Boris Katan flights 2016 -> Clusters + 3D Printing Fun <-

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Prepping two flights for Saturday's CMASS launch

That's just awesome!

I saw VooDoo Daddy fly last weekend as I was retrieving my rocket. Wish I could be there to see this thing fly on Saturday!
 
Return of the TOGinator!! Yippee!!

Boris, do you worry about repetitive motion injuries doing all that taping?:cry:

Taping and loading the motors took about as long as watching Black Hawk Down one more time.

Also used most of a roll of tape. I buy masking tape in contractor packs :tongue:
 
This will be the 5th flight for the Soyuz and 8th for the TOGinator.

For both I am combining multiple mini flashpans as well as multiple igniters.
Using flashpans, have ignited 309 of 310 motors attempted (13 flights) with the HellBoy.

This is the first time I am doing flashpans on other rockets.
As well as a delightful increase in fire and smoke at ignition, also reduces number of igniters by half.

This will also be an all BP motor flight for the TOGinator, for the first time since its first flight.
27x D11-P + 3x F15 (Estes) for a Black Powder full I impulse flight...

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What's the central on the Soyuz?

Either a CTI 29mm 3gr H54 White or an AT G77 Redline
Both make a full bright rounded flame
Just a matter of color...

The Soyuz is heavy enough, with a flight weight of about 9lbs, to require a central AP motor
 
Got the night flights prepped.

Rockets left to right on workbench: (pics 3-6)

Viper on 4x D12-5, with mini flashpan (pic 1)
Had to replace light for Viper. Installed another low cost 9LED 3AAA flashlight into the base of the nose cone. Used used tie wraps and lots of masking tape :wink:
Unpainted, thin-wall, plastic nose cone is a great light diffuser. (pics 2+3)

Canadian Arrow on CTI G57 Classic

Turbine Rocket Saucer on D11-P cluster

All LED lighting

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Clusters are SO cool. To the level of the TOGinator though, awesome!

Could you post the .stl files for the rockets that you are 3D printing?

Also, what CAD software are you using? If it is SolidWorks, could you also post the part files?
 
CMASS launch - Amesbury, MA - 11/19/2016

Another beautiful fall day, 50's, low winds and sunny.

First up was the TOGinator firing its 30 BP motor cluster: 27x D11-P + 3x F15

Lifted off on a huge cloud of smoke with a pop and a quiet hiss.
The low angle of the winter sun backlit the smoke to interesting effect.

Jolly Logic Altimeter 2 reported peaks: 777ft, 142mph, 6.5Gs

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My second and final daytime flight was the Soyuz.

Another pop and hiss on a column of backlit smoke, firing its 17 motor cluster: 16x D11-P and 1x CTI H54 White

Altimeter 2 reported peaks: 757ft, 136mph, 6.8Gs

Videos of these plus night flights to be posted shortly.

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Claude Maina's 2 stage Decaffinator did a fun flight.

The ultimate low and slow rocket made from Styrofoam cups, taking advantage of the very light winds.

Another brilliant rocketry inspiration from FlisKits.

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Beautiful sunset waiting for the night launch

Claude and Ken setting up for the first round of night fights

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Gotta love those big BP clusters. Makes my 4 motor cluster this weekend look silly. The videos will be cool, as always!
 
TOGinator and Soyuz flights:

[video=youtube;YKVQzfrzl6k]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKVQzfrzl6k[/video]

CMASS night flights:
Sorry about the soft focus, camera struggled with conditions

[video=youtube;mrDYFL4LJZA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrDYFL4LJZA[/video]
 
MMMSC Launch - Berwick, ME - 12/3/2016

We were permitted to fly sparkies, so fly them we did :wink:

First up was the Canadian arrow on an H123 Skidmark to 1500ft

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Then the Golden Arrow went up on a J520 Skidmark to 3500ft

Recovered right at the edge of the field
Found and recovered another rocket on my walk back

Due to cold fingers and a cold brain, didn't get video from ground cameras for this flight

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My last fight for the day (and 2016) was the Turbine Rocket Saucer on 6x D11-P

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A couple college teams, including UMass did a number of flights

Their skid (pics 3+4) was the last flight of the day

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Stopped by Robert and Gloria's (AMW) for a combination of holiday celebration and some rocketry purchases

pic 1: Helped to put together a flying Christmas Wreath for the MDRA Christmas tree launch

pic 2: Robert built a TINY 2 stage, AP motor rocket. 13mm minimum diameter, with GPS and altimeter!

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Fun thread, I'm paying more attention to your printer than the rockets :)

I also have a deltabot, an OpenBeam Kossel Pro. I'm printing mainly in PLA. ABS is a real PITA at times. I've had more failures than successes with ABS. My printer is in a small closet so it's nice and toasty during the print.

What brand of ABS filament are you using?
What temps on the build plate and extruder?
What controller? The Kossel uses the "Brainwave" which is an Arduino derivative.

The cyclops is interesting. I was thinking that the firmware could be modified so that some extruded filament is "wiped" off on a secondary print. That could help to clear the contaminated material out of the nozzle.
 
Don,
ABS filament brand: SeeMeCNC
build chamber temp setting: 70C (actual 60-70, controlled and elevated chamber temp is required to prevent severe ABS warping)
build plate setting: 70C
extruder temp setting: 220C
controller: RAMBO board that came with the Rostock MAX kit (also Arduino based)

Heated build chamber is essential to ABS printing. Went with 70C goal as SeeMeCNC forum posts suggested that much more than that could stretch the rubber drive belts.
Cooler temps prone to causing a lot of ABS part warping.

I know its a PITA, but highly recommend building a chamber similar to mine.
ABS cuts and sands like wood but better (no splintering), is the most temp and shock resistant material that can be practically filament deposition 3D printed.

For rocketry related 3D printing, ABS and heated chamber are extremely desirable.

My take on the Cyclops is that it is in beta. The heated chamber improves ABS print reliability, Cyclops offers great potential options but frequently reduces print reliability.
The Cyclops is very interesting. It offers the option of dual colors or using support material. E3D makes very nice stuff.

The Cyclops must be loaded with filaments in both inputs at all times.
If both filaments are under some extruder driver pressure anytime one filament is being driven, then all is good.

If one filament is being driven into the Cyclops when the other filament is relaxed or not present, then the Cyclops will backfeed filament = dissaseemble Cyclops and Acetone clean.
Only had to do this once, 1+ hr to do. Careful attention to every setup can prevent the need.

Using Mattercontrol to slice 3D shapes into printer instructions as this was supplied with my kit and the user interface is very friendly.
Most of the time it works fairly well. Regarding dual extruder setup, it is in beta mode.
Shell wipe function does not work. Tower wipe function does execute but requires a lot of sacrificial material.

All of my dual material printing has been ABS (part) and HIPS (support for overhanging part shapes).
Sometimes producing parts I could not otherwise make*, and more often printing more scrap :eyeroll:
* Camera covers for onboard 808 #16 video cameras on flights 300-800+mph
 
Thanks. I'm using similar temps. My "chamber" doesn't get anywhere near 70C, maybe 40C on a warm day. I'm space limited at the moment so a proper chamber will have to wait. My big problem with ABS is delamination. I've been using some IC3D ABS filament with reasonable success although I still have a 90% failure rate with ABS prints. My experiments with Matterhackers ABS have been dismal. It could be a bad batch though. PLA on the other hand is a breeze to print but it's fragile and is a very poor structural material.

The chimera hotend looks very interesting as well but I would need to upgrade the controller. There are some new v2 Smoothie boards under development which use an ARM Cortex processor and are able to control multiple extruders. https://smoothieware.org/blog:15 A few guys on the OBKP support forums have upgraded to the v1 Smoothie with very good results. Evidently they are much easier to configure than Marlin based Arduinos.

Both the cyclops and chimera are for sale at Matterhackers. I'm not so much interested in multicolors as I am having the ability to print dissolvable support structures.

Here's what I'd really like:

https://markforged.com/mark-two/ ($13.5K)

or

https://markforged.com/mark-x/ (~$70K)

Continuous filament carbon fiber in nylon. Very nice.
 
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