Post your Raven FIPa files here

The Rocketry Forum

Help Support The Rocketry Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

cvanc

Well-Known Member
TRF Supporter
Joined
Jul 23, 2012
Messages
1,874
Reaction score
795
Hi to all Raven owners (and potential owners)-

Does it sound like a good idea to post flight data files for all to see and share? This stuff fascinates me and I think there's a lot of learning to be had.

Examples of both good flights, where everything went well, and not-so-good flights are welcome. I think both kinds can be learned from and if we start sharing our experiences we'll all learn faster. Could lead to some interesting discussions.

Sound good?
 
View attachment L910 early main deploy RavenA.FIPa
View attachment 100030
Here's one. Rocket was a LOC Viper IV, 2 F240's airstarting 2 D12's. Check the velocity profile :)

Nice! You can clearly see the two thrust spikes, one after the other. A quick glance tells me you were using a healthy 9 volt battery and you only had 2 of the 4 outputs programmed to fire off a charge (which they did).

Here's one from me. If you look closely you'll see proof the main came out way before the altimeter fired the 'main' charges. My shear pins didn't hold my 6 pound nose cone on and they let go several thousand feet before they should have. Long walk to get this one back!
 
It flew on an EX 4 grain L motor.
3 Red grains and 1 top grain White that was left over from a 7300 Ns M that I mixed up the same time.
Rocket was found the following day about 1.5 miles away, hanging in a tree about 7 ft. off of the ground,
It was in someone's back yard.


If you skim through the raw data, you will see it went a little higher than the stated data.


JD


BFFLT2cap.jpg

View attachment BFFLT2.FIPa
 
Last edited:
It also looks like you had early apogee as well.
That could have played part to the early main event.


JD

View attachment 100053

Nice! You can clearly see the two thrust spikes, one after the other. A quick glance tells me you were using a healthy 9 volt battery and you only had 2 of the 4 outputs programmed to fire off a charge (which they did).

Here's one from me. If you look closely you'll see proof the main came out way before the altimeter fired the 'main' charges. My shear pins didn't hold my 6 pound nose cone on and they let go several thousand feet before they should have. Long walk to get this one back!
 
It flew on an EX 4 grain L motor.
3 Red grains and 1 top grain White that was left over from a 7300 Ns M that I mixed up the same time.
Rocket was found the following day about 1.5 miles away, hanging in a tree about 7 ft. off of the ground,
It was in someone's back yard.


If you skim through the raw data, you will see it went a little higher than the stated data.


JD


View attachment 100202

View attachment 100203

Wow, serious oomph on that motor, very nice! But take a look at your battery. It went apeshit, fluctuating hundreds... no, thousands... of times between normal (10 volts or so) and as low as 3.5 volts. That ain't normal. I'd guess you were kind of lucky that all your ematch events went off well (did they?).
 
Here are two flights 3inch Talon on AT I351 Blackjack and again on a J381 Skid

Flights look clean and very nice to me. Something funny with your record of the main event - the data for that one parameter seems stuck in an expanded display mode? Can't get it to read up from zero volts - does it look like that on your PC too? All I can see is 3.82 to 3.86 volts; it won't zoom out. The info seems fine, the display just is wonked a bit.
 
It also looks like you had early apogee as well.
That could have played part to the early main event.


JD

Yes, I did go early at apogee. Discussed in another thread, seems it was a combination of ejection charges leaking into the AV bay and I hadn't calibrated the altimeter. I think these are fixed now... I'll find out for sure at Midwest Power LOL.
 
Either these files are selected for posting because of their bad data, or the accelerometers on the Raven are strictly for entertainment value.
 
it is the same on my pc too. i figured it was this way becouse i use a perch and 3.9v lipo batteries. therefore no real voltage drop.
Flights look clean and very nice to me. Something funny with your record of the main event - the data for that one parameter seems stuck in an expanded display mode? Can't get it to read up from zero volts - does it look like that on your PC too? All I can see is 3.82 to 3.86 volts; it won't zoom out. The info seems fine, the display just is wonked a bit.
 
another I351 blackjack flight this is the one that was all wonky. winds were very much a factor in this one i think. apogee went off early followed quickly by the mains

I'm no expert at this; I posted this thread as an attempt to learn. It looks to me like your battery went all the way to zero volts when the apogee charge went off. That can't be good. I don't know how that would afftect the altimeter - would it reboot in midair? And if it did, what would that behave like?

In any case, yeah that's an example of something not gone right, but I can't really say what. Really jagged baro data - lots of crosswind in your ports, maybe?
 
Here's a FIPS file from my L900DM drag race flight at LDRS. Rocket is a minimum diameter 3" Wildman Dual Deploy.

First off, nice flight and wicked motor. 15G peak and more than 10G for 3 solid seconds - quite a ride.

But I see something very interesting near the end of the flight. If I'm reading it correct your rocket slowed down (implying the main came out - baro data) at ~153 seconds. But the main ejection charge did not fire until ~160 seconds. Not sure what's up with that?
 
But I see something very interesting near the end of the flight. If I'm reading it correct your rocket slowed down (implying the main came out - baro data) at ~153 seconds. But the main ejection charge did not fire until ~160 seconds. Not sure what's up with that?

Dual electronics? "Other" device fired main off and this device captured the even? I just bought a Raven and have not used it yet.

Tony

Tony
 
Dual electronics? "Other" device fired main off and this device captured the even? I just bought a Raven and have not used it yet.

Tony

Tony

That's likely what happened. I had an Adept22 in there as a backup and it probably fired first. If I remember right the Adept was triggered at the 600' and the Raven at 500'. The Adept programming options are limited, so it was easier to make changes to the Raven. You can see both the apogee charges, but they were separated slightly (I think).
 
Last edited:
First off, nice flight and wicked motor. 15G peak and more than 10G for 3 solid seconds - quite a ride.

But I see something very interesting near the end of the flight. If I'm reading it correct your rocket slowed down (implying the main came out - baro data) at ~153 seconds. But the main ejection charge did not fire until ~160 seconds. Not sure what's up with that?

Thanks! It was a pretty wild ride. I was very happy to get it back after landing about a mile away in some very thick woods. Long shock cords are wonderful for helping to pull rockets out of trees.

Gone to Plaid.jpg
 
That's likely what happened. I had an Adept22 in there as a backup and it probably fired first. If I remember right the Adept was triggered at the 600' and the Raven at 500'. The Adept programming options are limited, so it was easier to make changes to the Raven. You can see both the apogee charges, but they were separated slightly (I think).

Sounds good to me. But as for seeing 'both' apogee charges, I don't follow. Did the Adept fire at apogee too?

Your Raven only triggered one channel (Apogee) at the top and one channel (Main) at 700 feet - the Adept went at 1,000 feet. The other 2 channels of the Raven (Pyro 3 & Pyro 4) are flatline at zero; I assume this means they were not programmed to do anything? Dunno.

Your baro data is really smooth, you can hardly see a squiggle when a charge goes off so it's difficult to know. (I'm a bit jealous of that as my charges caused a big whack in the baro trace and set stuff off that wasn't supposed to go yet)
 
Sounds good to me. But as for seeing 'both' apogee charges, I don't follow. Did the Adept fire at apogee too?

Your Raven only triggered one channel (Apogee) at the top and one channel (Main) at 700 feet - the Adept went at 1,000 feet. The other 2 channels of the Raven (Pyro 3 & Pyro 4) are flatline at zero; I assume this means they were not programmed to do anything? Dunno.

Your baro data is really smooth, you can hardly see a squiggle when a charge goes off so it's difficult to know. (I'm a bit jealous of that as my charges caused a big whack in the baro trace and set stuff off that wasn't supposed to go yet)

Both the Adept and the Raven were set to blow at apogee. It looks like one went slightly after the other. I should probably delay one for a second or so after apogee, but it hasn't been a problem so far.
 
Al you need is 3.7 volts or so to fire a e-match. After the charge goes off; you can throw out the voltage data on that channel.
If you look at just the battery voltage; It's fine. It dropped to 3.8 volts under load then went back up to 10.xx volts.
I use 9.6 volt Powerex rechargeable NiMH batteries. They work for all my altimeters.


Wow, serious oomph on that motor, very nice! But take a look at your battery. It went apeshit, fluctuating hundreds... no, thousands... of times between normal (10 volts or so) and as low as 3.5 volts. That ain't normal. I'd guess you were kind of lucky that all your ematch events went off well (did they?).
 
Here's another flight from LDRS
It is of my 3.12" x 78" rocket I call: Euphoria 2.
It flew on a CTi J 330.
EuphoriaFLT6cap.jpg


The pad wasn't in the greatest shape and it was knocked over as it took off, sending the rocket on a less than nominal flight path.
It would have gone much higher if the pad was a tad bit stronger.

View attachment FLT6.FIPa


JD
 
Last edited:
Here's another flight from LDRS
It is of my 3.12" x 78" rocket I call: Euphoria 2.
It flew on a CTi J 330.
View attachment 100435


The pad wasn't in the greatest shape and it was knocked over as it took off, sending the rocket on a less than nominal flight path.
It would have gone much higher if the pad was a tad bit stronger.

View attachment 100434


JD

That is an almost classically clean file. Very nice. Different power source than the other one?
 
Here's a few. The filenames indicate the motor and rocket. Beeline tracker in the nose-cone. I've only seen one of this type flight land and the rest depend completely on the radio for recovery.

What do you think of the little peak that appears just a hair before apogee on the barometric altitude on all these?

View attachment 100441
View attachment 100442
View attachment 100443

That little spike lines up in time with your apogee charge going off. Somehow the baro sensor is 'seeing' your ejection charge... at least a little bit. AV bay may need better sealing? Hard to say as it does not seem to be very much. I'd guess a small amount is not a problem?

On the Weasel it looks like your main came out at ~2600 feet but the altimeter didn't fire the main charge until 480 feet. Drag separation, maybe?

The other interesting thing is how utterly smooth the baro data from the Weasel is; really nice. But the Wildchild baro data is rougher, more granular, "busier". Some of the other files posted here have that look too. I wonder what it means? Crosswind in the vent holes? Vent holes too small? Too big? I have no idea.
 
Last edited:
The 10-7 wildchild showed serious twisting up of the apogee shockcord, I wonder if the rough data is from the spinning and tumbling. All of these flights have been drogue-less. The weasel flight... yes, my main shook loose. The nose-cone was not as tight as it should have been. One thing I've noticed with these rockets is that it's hard to get the charges small enough.

As for the peak in the baro around apogee, the pressure goes down, not up, and I can't sort out a scenario that would make that happen.

I like the raven (fits in 38mm easy) and you get to look at the data instead of just getting some beeps after a flight.

Question: is it possible to retrieve the "beeped out" altitude in the FIP? The baro data maximum isn't what it beeps, but I can't remember the beeped altitude.

Nat
 
Back
Top