Camera windows

[HyperSonic]

I've been playing around with camera windows lately. Trying to bend different types of plexiglass, lexon, acrylic, around my coupler using heat to soften the material without distorting the optics. Have had some success, but also cracked a few pieces. I'm playing with the temperature, time at temp, and how much to bend at one time. How do the guys who live in the high mach range do their camera windows?

 

[CoyoteNumber2]

How do the guys who live in the high mach range do their camera windows?

Drill bit.

 

[HyperSonic]

Drill bit.

I have watched a few videos where it looks like your looking out of a cruise ships port hole window. And this was just a hole in the airframe! I must be way over thinking this! I have seen others where you can see the entire field of view. I wonder how small of a lens are they using?

 

[JimJarvis50]

I drill a hole, maybe 0.75 to 1.0", and then cover it with a microscope slide. I seal up the sides with epoxy and then have the lens close to the slide. Seems to work, but in my 175K flight, I had some condensation on the slide on the way down.

Jim

 

[HyperSonic]

I drill a hole, maybe 0.75 to 1.0", and then cover it with a microscope slide. I seal up the sides with epoxy and then have the lens close to the slide. Seems to work, but in my 175K flight, I had some condensation on the slide on the way down.

Jim

Thank You Jim. Do you put your window just after the nose cone( like in the shoulder ) where the airflow might not be as turbulent?

 

[JimJarvis50]

my 3" (on top) was actually a 9/16" hole in the air frame giving the attached field of view. It was located about 5" below a conical nose cone. In my 4" rockets, the window is in the altimeter bay (on the bottom).

Jim

 

[HyperSonic]

This is the story of flight M1297 out of South Charleston, Ohio (True story by the way)

Flight 1297 took off on a bright spring day out of South Charleston, Ohio about 2:04 pm. Everything was looking good cruising at 14.5k and the pilot came over the radio and said deploying drogue. He started his decent at about 65 fps and all was well. A few minutes later the pilot came on the radio again and said deploying main. About 30 seconds later the pilot made one last transmission. He said "The flight has CRASHED" and the radio went silent! What happened to flight 1297? Did he crash? Was a terrorist on board? Was there a mechanical problem?

 

[HyperSonic]

Take off looking at the flight line.



Here is flight 1297 cruising at 14.5k just after apogee.



This is flight 1297 deploying the main.



Here is flight 1297 pulling the nose up.



Then disaster struck! What happened to the main?

 

[Rex R]

let me guess, the pilot was non other than captain nibbles...
Rex

 

[HyperSonic]

Flight 1297 landed hard under the drogue at around 65 fps. A rescue team rushed out to help any survivors. The fins were rock solid still attached to the airframe. It would take a lot more than 65 fps to even phase my fins. The coupling landed on some hard corn stalks sticking up about a foot above the ground and cracked it. My camera window also got cracked. Other than that, everything else looked ok. The main parachute was nowhere to be found. Did the main just disappear?

 

[HyperSonic]

The moral of the story is this. When you fly high and fast, everything gets out of sight within seconds after lift off. Without a good camera with a full field of view, I might not have ever known what really happened here. These are all frame grabs off the full video of the flight. This video was shoot at 1080p at 60 fps. When viewing the video frame by frame, you would be amazed at what you can see that you never would have seen viewing at full speed. The camera was absolutely critical for me to piece the mystery together, and the wider the field of view, the better.

 

[HyperSonic]

The engineer who was in charge of the construction (me) was tried and convicted of improper bonding techniques not approved by TRA or NAR. He was sentenced to 3 years of hard labor building rockets with 4 times the thrust of the M1297. And all of his recovery harnesses must be bought from Teddy at OneBadHawk with sewn in loops. No more epoxying the kevlar bridal of a fruity chute to itself after running it through a swivel. This survived the test flight just fine, but when it really counted for my L3 flight, it failed.

 

[HyperSonic]

Oh, and my little black box played a big role in locating the crash site quickly!

 

[HyperSonic]

let me guess, the pilot was non other than captain nibbles...
Rex

Yes, I see you know him. He was cheap, so I went with him. LOL

 

[HyperSonic]

I bent a few more pieces for my new window, since my other one got cracked. I don't glue them in so I can replace them easily.



They turned out ok, nice and clear. They won't be this big, just enough to show the different FOV that the go pro offers.



Here is a pic of the coupler that got broke. The pics from flight 1297 came from the Hero 4. The hero 5 (the cube) will go in my new builds.

 

[HyperSonic]

This is a pic of flight 1297 camera installed. It has the ability to tilt down some without losing my field of view. My new set up won't be near this big when using the cube go pro.

 

[FredA]

Get some round sapphire windows from Edmunds.

 

[HyperSonic]

Get some round sapphire windows from Edmunds.

Thanks Fred, I will check them out.

 

[lucius]

I bent a few more pieces for my new window, since my other one got cracked. I don't glue them in so I can replace them easily.

View attachment 376614

They turned out ok, nice and clear. They won't be this big, just enough to show the different FOV that the go pro offers.

View attachment 376615

Here is a pic of the coupler that got broke. The pics from flight 1297 came from the Hero 4. The hero 5 (the cube) will go in my new builds.View attachment 376616

View attachment 376617

Do you have an openrocket or rocksim file for this rocket?