingers the alt. screws on, is off solder pad.

Altimeter does power up and red and blue leds work. Did this very briefly as not to short anything. [used 9v as the LiPo was toast]

Buzzer gone. Pressure sensor gone & some thing else I have pencil pointing to. I did epoxy the capacitor on as recommended.

Take a quick look and tell me if it's even worth the trip back to ya for a look see & repair.

Thanks
Jim

blackjack2564 said:

First flight of the bay & alt. Hopefully it may be repaired to fly again or at least gather data.

1 prong on the BP, which is base of fingers the alt. screws on, is off solder pad.

Altimeter does power up and red and blue leds work. Did this very briefly as not to short anything. [used 9v as the LiPo was toast]

Buzzer gone. Pressure sensor gone & some thing else I have pencil pointing to. I did epoxy the capacitor on as recommended.

Take a quick look and tell me if it's even worth the trip back to ya for a look see & repair.

Thanks
Jim

Click to expand...

Bummer about that CATO. Do you think the igniter clogged the nozzle?
The pencil is pointing to where a capacitor was, cheap and easy to replace. The buzzer is pretty cheap and not so easy, but doable. The pressure sensor is a relatively expensive part, but I can replace that without too much trouble. It doesn't look like any pads are ripped off of the board, so there's some hope. I'll PM you with my address if you don't have it. I'm estimating $55 to fix those 3 things and retest.

Jim? Buddy?

I'm disappointed.

There's the Wildman way to damage electronics, and there's the Mildman way. Yours is the latter -- a true Wildman would've left the boards stripped and in pieces....

Bummer about the failure -- cato is bad enough; really sucks when it takes out the electronics.

-Kevin

Come on Kevin.... you've seen that destruction many, many times with 1st use electronics. I've got a box full of toasted stuff. The Raven got off easy...lol.

Ya know Tim is NEVER in these events.

So finally after all the razzing & cajoling He finally agrees. Then the process of what to build, sims to wins...design and build.

Of course first time and it goes boom.

Hopefully I can twist his arm & get the bad taste out of his mouth with some Rumplemintz so he will go for it again in Red Glares version of Mach Madness.

I already got the rocket repaired, very minor damage, but he's closed for the week, so I won't know if it will be RD entry till next week.:dark:

Adrian A said:

Bummer about that CATO. Do you think the igniter clogged the nozzle?
.

Click to expand...

I don't think so, the core and throat in that motor are huge.
BUT it's a rocket motor & anything can happen.

blackjack2564 said:

... I did epoxy the capacitor on as recommended. ...

Click to expand...

What's this about a recommendation to epoxy Raven capacitors? I just recently got my second Raven, and I have never epoxied any capacitors. Did I miss something in the manual?

MountainRocketeer said:

What's this about a recommendation to epoxy Raven capacitors? I just recently got my second Raven, and I have never epoxied any capacitors. Did I miss something in the manual?

Click to expand...

Yes. Page 3.

"High G flights:
For extra durability, a dab of epoxy or silicone can be used under the Raven’s hold-up capacitor to secure it to the board. The hold-up capacitor is the component wrapped in shiny black plastic next to the USB connector."

I haven't used them on any high G flights yet, but I have some in mind and will be sure to epoxy it first. I might go ahead and epoxy it now--a taught Kevlar shockcord can impart some pretty high G's, too.

What I didn't see in the manual is a definition of what a "High-G flight" is.

Adrian -- at what point would you recommend folks consider gluing down the capacitor?

-Kevin

troj said:

What I didn't see in the manual is a definition of what a "High-G flight" is.

Adrian -- at what point would you recommend folks consider gluing down the capacitor?

-Kevin

Click to expand...

You use the manuals???:surprised::rofl:

I flew my 250g Raven this past weekend on an extreme flight in the same Mach Madness contest (it actually saw, and measured 300g+; 70g+ nominal during the flight). I had thought about using epoxy to glue the capacitor down but felt uncomfortable as that seems extremely permanent and didn't want to mess up any conformal coating or traces trying to remove it just in case the Raven needed to be repaired. So instead of using epoxy I used Elmer's E949 clear caulk. It worked great, has adhesion yet also has some "give". Even after the extreme flight, the cap is on there just as before.