Gallery: Photos of Launch Equipment

[cwbullet]

Post your photos of you launch equipment here.

 

[tfish]

Here is a link to some modified John Coker pads. I made 20 of these for Spaceport America Cup. They have 17 feet of 1515 rail on them and can handle rockets up to about 100#
https://www.rocketryforum.com/threads/modified-john-coker-pads.138634/

I made myself a 2X upscale Coker pad and flew a 250# P off it recently.

The "boom is layed flat" and the rockets are loaded from the bottom of the pad. Breach loaded...and the stop put in place.

The blast deflectors are flat steel plates that add "stay put" froces to the pad as the rocket motor burns. I was amazing how much unwanted force was added to rails that had blast deflectors bolted to them.

This shows the 'non aftermath' after two 2-stage P flights... Balls Slovenia Team...with the right size and position of the blast deflector.

Tony

 

[lakeroadster]

Cool idea for a thread @cwbullet

My LPR / MPR "Launch Horse". I used a couple sawhorse brackets and a 2 x10, and a salvaged dish antenna mount. The bucket of water replaces the blast deflector, and the weight of the water also aids in stability of the horse.

Although nor originally considered, attaching uprights to the horse made routing the ignitor whip clip for my cluster motored Mercury LES pretty easy to install also. And attaching a pvc launch silo to the 5/16" galvanized steel launch rod was simple also. Form follows function.

 

[BEC]

Last time we had a “Classic Model” launch:

 

[teepot]

Here are my pads. An original Estes Port-A-Pad parts and a tripod, a 1/4 rod on a tripod, the blast deflector is 1/8 steel. My HPR pad, a 1010 rail. There is a long lag bolt coming up thru the PVC connector and the rail is secured to it by hose clamps. What we called jubilee clips. The deflector is an AR 500 rifle gong. The base is a piece of 1x12 board with steel sheeting. The rail is turned 90* so you can see the lag bolt. I launch with a 12 volt car battery and a remote control switch. The switch is supposed to have a 1500' range. It works at 300 yards at least. The upside down T with yellow paint is my painting stake and all the lights are for painting rockets at night. As in, it was 110 today by only 80 at midnight. The lights do double duty. I wash the car in the driveway at night during the summer too.

 

[Sandy H.]

OT: Not trying to derail the thread, but Teepot's first pic with the black PVC pad looked like the two tri-pod's scared it and it jumped off the ground when I first saw it. I thought he might have done a photoshop of pads to put them all in one pic at first, but with the other pics, it was just a funny angle that made me laugh out loud (the real kind, not the modern internet version).

Sandy.

 

[Rocketjunkie]

I have one more of the X pads the SC club uses. The club ones are still going strong after 20 years with no maintenance. All stainless construction except the legs which are aluminum.

 

[Blast it Tom!]

Venus Probe ready to go on our 30+ year old wooden launch platform. Strictly LPR stuff. 45° steel faced deflector plate sends smoke out the side.

Edited to add: I did reposition the wire before launch!

And my granddaughters examining the launch control/battery box, kept tongue-in-cheek but functions according to the safety code for continuity checking and launching.

Snoopy and the Apollo 10 mission patch is on the opposite side from Duck Dodgers and Marvin the Martian, and the side facing the pad has a large NASA meatball with text added to note that we are "unofficial NASA wannabe's".

I built the battery/launch control box before I learned here that it can be much better to use relays and set the battery close to the pad, particularly as you move up in power and have to be further away.

 

[BEC]

Here is the PVC tripod I fly off most of the time when I’m flying by myself, a larger PVC/ABS pipe tripod I use for a rail pad (this is the one I built in order to take pictures for the construction article in Sport Rocketry a couple of issues back), the newer of my Electro-Launches, my original Tilt-A-Pad (one of the few bits I have from my first rocketry period 1967-1973 or so), and my three-pad PVC pipe setup I use with small group launches.

All three pipe-based pads take advantage of the fact that plastic electrical conduit fittings are far less expensive than plumbing ones even in the same store, yet they fit plumbing pipe. This facilitates making screw-on legs for the pads (instead of simply inserting and removing the legs — which gets frustrating as they get a little dirt on the mating surfaces with use).

In the case of the small tripod, one of the legs has the genders of the threaded couplers flipped so that two legs can screw together to form a launch rod carrier with no extra parts involved. In other words there are two female and one male coupler on the top of the tripod (a side-outlet elbow) and vice versa on the three legs. I didn’t do that for the 2 inch pipe rail pad as the legs aren’t long enough, and the rail really doesn’t need that much protection to be carried about.

The E-L and the Tilt-A-Pad are both in that group image I posted earlier as well. But these two get used occasionally outside of “Classic Model” launches. The model on the Tilt-A-Pad is actually over 50 years old and is one of my first original designs.

All the pictures but the last one were taken at Sixty Acres Park. The last is at this site that BEMRC uses…but it’s much better-looking than that now. And no, the color balance isn’t off….that isn’t the same Nova Payloader as the one in the first picture.

I use an Estes PSII controller (with a 3s LiPoly inside) most often with the single tripods (either one). I have a three-pad box I built to a Dave Davis circuit design that goes with the three-pad rack…but I don’t have any pictures of it handy and it’s over 1000 miles away as my wife and I are on a road trip right now.

 

[Hobie1dog]

Where are the people with the Rockwell jaw stands?

 

[Rktman]

Here are my pads. An original Estes Port-A-Pad parts and a tripod, a 1/4 rod on a tripod, the blast deflector is 1/8 steel. My HPR pad, a 1010 rail. There is a long lag bolt coming up thru the PVC connector and the rail is secured to it by hose clamps. What we called jubilee clips. The deflector is an AR 500 rifle gong. The base is a piece of 1x12 board with steel sheeting. The rail is turned 90* so you can see the lag bolt. View attachment 541255View attachment 541256View attachment 541257View attachment 541258View attachment 541259View attachment 541260View attachment 541261I launch with a 12 volt car battery and a remote control switch. The switch is supposed to have a 1500' range. It works at 300 yards at least. The upside down T with yellow paint is my painting stake and all the lights are for painting rockets at night. As in, it was 110 today by only 80 at midnight. The lights do double duty. I wash the car in the driveway at night during the summer too.

Impressive collection!

 

[Kabulrocks]

How are folks attaching a 1/8” or 3/16” rod to a camera tripod for LPR? I recently bought an old tripod with a 1/4-20 thread at a thrift store just for this purpose. Thanks in advance!

 

[DigBaddy]

How are folks attaching a 1/8” or 3/16” rod to a camera tripod for LPR? I recently bought an old tripod with a 1/4-20 thread at a thrift store just for this purpose. Thanks in advance!

Threaded rod connector. Drill hole in side, tap with threads and put in a wing bolt; basically copying the Odd'l Adeptor.

I lucked out and have nearly the same kind of thing from an old drum set my kid played with when he was younger. This thread makes me realize I should take pics of our pads/tripods and gear. Got tons of pics of rockets, but not much of what they fly from.

I did find pics I took of our 6' rail. Used some 2x4s and 3/4" ply as the base; legs pivot to fold up. Mounted with some steel to a very heavy duty Manfrotto tripod head that allows adjustment however needed. I used some aluminum angle with a few different notches that is used as the stand-off. Bolted to the rail with a spring, so just pull and rotate/slide to adjust what works for what you're flying and how low/high you want it.

 

[Kabulrocks]

Threaded rod connector. Drill hole in side, tap with threads and put in a wing bolt; basically copying the Odd'l Adeptor.

I lucked out and have nearly the same kind of thing from an old drum set my kid played with when he was younger. This thread makes me realize I should take pics of our pads/tripods and gear. Got tons of pics of rockets, but not much of what they fly from.

I did find pics I took of our 6' rail. Used some 2x4s and 3/4" ply as the base; legs pivot to fold up. Mounted with some steel to a very heavy duty Manfrotto tripod head that allows adjustment however needed. I used some aluminum angle with a few different notches that is used as the stand-off. Bolted to the rail with a spring, so just pull and rotate/slide to adjust what works for what you're flying and how low/high you want it.

Thank you! The threaded coupler is what I was thinking too. Off to the hardware store!

 

[Buckeye]

Where are the people with the Rockwell jaw stands?

In all the Rockwell Jawstand threads!