Planning ahead... Which altimeter to plan on buying?

So here's the deal... I'm in the planning stages for my Level 2 hunt. I've decided on something along the lines of a Darkstar 3". If I can't get that, I'm definitely going with a Wildman 3" kit of some sort. No matter which I end up with, I'm going to have to get an altimeter setup for the Dual Deploy. As I'm in the planning stage, I need to know what to get, but I have no idea where to start. There are many options out there, and I want something good. I have zero electronics experience, so anything that requires me to solder stuff together is out of the question. I'm not going to risk my Level 2 investment on my learning a new skill. I'm looking at the RRC3, but there are others out there. If I go that route, do I need the LCD interface and/or USB interface? Though I can't put electronics together, I'm rather handy with computers, so complicated computer interfaces don't scare me.
So here's my questions in order:
1) Which altimeter do you use for Dual Deploy and data logging? What are the positives/negatives of it?
2) What "extras" are required of that altimeter (battery, interface, etc)?
3) If you had to suggest a durable, high quality altimeter for a first-time DD rocketeer, which would you recommend and why?
As always, thanks for the thoughts.
On a side note, I'm willing to pay the worth for a good altimeter, but cost is always a consideration... Yes, I know about Black Friday sales; No I'm not in a hurry to get one. That's why I'm scoping options now, so I can plan, save, and then purchase when on sale.

Price aside, the Raven 3 is fantastic. A lot of functionality as far as deployment channels and data recording go in a tiny footprint. It also has a super-easy programming, downloading, and calibrating interface. $155 plus a standard USB cable, battery, and various sundry wiring.

CzTeacherMan said:

So here's my questions in order:
1) Which altimeter do you use for Dual Deploy and data logging? What are the positives/negatives of it?
2) What "extras" are required of that altimeter (battery, interface, etc)?
3) If you had to suggest a durable, high quality altimeter for a first-time DD rocketeer, which would you recommend and why?
As always, thanks for the thoughts.
On a side note, I'm willing to pay the worth for a good altimeter, but cost is always a consideration... Yes, I know about Black Friday sales; No I'm not in a hurry to get one. That's why I'm scoping options now, so I can plan, save, and then purchase when on sale.

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I use the Perfectflite Stratolgger. Lots of info here: https://www.perfectflite.com
As far as extras-I use what we refer to as a recording altimeter. This allows me to download data about my flight. A recording altimeter will cost more than a non- recording altimeter.
There are many quality altimeters on the market, you mention the RRc3 its a quality unit.

When you come out to Bong this weekend, you can pretty much ask anyone to show you what they use and you get some first hand experience and knowledge of what's out there in altimeter land.

I'm very happy with the RRC-3; you can see more info in my Level 2 in Style video. I flew it twice last weekend and it performed perfectly.

RRC2 and RRC3 are awesome. Put both of them into the water at URRF in a 3" darkstar (perfect deployment btw). Killed both, but the RRC2+ lived long enough to beep out the altitude for me. I bought another RRC3 to replace the dead one, and plan to get some more RRC2's.

the other altimeter i'm looking at is here: https://www.marsa4.com/jmla/

To secure your L2 or simply do redondancy I would advise you to get 2 altimeters from different brand.
Both do not need to do datalogging.
You can get a simple unit that does dual deployement for 30 euros from me with free shipping anywhere in the world
https://rocket.payload.free.fr/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=26&Itemid=15&lang=en

I love my RRC3. I have flown it 5 times. Only time it failed me is when the battery disconnected in flight. The dongle is not required, but I absolutely love it. $25 from anywhere.

I have an RRC2+ and an Adept DDC22. For a combined total of $80 plus shipping, you can have redundant DD. Both require a battery, and 9V alkaline works fine.

The big questions are what you want to do, and how much you want to spend. If you want to keep it simple, and worry about growth later, then the RRC2+ is awesome. Reliable, easy to use, works out of the box. Add 9V and you are ready to fly.

Bat-mite said:

I have an RRC2+ and an Adept DDC22. For a combined total of $80 plus shipping, you can have redundant DD. Both require a battery, and 9V alkaline works fine.

The big questions are what you want to do, and how much you want to spend. If you want to keep it simple, and worry about growth later, then the RRC2+ is awesome. Reliable, easy to use, works out of the box. Add 9V and you are ready to fly.

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Sadly, Adept discontinued the DDC22. It made me very sad when I broke mine and was going to buy a replacement.

Everything quoted above is excellent. If you want simple, go with with the devices that don't do logging. Set some jumpers and go. The stratologger is
intermediate. Can download data but is still simple. The Raven can be a little daunting but for straight DD not so bad. For an L2 with little experience go with
a straight forward device. You can always use it for a backup when you progress to a project that is best with two altimeters.
My L2 I did a 3FNC with 4 inch thin walled LOC tubes for apogee only. Turned out on the sims that a J350M was perfect for it. Just load the motor and go. Put over a dozen flights until a zipper when some grease got into the well hole and the charge didn't fire. Coming in ballistic, the chute fell forward, (it was a loose fit in the tube) pushed the nosecone off, the Covert (OOP) chute was shredded and the tube zippered. As it zippered, it was knocked sideways 60 feet off the ground and the rocket landed flat. Fincan was perfectly intact and I had room to do a coupler repair. I had a LOC 4 inch ebay lying around so turned it into a DD rocket that's still flying today 7 years after the original L2. Kurt

I tried to find one altimeter for every conceivable use and put off my purchase a couple of monthes researching. After all that I ended up with a Raven and a Adept 22 .

In hindsight would today order a RRC2+ or RRC3 to start and will still use the value altimeter as a backup in the future as the stable grows . I might even lean toward the RRC2+ just because it is smaller ..not because it is simpler.

Kenny

Go with Missile Works. He offers some cool av-bay sleds to go along with all his products and customer service is 5 star.

I love the RRC2+. It's afordable and works very well, and MW is great to do business with. I liked mine so much I now have three of them. Data logging is limited to beeping out altitude, but that's part of the low price. For my L2 I also went with an Adept DDCS2 for redundancy, and it too worked flawlessly. I never doubted the reliability of either one, I just wanted a backup for everything.

I will second the Missile Works RRC3 and RRC2+. Although they are different, they do the same thing and do it well. The RRC2+ is a plain Jane altimeter with low initial cost. The RRC3 is a little more money (but not much, given the added features), and adds data logging and has several soon to be available plug-in add-ons. The RRC3 also has a plug in LCD screen (already available) so you don't have to count the pesky beeps.
The Perfectflite Stratologer is a good unit also. I have one and it works good. I've never hooked it up to a computer, but it should have a bunch of flights stored on there (max 31 flights) and maybe I'll get crazy and try that one day...
Wish I could make it up there to see you guys at Bong, but I don't think it'll happen. We'll see.

Adrian

Go with what you can afford. If you ask 10 people on here what to buy, you will get 10 different answers. All of the currently made altimeters are many times better than the ones made as little as 6-7 years ago. Find something within your budget that still has the features you want or need. My $.02

RandyM said:

Go with what you can afford. If you ask 10 people on here what to buy, you will get 10 different answers. All of the currently made altimeters are many times better than the ones made as little as 6-7 years ago. Find something within your budget that still has the features you want or need. My $.02

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That's good advice... Money isn't really am issue since I'm looking for how much to save. More expensive devices will just take a little longer to purchase.
Thanks everyone for the tips. All this info along with some (a lot of) questions at launches will definitely be a help.
See you at Bong and/or MWP!

RandyM said:

Go with what you can afford. If you ask 10 people on here what to buy, you will get 10 different answers. All of the currently made altimeters are many times better than the ones made as little as 6-7 years ago. Find something within your budget that still has the features you want or need. My $.02

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Listen to Randy. At the other extreme, if you want really economical (not cheap) and very programmable, the Egg Timer deployment computer that you build is available. At $40.00 it's cheap but not "cheaply" done. Programming takes reading the manual and there is a learning curve. Again, if you don't want to be scratching your head about programming, gravitate towards the MW offerings. The StratoLogger is nice for recording that a newbie can figure out and I have one of Boris' (bdureau) SMT DD devices thats very good.
Tommy's Adept 22 really started the ball rolling on an economical DD controller and I have 8 flights on mine that were all nominal.
What's available now has really helped making DD entry level affordable and a great time to be in HPR. Kurt

jmattingly13 said:

Sadly, Adept discontinued the DDC22. It made me very sad when I broke mine and was going to buy a replacement.

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I just bought one from them last week. Alive and well.

Bat-mite said:

I just bought one from them last week. Alive and well.

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Huh. They showed up as discontinued about a year or two ago when I tried to replace mine. Glad to see they're back up on the market!

There was a big thread some months ago about them cancelling the Adept22 and DDC22. Apparently there was a notice on their web site saying that they had discontinued the line. But then some weeks later, they were back on sale and the notice was taken down.

Bat-mite said:

There was a big thread some months ago about them cancelling the Adept22 and DDC22. Apparently there was a notice on their web site saying that they had discontinued the line. But then some weeks later, they were back on sale and the notice was taken down.

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Tommy was burned out because of the demand. He sold a lot of the 22's. I believe he brought them back due to requests. One can find them on the site with the prices. I was interested in one of his tracking transmitters and he didn't have any at the time. Contacted me several months later when he decided to get them going again. Really a nice person. Kurt

Ditto. A lot of southern charm there.

Quick question... I never thought about wiring and well charges and stuff. Saw a thread about Doghouse Rocketry... Thoughts on those items? ... I have much to learn. I will attach myself to fellow rocketeers at MWP, i will henceforth be known as "Annoying Questions Dude"!

Hey, asking questions means you're thinking... that's always a good thing.

I highly recommend the Doghouse Rocketry wiring and charge wells, they're inexpensive and well made, and they're really nice people too.

CzTeacherMan said:

Quick question... I never thought about wiring and well charges and stuff. Saw a thread about Doghouse Rocketry... Thoughts on those items? ... I have much to learn. I will attach myself to fellow rocketeers at MWP, i will henceforth be known as "Annoying Questions Dude"!

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cerving said:

Hey, asking questions means you're thinking... that's always a good thing.

I highly recommend the Doghouse Rocketry wiring and charge wells, they're inexpensive and well made, and they're really nice people too.

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Ditto.

Like others above, I use the Stratologger and RRC2+ in my dual deploy rockets, and both are excellent. The RRC2+ is one of the cheapest DD altimeters out there, and it is a great altimeter to start with. You don't get a ton of fancy features and programming abilities like others, but you don't need them really. Setup is super simple; my only complaint about the RRC2+ is that it has no terminals to attach a power switch, so you have to wire one in line with the battery (very easy to do). It's always best to have redundant altimeters, wired separately with separate power switches and everything for each. Nobody likes a scary rocket impact in the parking area or anywhere else!

When it comes to powering them, I run both of mine using a 180mah 2S LiPo battery pack. They're smaller than a 9V with a lot of output to fire charges. 9V batteries also work well, and don't have the maintenance and storage attention to detail that LiPo battery packs require. It all comes down to personal preference. In my case, one of my rockets requires the LiPo pack since it's a tiny space I'm working with and a 9V won't fit in my DD setup.

At the end of the day, DD seems harder than it really is--at least it did in my case. Just make sure you ground test and that all your connections and batteries/switches are as failure-proof as possible, and it should be very reliable and successful for you. Also, when talking about switches and batteries, I meant rotary switches such as Schurter voltage selector switches and the like (slide switches can be turned off due to acceleration and such) and making sure that your batteries are secured to your sled and that any battery clips are held down to the battery to make sure the acceleration and momentum of the flight don't separate the battery/clip connection, etc.

Best of luck!

schneijt said:

At the end of the day, DD seems harder than it really is--at least it did in my case. Just make sure you ground test and that all your connections and batteries/switches are as failure-proof as possible, and it should be very reliable and successful for you. Also, when talking about switches and batteries, I meant rotary switches such as Schurter voltage selector switches and the like (slide switches can be turned off due to acceleration and such) and making sure that your batteries are secured to your sled and that any battery clips are held down to the battery to make sure the acceleration and momentum of the flight don't separate the battery/clip connection, etc.

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That's what I keep telling myself, that it's easier than it seems. I'll probably feel a lot better after seeing it up close on other people's rockets. I've watched DD happen flawlessly, but never seen the inner-workings. It just seems like every time I think I've grasped some idea/device concept, I stumble onto new terms and devices and concepts that I need to learn. i.e. Schurter coltage selector switches... All in all, TRF is very informative, and at this point, I'm anxious to see it all up close. I'm glad I asked on TRF first, cause then seeing stuff in person will be the fill-in-the-blanks part instead of seeing it all up close, thinking of questions later, and then having to wait to see it up close again... yay for teaching an old dog new tricks!

If you find me at MWP, I'll gladly walk you through my DD setups. Part of the confusion of DD at first is how many ways there are to do it. My L3 project is going to do dual deployment using redundant cable cutters to release the main and use the main as the drogue wrapped up like a burrito at apogee. So many ways to do it depending on the kind of rocket you're working with. For me, pictures and videos were incredibly helpful, and the advice of fellow rocketeers at launches and online helped fill in the gaps.


Joe Schneider
Rochester, MN
Tripoli L2
Tripoli Southern Minnesota
www.tsmrockets.com

schneijt said:

If you find me at MWP, I'll gladly walk you through my DD setups. Part of the confusion of DD at first is how many ways there are to do it. My L3 project is going to do dual deployment using redundant cable cutters to release the main and use the main as the drogue wrapped up like a burrito at apogee. So many ways to do it depending on the kind of rocket you're working with. For me, pictures and videos were incredibly helpful, and the advice of fellow rocketeers at launches and online helped fill in the gaps.


Joe Schneider
Rochester, MN
Tripoli L2
Tripoli Southern Minnesota
www.tsmrockets.com

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Awesome, thanks! I signed up to volunteer as a pad manager for Saturday from 12-5 and for the night launch. Figured that would be a great way to ask questions and learn. Sunday I'll wander around and ask questions, too.

Glad to help! Feel free to PM me before MWP (I'd say during, but who knows if I'll have service with Sprint/Virgin Mobile) for info to identify me if you want to stop by at the launch.

Since I was on my phone earlier, I didn't get a chance to respond fully. Schurter voltage selector switches are a commonly used power switch for dual deployment. (https://www.apogeerockets.com/index.php?main_page=product_supplies_info&cPath=52_159&products_id=71) Basically, they are a high quality switch that you have to turn using a screwdriver with a fair amount of force to turn your electronics on/off. There is pretty much zero chance anything will turn the switch off during flight. Obviously, you don't want to have your switch accidentally turn off your altimeters during flight, which the simple "slide switches" can do from the accelerations of boost and apogee deployment. If you use a slide switch, like I did on my first DD rocket, it's best to install a small screw or something next to the "on" side of the airframe so that you can zip tie the switch in the "on" position. But, for all future DD builds, I went with either Schurter switches or, on my smaller flights, "twist and tape" where you have the wires poking outside the rocket body, and then you twist them together securely and tape them to the outside of the rocket so they can't untwist during flight. The wiring and "idiot-proofing" of the wiring are easily the most difficult part of DD, and even then they aren't that hard to do if you think it through before you start installing electronics and everything.

Another thing to think about with DD is FFFFg black powder for the actual deployments. You can always use the vial of it from Aerotech reloads on smaller rockets, but for most rockets you'll want to have a can of your own. Some gun stores (not the big chain stores, but the "mom and papa" type smaller stores) will carry FFFg powder, which works almost as well. But, if you're like me, you'll end up ordering a few pounds of black powder online and having several lifetimes worth of powder for your DD flights.