What did you do rocket wise today?

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:) It’s a red/blue cocktail in the Loki J1026. What a fun motor to fly!

It wasn’t as dark out as the picture looks. I had my camera set up for brighter skies. Clouds were covering the evening sun, so the photos came out dark. (I need to add “adjust manual camera settings” to my launch checklist!) I think the purple flame looks cool in the dark photo though.
 
:) It’s a red/blue cocktail in the Loki J1026. What a fun motor to fly!

It wasn’t as dark out as the picture looks. I had my camera set up for brighter skies. Clouds were covering the evening sun, so the photos came out dark. (I need to add “adjust manual camera settings” to my launch checklist!) I think the purple flame looks cool in the dark photo though.

Man I can't wait to shoot a J1026, that looks awesome. Congrats on the record! Did you track with Eggfinder Mini on those flights?
 
My six(!) year old 3D printer hasn't been printing as well as it used to, and it started making a new noise. Turned out a bearing had given up (a relatively new one), so it's time to strip down the whole thing. In the process it gets all new bearings (drylin) and an upgrade that increases the print height and some other mechanical improvements. Also will improve the chamber heating and head cooling. Looking forward to better than new printing.

I've also been updating my Nike Hercules scale data dropbox.

Oh, also last week I signed up for my first NARAM in about 40 years, and booked a hotel; bought my first altimiter, and the first rocket motors in 20 years or more.
 
That is a very high flame to rocket ratio.
Heh - that's a great measure of the awesome level of a rocket launch. I'm sooo going to start using that!

GrouchoDuke- what was the altitude on the I motor? Congrats!
Thanks! The I record flight was with the same rocket that I flew last year with a 29mm I224. Its altitude this year was 14,768ft. I have an I-motor 38mm rocket ready to fly too, but I didn't get a chance to fly it this trip. I'm still not getting what I'd like out of my 29mm/I224 rocket - it's still a little bit under what Adrian did with an H160. The I216 in a 38mm rocket should do better than the I224 in a 29mm rocket, but not by a ton. I still have some altitude to squeeze out of the I224...more polish! It's still really fun to push a little 381Ns I motor to those altitudes.

Man I can't wait to shoot a J1026, that looks awesome. Congrats on the record! Did you track with Eggfinder Mini on those flights?
Thanks bud. The J1026 was really really cool. DO IT! Nah, I didn't use the Eggfinders on these. The little I rocket used a TBeacon and the J rocket used a TeleMetrum.

For those with Facebook, you can see one of the videos of the I-flight here: https://www.facebook.com/bryanduke/videos/10155350556061837/

I'll get around to putting all the photos and video together, but it'll probably be in a month or so. I'm now in full-construction mode getting 2 other record attempt rockets ready. ;)
 
Received a (partial) shipment of aluminum yesterday afternoon, so I got busy with a set of thrust plates this morning. One 75mm, and one 98. Already turned down the 98, and the 75 is jammed on the chuck as I type. I'll turn it to OD, then flip it and bore out the ID on each. Then fab another 98/75 MD ISC.

Chop-chop.
 
Started 2 new rockets today. 24mm min-diameter rockets for F & G motors. Should be fun!
 
Attached canopy and Weapons Pods..

Nominated to win slowest build on the forum award :facepalm:
 

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Today I started on making some DIY e-matches from instructions I found at https://www.jacobsrocketry.com/aer/homemade_wire-wound_igniters.htm to see if they would work with my RRC2 altimeter. I already had some of the items needed but had to order the nichrome wire and the mortar & pestle. I got both from ebay. Picked up the ping-pong balls at my local Walmart. I picked up Oatey No. 95 Flux at my local Lowes for soldering the nichrome. I soldered up one of them as a first trial and it went well. I tested it on a fresh 9v battery and the nichrome lit up and blew out nice and quick. I made 2 more to test while connected to the RRC2 and both did the same as the first one. While waiting for the balls to dissolve I soldered up 12 more and rinsed off any excess flux with mineral spirits. Next I will carefully grind down the black powder and mix with the lacquer when it is ready. After I test them with the pyrogen I will report the results here but I expect them to work perfectly based on the initial trials.
 
Today I opened and enjoyed my prize....

During LDRS I joined the Fruity Chutes 3Kn200 contest. I flew my Mach1rocketry 3" Black Hole EXT to 2,914' and was airborn for 183 seconds. It flew on AT J500G.

My first place gift card and my photos by Nadine calender coupon got me a Fruity Chutes 48" Iris Ultra Compact. Its so beautiful. And Mach1rocketry.com kits are super high quality. 21539.jpeg0516181431.jpeg0516181430.jpeg
 
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These are what I picked up - https://www.walmart.com/ip/Eastpoint-Sports-Eps-40mm-1star-White-Tt-Balls/27767057 . They did dissolve but I know acetone also dissolves plastic so not sure what these would be made of. I just finished mixing up the pyrogen and coating the wires. I will let them dry for a few hours and then do a test and report back.

Those look like the real thing. But just try burning one, or a piece of one. Plastic ball will burn slow. Real NC ball will burn real fast. Its impressive.
 
Those look like the real thing. But just try burning one, or a piece of one. Plastic ball will burn slow. Real NC ball will burn real fast. Its impressive.

Well I didn't burn a ball but I did test 2 of the matches with my RRC2 and they both burned nicely. So far I am happy with them. :) Next I will be testing them with my Adept22 and DDC22 after I get the vacuum chamber completed. And I will try to burn a ball to confirm as you suggested.
 
Well I didn't burn a ball but I did test 2 of the matches with my RRC2 and they both burned nicely. So far I am happy with them. :) Next I will be testing them with my Adept22 and DDC22 after I get the vacuum chamber completed. And I will try to burn a ball to confirm as you suggested.
Now test a 1000 of them to see what your ematch failure rate is, homemade ematches tend to have a high failure rate which is why many of us just use the commercial ones as the have much better reliability. Motor lighters on the other hand are a totally different animal, failures there dont usually endanger others at launches.
 
Those look like the real thing. But just try burning one, or a piece of one. Plastic ball will burn slow. Real NC ball will burn real fast. Its impressive.

I did try burning a ball and it went slow so evidently they are not NC.
 
Now test a 1000 of them to see what your ematch failure rate is, homemade ematches tend to have a high failure rate which is why many of us just use the commercial ones as the have much better reliability. Motor lighters on the other hand are a totally different animal, failures there dont usually endanger others at launches.

I understand about the safety aspect. How reliable are the commercial ones? Is there any test data posted by the manufacturers the reliability of their matches?
 
I understand about the safety aspect. How reliable are the commercial ones? Is there any test data posted by the manufacturers the reliability of their matches?

I know CJ (Jim Hendrickson) did some testing on the chinese ematchs and had an extremely low failure rate, low enough that using two ematches in series per charge statistically nearly eliminates the possibility of a ematch failure being the cause of failed deployment. I don't know what his stats were but maybe he can chime in with them. The MJG Firewires initial batch was problematic but since then I have heard of no issues with the second and later batches (MJG replaced any of the first batch that people had free of charge, so there should not be many of them around any longer). As far as manufacturer data I do not know.
 
Did the last fillets on my two new 24mm min-diameter rockets. Built a 70cm 5-element tape measure Yagi antenna. Did some 3d printing for rocket internals.

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Sharon and I cast 10,000 grams of our "Not your Wimpy Red" propellant this morning. Got up early for the cooler weather, but it was 85* at 7:15 am when we finished. I checked the temp. about half way through and the mix was at 93*. Cast five sticks of 75mm and 5 sticks of 54mm. It was getting thick as we finished, but still pretty easy to work with. Biggest batch we have made so far.
 
I understand about the safety aspect. How reliable are the commercial ones? Is there any test data posted by the manufacturers the reliability of their matches?

Having built dozens of my own igniters (using nitrocellulose and bp), I would never trust one for deployment. They’re great for launching anything up to mid power, ground testing and just generally lighting things on fire remotely. I find mine more reliable than Aerotech igniters, but I wouldn’t trust them to prevent a ballistic return for a 2 pound rocket....
 
Submitted the paperwork for a new I-motor record. Here's the video:

[video=youtube;79qyDD_0bCo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79qyDD_0bCo[/video]
 
After fighting with a leaking kitchen faucet, I finally felt like doing something rocket related again. Put a new belt on the sander and removed the old fillets from Fat Daddy's fins. Also drilled out the dowels and removed the nose weight.
Now I just have to keep this little bit of momentum going long enough to get it re-built.

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Today I tried to explain to my wife why I had three of the same little box. I had no real good answer for her. Other than the obvious "I have a problem". 0606181417.jpeg
 
Yesterday, I started sanding and prepping the fincan for my 4" Punisher. Dry fit all the MMT parts and glued the "Y" harness and centering rings on. Today I filed notches in the fin slots, sanded the fins and MMT. Then I buttered the fins with Rocketpoxy, stuck them to the MMT, slid on a fin guide and put it outside to dry. I really love to work with epoxy when it's summer in Arizona. 30 minutes later it was dry, so I brought it back in and mixed up some West Systems with chopped carbon fiber, injected a set of fillets and put it back outside. 105* and it was done in another 30 minutes. That was so easy, I did the other two sets.
Feeling pretty good with that, I dug out the 4" Drago that came apart at Holtville Havoc. I had previously removed the external fillets from the fincan, and sanded off the remains of the internal fillets on the two fins that fell off, so it was easy to butter them up with some more Rocketpoxy and stick them back on. Using the same 4" fin guide, it's setting next to the Punisher, drying in the warm afternoon sun. 5:30 pm and it's cooled right down to 99*.
 
Unpacked my order from BMS:
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Motors for Saturday (which will probably be rained out, grrr) and enough parts for my next several builds.

I find the quality of the BMS balsa nose cones to be noticeably superior to those I recently got from eRockets. But eRockets has an unequalled selection, so I’ll still buy plenty there.
 
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