Awesome! Does the spinning on the two large saucers help generate lift with the turbine blades?
I think I might have to build a big flying saucer now... Low and slow cluster rockets are awesome.
Boris, this looks really nice! With this combo, what was your wiring configuration? Any series wiring? What types of motor starters? I hope to do a 6xD12 + central CTI 24mm soon...At the CMASS Amesbury 8/9/14 launch, the British Electric Thunderbird lifted off on its standard cluster:
1x CTI F30-6
6x Estes E9-6
4x Estes D11-P
for a nice long slow liftoff and good recovery.
Gotta love those longer burning motors....
Boris, this looks really nice! With this combo, what was your wiring configuration? Any series wiring? What types of motor starters? I hope to do a 6xD12 + central CTI 24mm soon...
Also, what's been your experience clustering E9 motors? I seem to have many more E9 failures than D12.
Data charts from the Featherweight Raven.
Stats: 5+Gs for first 2 sec
Max altitude: 1600ft
Max velocity: 219mph (late night error in video where I stated 199mph)
Prefectflite HA45K was still beeping out 1572ft altitude six days later!
Out of curiosity, I measured the voltage for each 9V Duracell used to power each altimeter after being left on for almost a week:
Raven: 6.4V
HA45K: 8.5V (might have kept beeping for another week)
Of course, these batteries have been recycled.
I like to use Rocketflite's MF wires and their CF pyrogen to fire all motors up to 29mm. Also for ejection charges.
Boris,
Wow, what a trek. I'm so glad you got Midnight Express back...
... Bill and Guy can tell you a tale of Lobster Mac'n'cheese.
See you at the Fliskits anniversary launch next week.
Can you email me the name and number of the airport manager? I'm trying to find out where our two fire extinguishers are.
But for electric matches you dip in the MF-kit pyrogen for ejection charges right? Have you tried their electric match wires? Don't quite understand their difference other than length.
Rocketflite has several igniter/ematch product lines:
ML wires must be used with ML pyrogen. Slightly higher current wires, high energy pyrogen. Great for motor ignitions of any size at all.
MF wires used with MF pyrogen. Lower current wires, quick burning pyrogen. Good for ejection charges and smaller motors.
MF wires used with their newer CF pyrogen. Lower current wires, medium duration and energy pyrogen (more energy and duration than MF pyrogen).
Great for ejection charges and all motors up to 29mm.
My preferred choice, when applicable.
This was a low (1600') and slow (219 mph) flight on a Skid (high vibration motor). Also the wind was about 3 mph when the rocket was placed on the rail but there was a gusty increase to ~10 mph on the ground at launch and from the smoke trail in the video it looked like a little turbulence at altitude.Wow, a LOT of noise in your velocity plot. The amount of variation in the red line is in line with the apogee events of most of my flight files where noise would be expected. The remainder of each flight is a lot smoother. I wonder what would cause this?
Wow, a LOT of noise in your velocity plot. The amount of variation in the red line is in line with the apogee events of most of my flight files where noise would be expected. The remainder of each flight is a lot smoother. I wonder what would cause this?
Boris,
I'm really glad you got Midnight Express back! That's one beautiful rocket. Are you going to fly it in Amesbury on 27th?
Definitely fly with tracker. With a bigger battery, radio tracker can easily run for 1-2 weeks. That's enough to go around the whole forest and triangulate the location...
-Alex
All of this was my understanding as well, but I didn't think CF were low current enough for ejection charges/electronics, only ground start clusters with a 12v system. I haven't tried them with an altimeter, but my PET2 timer with a 9V battery could barely ignite one CF dipped FS-12-LA wire, which Rocketflite says to use with CF pyrogen, so I'm assuming they have the same bridgewire as the MF wires since they recommend those with CF too... But I know some electronics put out current for a longer period of time, which I do not believe my PET2 timer does. Perhaps that was my trouble.
Rocketflite also now offers "electric match wires" called HTMF-12, of course to be used with MF pyrogen, but I don't understand the difference in these and an MF-12 wire...
Now MF wires (and apparently these HTMF-12 wires) plus MF pyrogen does make an even lower current match, which I suspect would work in all electronics, as they state it's a direct ematch replacement. I've always wondered if you could make super low-current, high-temp airstart igniters by priming MF wires with MF pyro, letting it dry and then re-dipping in CF or ML pyrogen. Somewhere they recommend against using MF matches for motor ignition, but I don't think they are considering this possible scenario.
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