Estes E12 now available

New Ocean said:

Everyone knows that CATO stands for Cato At Take Off.

Click to expand...

Good one!

Green Jello said:

HobbyLinc just got back to me and they said their current batch in stock is:

11-15-11

Click to expand...

Over the weekend I flew two E12-4 motors dated 11-15-11 that I got from Tower Hobbies - one in a Maxi Alpha III, the other in an Interceptor E. Both perfect flights, no issues, except for a popped fin on the Maxi Alpha III.

Chris

Flew 5 more E12 motors. IIRC, 4 E12-6 and 1 E12-4. All worked perfectly. They were from the two known date codes.

rstaff3 said:

[in response to JimXNJ] I have never contacted them until now. I didn't see a phone number but it might be there(?) Does someone have it memorized?

Click to expand...

[email protected] or call us at 719-372-6565 Monday - Friday, 8am - 5pm PST

r12ski said:

[email protected] or call us at 719-372-6565 Monday - Friday, 8am - 5pm PST

Click to expand...

That is current contact info for Estes? I've tried so many ways to contact them, even leaving Christine messages on another number someone posted, but no one bothers to call back. No one answers any of the customer service form submissions on the site. I've been rather disappointed.

Jim Z

Go here and email them. They got back to me in 30 minutes.
https://www.estesrockets.com/customer-service

JimZNJ said:

That is current contact info for Estes? I've tried so many ways to contact them, even leaving Christine messages on another number someone posted, but no one bothers to call back. No one answers any of the customer service form submissions on the site. I've been rather disappointed.

Jim Z

Click to expand...

I recently contacted customer service about another matter and they sent me a replacement. That info was on the email confirmation. AFAIK it is current.

JimZ i am with you. I have recently left 2 service message. 1 on the decal issue with QCC and one with my previously mentioned cato on a D12. nothing yet. Been 2 weeks.

PG

After posting my reply here the other night, I decided to go back to the Estes site and again submit something on their customer service form about my failure a few weeks back. I wasn't sure if their spam filters were causing my detailed messages to never make it to customer service, so this time I kept it simple. Christine sent me an email the next morning asking for photos and info on the motor. I will be emailing them to her before the weekend's over.

There was an earlier discussion in this thread about the statistical significance (or insignifcance) of the failures we've heard of. Since I was 0 for 1 with the first motor out of the package failing, I decided to whip together an expendable scratch built 24mm rocket and see if it was just one bad motor or if another from the same package would fail.

Well I'm 0-2. The rocket got maybe 20 feet off the pad then BOOM! The body tube forward of the motor was completely ripped and separated from the lower part of the rocket by the blast. The fins and body tube around the motor casing went flying in another direction. There was a really cool fireball too. Inspecting the carnage, the engine casing ended up like the last, totally intact but empty inside with everything blown out of it. Date code: A 08-18-11

I'll mention it as an addendum when I send Estes the info on the original incident. I'm not looking for anything out of this failure today. I just like to make them aware of the failure so it might help them work out the bugs. I'll file another MESS too.

Jim Z

I have flown 3 without a CATO. I wonder how common they are with the E12.

I flew a total of 13 more E12 motors today and all performed perfectly.

5 E12-4 A 11 15 11

5 E12-6 A 08 18 11

3 E12-8 A 08 18 11

I'm astounded that after the inital few packs with a 1 out of 3 failure rate I have had ZERO failures from 9 more packs in a row. And the original failures were from the same A 08 18 11 manufacturing code. But that same batch now works fine.

i do not think ambient temperature while launching is a factor as it has been between 70F and 95F for all the launches.

shreadvector said:

Flew 5 more E12 motors. IIRC, 4 E12-6 and 1 E12-4. All worked perfectly. They were from the two known date codes.

Click to expand...

Thanks for continuing these updates shreadvector. It's making me feel better. My first E12s should get here tomorrow.

Donaldsrockets said:

I just checked the Estes website earlier and it appears that the long awaited E12 motors are finally available. And in all delays - 0, 4, 6 and 8.

However they are listed at $53.99 - same as the E9's.

Click to expand...

I got E9's off Amazon for $19. Might want to check the 12's there. I know I will soon. :wink:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B008B19LU0/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

There ya go!

Flew my first E12 yesterday. E12-4 to be exact. Worked great - very similar to the E9, just a bit more punch and a burn time that is just a hair shorter.

11/15/11 date code on these motors.

I flew it in my Rocketarium Toxic Typhoon (spinner rocket) for the maiden flight. Nice flight, decent altitude and a very high spin rate.

I have launched many hundreds of Estes motors of all shapes and sizes I can think of only one CATO ever, it was a C motor and it never even moved it just blew up when my friend hit the button. One or two nozzle blowouts and 2 ejection failures. I think its safe to say something may have happened to that pack of motors you bought or a run of motors that went bad. I never had a bad E15 when they were making them, and I heard they blew up all the time. Good thing is Estes will take care of it and will take care of you.

TA

I just got an email from Tower Hobbies that E12-4 motors were removed from my wish list because they can no longer be purchased from Tower Hobbies...

Chris

chrisudy said:

I just got an email from Tower Hobbies that E12-4 motors were removed from my wish list because they can no longer be purchased from Tower Hobbies...

Chris

Click to expand...

Interesting. But they still carry E9s? I know many stores don't carry above D engines because of HAZMAT shipping.

EDIT: I went to their site and they no longer list anything above a D. So I doubt this has anything to do with the E12 failures.

Well sort of.

Thanks to the great folks at Estes my original pack of troubled E12-6's has been replaced with a new one. They also took care of the Eliminator that had been destroyed in the original CATO and then some, so hats off to them.

Today at the monthly CENJARS launch I was able to put one of my new E12-6's to the test in another scratch built 24mm diameter rocket. Thanks to some hiccups in our launch gear today there was a brief pause when the button was hit but then the rocket lept off the pad! Nice powerful boost into the sunny Jersey skies. Then things went wrong, but no fault of the E12 this time. Two of my three 1/16" balsa fins ripped from the body tube as it hit its estimated 400-500mph top speed, and the rocket spiralled around in the sky. The ejection event kicked out the streamer and the rocket minus two fins came in for a landing just feet from the pad.

While I'll still be skiddish of new packs of E12's for awhile, I'm sure, the E12 made for an impressive flight. In a more solidly built rocket this is going to be a fun motor.

Jim Z

I managed to get out yesterday and launch several of my new rockets that I had built this summer, one of which was the double E Express. Probably the best launch of the day. Those new E12's have a real kick off the pad and surprisingly long burn time. Not only did my booster stage tumble down from several hundred feet, but it didn't crack a single fin! I guess the TTW construction was the perfect mod for this rocket. Both motors performed flawlessly and I'm wishing that I had an altimeter in there because it sure looked like it went over 3000 ft. Took quite a while for the sustainer to get back down and the E12-6 was the right delay for that flight.

I just wanted to follow up that estes did reach out to me as well. They will be replacing the lost engine and recommended i soaked the 3rd engine to destroy it, and i have the right decals on the way for my qcc!
And Jim - that thing ripped off the pad at Cenjars.

plastic_gorilla said:

i soaked the 3rd engine to destroy it,

Click to expand...

Booooooo! You should'a stuck that thing in a rocket you don't care about.

I have been flying rockets since 1968 myself, mostly Estes and have never had a motor failure until using the Estes E9's. I had three failures in a row. These motors were about 6 months old. I inspected them best I could, they looked as good as my D motors, but all three blow the nozzle end out and forward end to, very quickly, destroying the rocket.
Here's a question, would a fillet of epoxy around the aft end of the motor between the nozzle and case help?

or

Is there a problem with the BP mix at the factory, in other words, do the motors burn to fast and over pressurize the case and that is where to the problem is?
I have a new 1969 Estes Saturn V that I plan on flying this summer and the E12:4 is my motor of choice, but I'm very concerned to.

I have flown the six E16-6 29mm flights with no problems so far and the same is true for the 24mm D motors. Done 100's of them through the years. Three E9 failures from two different packs, haven't used the E12 yet but I do see the failure reports here.

Check the date codes on the motors against the list of reported failures on here. I picked up a pack last night and did the same thing.

The 24mm E's have a temperature cycling issue. Somehow the issue isn't as pronounced at the 29mm BP motors, but the E9 was particularly susceptible (maybe because of the small throat creating a higher pressure within the casing.
Cycling results in case/grain separation issues that lead to overpressure failures. It became a recommendation not to use one of those motors more than 30 degrees below the highest temperature they'd been exposed to.

Some hate the E9s and will never use another, others (like me) used multiple packs of E9s and never had an issue.

Please do not epoxy the end and top of your motors. That is considered a motor modification, not allowed under NAR rules.
The E9s are well known for CATOs. That is probably why they were taken out of production.
E12s and E16s not nearly as much, but any motor can CATO.
This problem of the nozzle blowing out seems to be fairly recent.
In the future, whenever you have a motor CATO please consider filing a MESS report (https://www.motorcato.org/).
This will document and compile the failure into a statistical survey. Unfortunately the list is not available to the public. Reason given is that simply releasing the numbers does not show the RATE of failure.
Also consider filling out Lakeroadster's informal form here:https://www.rocketryforum.com/threads/suspected-bad-motor-list.150501/#post-1852295
Also will not show the rate of failure lacking figures on the #s sold, but it's the only thing we've got, and is strictly voluntary. Cheers.

kuririn said:

Please do not epoxy the end and top of your motors. That is considered a motor modification, not allowed under NAR rules.
The E9s are well known for CATOs. That is probably why they were taken out of production.
E12s and E16s not nearly as much, but any motor can CATO.
This problem of the nozzle blowing out seems to be fairly recent.
In the future, whenever you have a motor CATO please consider filing a MESS report (https://www.motorcato.org/).
This will document and compile the failure into a statistical survey. Unfortunately the list is not available to the public. Reason given is that simply releasing the numbers does not show the RATE of failure.
Also consider filling out Lakeroadster's informal form here:https://www.rocketryforum.com/threads/suspected-bad-motor-list.150501/#post-1852295
Also will not show the rate of failure lacking figures on the #s sold, but it's the only thing we've got, and is strictly voluntary. Cheers.

Click to expand...

Reread what he said. He was wondering about a fillet around the AFT end to help hold the nozzle in... Doubtful it would help anyways.

Sorry, I was referring to the fillets around the ends and tops of the clay (nozzle and plug). Reports are that the CATOs are blowing out both ends prematurely. Should've made that clearer. And agreed that it probably won't help.

kuririn said:

Sorry, I was referring to the fillets around the ends and tops of the clay (nozzle and plug). Reports are that the CATOs are blowing out both ends prematurely. Should've made that clearer. And agreed that it probably won't help.

Click to expand...

No worries, just helping to clarify.