Going For My Canadian Level 1-3 HPR Certification! - Wildman Shape Shifter Jr...

The Aeropack adapter came with a sticker to put on your rocket. I decided to put it on just for the heck of it.

blackbrandt said:

2 questions for you...

1. Did you take inspiration from me for the pj's?
2. Isn't it April? HOW IN THE WORLD DO YOU GUYS STILL HAVE SNOW?!?!!??!

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it's not snow, it's beach white sand.

rocketgeek101 said:

Yes, I purchased a 38-29mm Aeropack adapter for it.
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I'll be documenting the Av-bay in this thread when I get around to it. I messed up while drilling the bulkheads, so I'll need to get some new ones before tho'.

Please do a build thread for your Darkstar Lite!

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Very cool
I'll do a thread for the Darkstar- might be a slow thread though

Nate

Area66 said:

it's not snow, it's beach white sand.

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Shhhhhhh...nobody can know....:wink:

That looks very nice, I'd be smiling too!


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Just a little update.

It looks like we might be losing access to our field in Petitcodiac (The land is being sold, so our continued access to it depends on whether or not the new owner will be willing to allow us to continue to fly there) which means that there is a strong possibility my first opportunity for the flight will be on labour day weekend (Aug 31 - Sep 1st)... The only other opportunity for me in the near future is on July 12, and that's only if we are allowed to continue using the field in Petitcodiac. Kinda getting a little frustrated...

I'm starting to consider switching over to Tripoli, and certifying in Maine...

that sucks to hear, hope your club gets to use it till there is another one found.

Time to start thinking about making this dual deploy capable...

I'm looking at getting an RRC2+ Altimeter, and a 3D printed sled to go with it.

Photo from Missile Works' website

Does anyone have a few pics of this setup in a rocket they could share?

I'll also be getting some more kevlar shock cord. In the booster (which will have a 12" drogue) I'm using 3/8" tubular kevlar, but that takes up a lot of space (I can barely get the main chute in for flying single deploy). Considering there is even less space in the upper section, would 1/4" kevlar be sufficient for a rocket this size? It's rated to 1200 lbf so I would think so, but figured I'd check...

S

I'll put a couple up later this afternoon if no one else already has.

Here is my sled setup for my Darkstar Mini using the RRC2+


And my setup for the Darkstar Jr. using the RRC3

rocketgeek101 said:

Just a little update.

It looks like we might be losing access to our field in Petitcodiac (The land is being sold, so our continued access to it depends on whether or not the new owner will be willing to allow us to continue to fly there) which means that there is a strong possibility my first opportunity for the flight will be on labour day weekend (Aug 31 - Sep 1st)... The only other opportunity for me in the near future is on July 12, and that's only if we are allowed to continue using the field in Petitcodiac. Kinda getting a little frustrated...

I'm starting to consider switching over to Tripoli, and certifying in Maine...

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Sebastian,

I'm a member of CAR and Tripoli. It's not a bad idea to have both. Certify with Tripoli (as I did) and transfer to CAR.

Also, I use the RRC2+ and RRC3 and the 3D-printed sleds, all work really well.

Update.

Placed an order with Missile Works today for an RRC2+ Altimeter, 3D printed sled (that comes with the various things needed in the av-bay), and some 1/4" kevlar for use as the shock cord in the upper section.

I meant to place the order a week ago, but then post tropical storm Arthur came and caused some 2000 trees in the city fall knocking out our power for a full 5.5 days!

As mentioned before, I messed up drilling the holes in the bulkhead. At first I was just going to buy new ones, but I discovered that JB weld works great for filling holes mistakenly drilled in airframes, so I thought I'd give it a try on the bulkheads. Once it's hardened up some, I'll scrape/sand away the excess.



I also drilled two more 1/8" sampling holes in the vent band for a total of three as per the RRC2+ instructions.

I'm leaving on a trip to Vermont/Niagara Falls/Montreal on Monday. So any major work on the av-bay will happen when I get back in a couple of weeks.

Stay tuned!

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Spent the day yesterday working on the Av-bay:









Immediately you'll notice a huge flaw with the design: all the wires are the same colour... That would be because it's surprisingly difficult to find the right type of wire I need locally... I'm not too concerned about it though. I've fiddled with this kind of stuff all my life so the positive and negative is second nature to me.

Arming is accomplished by reaching a screw driver through one of the vent holes and turning the rotary switch. I used hot glue to secure the wires to the switch so they don't disconnect in flight.

Where did you get the 3d printed sled? looks cool.

Yes I would also like to know where you got that 3d printed sled. I still have not got around to building my shapeshifter 2 stage. Me bad.

I got the sled directly from Missile Works. They make them specifically for their altimeters.

Did some ground testing using Christmas tree lights in place of charges. Everything seems to work. I used my Shop Vac to suck the air out of the Av-Bay to simulate atmospheric pressure changes in flight. Both "charges" went off. One thing to note though, is that the altimeter doesn't beep out a max altitude when ground testing like this. Out of the few times I simulated a launch with the Shop Vac, it only gave me a max altitude once (190 some feet if I recall correctly). Is this to be expected?

I think what's happening is your not getting a good enough vacuum and seal. What I did is wire the altimeter directly to the lights. Then take a glass tomato jar with ascrew on Cap and drill a hole 8th the cap. Put some tubing through that hole and seal it with hot glue so the only way for air to get in/out is the tube. Put the altimeter and lights into the jar and suck some air out. That should give a good enough seal to simulate higher flights. This worked very well for me easily simulating flights past 5000 ft. For added testing realism wire a Q2G2 to the main terminal and poke that out another hole in the lid. Drill a similar sized bole in a water bottle cap. Put the igniter head through that hole, seal it and when the main charge fires it'll set off the igniter in a safe environment. This way you can be sure your altimeter can fire the desired igniter. This all worked very very well. I think if the altimeter doesn't reach the main altitude (minimum 300 ft) it fires both charges simultaneously. I could be wrong

Nate

nute said:

I think what's happening is your not getting a good enough vacuum and seal. What I did is wire the altimeter directly to the lights. Then take a glass tomato jar with ascrew on Cap and drill a hole 8th the cap. Put some tubing through that hole and seal it with hot glue so the only way for air to get in/out is the tube. Put the altimeter and lights into the jar and suck some air out. That should give a good enough seal to simulate higher flights. This worked very well for me easily simulating flights past 5000 ft. For added testing realism wire a Q2G2 to the main terminal and poke that out another hole in the lid. Drill a similar sized bole in a water bottle cap. Put the igniter head through that hole, seal it and when the main charge fires it'll set off the igniter in a safe environment. This way you can be sure your altimeter can fire the desired igniter. This all worked very very well. I think if the altimeter doesn't reach the main altitude (minimum 300 ft) it fires both charges simultaneously. I could be wrong

Nate

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Did some more testing, and I think my issue was due to conflicting air pressures. I have a total of 3 sampling holes, and when I used the Shop Vac I left them all open (yet only sucked the air from one). I redid the test by using tape to seal off two of the holes, and attaching a piece of rubber tube that I then sucked on to the 3rd. That worked very well, and the altimeter read out 592 feet.

rocketgeek101 said:

Did some more testing, and I think my issue was due to conflicting air pressures. I have a total of 3 sampling holes, and when I used the Shop Vac I left them all open (yet only sucked the air from one). I redid the test by using tape to seal off two of the holes, and attaching a piece of rubber tube that I then sucked on to the 3rd. That worked very well, and the altimeter read out 592 feet.

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Glad to hear it worked well, that should be a more accurate reading.
What size main parachute are you planning to use for your Dual deployment? I ask, because my Darkstar LITE DD is a very similar weight, and I'm looking at a CATO Chutes 36" for my main this Saturday- EDIT: nevermind I found it!

Nate

Today I made some minor changes to the design of the Av-bay. I was unsatisfied with the way the drogue charge wires were running under the Altimeter, in part because i was concerned it might damage the delicate underside, so I repositioned them to be on the other side and not run under the altimeter. I also made the drogue wires longer, so as to make removal of the bulkhead easier.

As you can tell, I'm using a terminal block as a connecter so as to be able to remove the bulkhead entirely and slide the sled out from the bay.

I am *really* liking that sled! Really, really REALLY liking it.

For wiring, maybe check out Great Hobbies. They have quite a variety in the kinds of gauges we tend to use.

Here's hoping the weather cooperates for Gage!

Did I mention I liked that sled?

CF-105 said:

I am *really* liking that sled! Really, really REALLY liking it.

For wiring, maybe check out Great Hobbies. They have quite a variety in the kinds of gauges we tend to use.

Here's hoping the weather cooperates for Gage!

Did I mention I liked that sled?

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Thanks Kevin! I'll Check Great Hobbies and see what the have.

In the meantime, to insure I don't make a stupid mistake, I added colour coded labels to the wires to make sure I don't confuse them.



And some reminders on the vent band...


Feel free to come over to my table and check out the sled for yourself at Rage

Very, very nice! I consider that sled cheating though! :tongue: I like the reminders on the vent band, that's a good idea. One recommendation though, solder the switch. I would not trust hot glue to hold wires onto a switch, go with the soldering IMHO

nute said:

Very, very nice! I consider that sled cheating though! :tongue: I like the reminders on the vent band, that's a good idea. One recommendation though, solder the switch. I would not trust hot glue to hold wires onto a switch, go with the soldering IMHO

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Maybe... I actually feel the hot glue is fine though, I made a mistake the first time and had to pull them off -- except I ended up having to use pliers to do it!

rocketgeek101 said:

Maybe... I actually feel the hot glue is fine though, I made a mistake the first time and had to pull them off -- except I ended up having to use pliers to do it!

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Wow, I must have been using some crap hot glue my whole life then! Sounds like it'll probably work then

Nate

This is probably going to be the final update before the flight.

So far things are looking good for the launch in two weeks time. I'll be attempting to get my level 1 and level 2, but I'm holding off on level 3 for the moment.

Level 1 flight will be on a CTI H255 to around 1200'. I won't be flying dual deploy for this one, but I will have the altimeter on for the flight to test the electronics.

Level 2 will be on a CTI I255 to around 3900'. I'll be flying dual deploy for this flight. (One of the club members has agreed to help me with this, and will be supplying the BP and ematches needed.)

The other flights I'm planning include my Arreaux flying on the new CTI G33 Mellow, my Nike Smoke on a CTI G106 Skidmark, Mini Eagle Claw on a G88 Smoky Sam, and Scratch Firelight on an Aerotech G40 White Lightning (as well as some LPRs in between).

My Shape Shifter Mini got put on the back burner, and won't be flying this time. Looking to fly that next year... Maybe in the spring if our club finds a new field.

I'm actually starting to think I won't use the Shape Shifter Jr. for my level 3 and instead build a tube fin rocket almost identical in design to Ari's 3" Blue Fin Tuba for that. Seeing that rocket fly on everything from a G to an M, made me want to build my own... I'm thinking that'll be my next big project!:grin:

I stopped at Great Hobbies while in Charlottetown PEI, and picked up some wires and JST connectors.

I replaced the drogue and main wires with 20 AWG silicone wires and removed the terminal block inside in favour for one of the connectors. Did a power up test and everything seems to work

I think I'm now 100% done.





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Looks like things are a go for launch this Saturday! :grin: Getting excited (and nervous). Wish me luck!