hello. i am new. it has taken me a year to get this far.

[karl.lambley]

hi everyone,
i am an old bugger (49) and i have accidentally become mad abut model rockets.
a year ago i became interested in astronomy. the Youtube algorithm then thought i might like to see videos by a lad called joe from BPS about model rockets.
i had never seen anything like it before, and i was smitten. i wanted to make a rocket with a flight recorder in it. all i needed to do was learn all about rockets from scratch, and flight computers. so, and this goes on quite a bit, for that i am sorry, i needed to learn everything. i bought some cheap klima rockets to start, made them, flew them. all good! then the computer bit. i had to learn what is AC, what is DC. what a raspberry pi is, what an arduino is. what every component does. i then bought boxes and boxes of components from amazon. then i bought an oscilloscope (id never even seen one before, yet alone used one), then i bought a bench power supply. i leant about op-amps, so i bought another bench supply for differential power. i had to learn how to solder, so i bought a soldering iron, it was crap. so i bought another, then another. it wasn't until i spent 50 quid on a solder station that i got the hang of it. then i had to learn about designing circuits, so i bought veroboard. then i wanted to make PCBs, so i bought ferric chloride. on and on it has gone. learning more, buying more. (my wife loves it because the other day i fixed something electronic in our home, id never have done that before). then i needed to write the code for my sensors. so loads more learning (to be honest it wasn't until i used chatGPT to help me write code that i could make everything work together-the arduino nano, the bmp180, the mpu6050 imu, and a sd writer). well today is the day i have a flight computer that will fit in a 26mm rocket. it has taken me just over 12 months to get this far.
i thought id look around the web before i launched. and here i am.

cheers
karl

 

[karl.lambley]

it was great! as soon as i find an sd card in about half an acre ill show you the results!

 

[Blast it Tom!]

Welcome aboard! I'm amazed at your ability, drive and determination! I'd like to do much of the same, except I can't figure out how to be retired! I did retire, but they keep at me and so does my own dear beloved (my new manager) and the grandkids, the mowing, the bills, the fix-it-ups....

 

[karl.lambley]

thank you. it's very nice of you to be impressed

 

[Hobie1dog]

to the forum.

 

[Cape Byron]

That’s one amazing year!

 

[karl.lambley]

i just can't stop making things more complicated. i decided i wanted to gain fun by getting a rocket to a higher altitude, by tweaking my design. not just by buying bigger motors. so i bought a box of 30 b4-4. but then i thought how do i know the motors are consistent?to that end Ive bought some 200mm x 200mm x 5mm mild steel plate, a drill, some oil, and a set of taps and dies. along with a 5kilo load cell. i am going to drill and tap holes in the plate, bolt the load cell to it, then take the aluminium disc from my old klima launch tripod thing and screw that to the load cell. again, i have never done anything like this before. messing about with rockets really is the gift that keeps on giving.

 

[karl.lambley]

oh, and thanks for making me feel welcome

 

[Blast it Tom!]

i just can't stop making things more complicated. i decided i wanted to gain fun by getting a rocket to a higher altitude, by tweaking my design. not just by buying bigger motors. so i bought a box of 30 b4-4. but then i thought how do i know the motors are consistent?to that end Ive bought some 200mm x 200mm x 5mm mild steel plate, a drill, some oil, and a set of taps and dies. along with a 5kilo load cell. i am going to drill and tap holes in the plate, bolt the load cell to it, then take the aluminium disc from my old klima launch tripod thing and screw that to the load cell. again, i have never done anything like this before. messing about with rockets really is the gift that keeps on giving.

Very true. I'm doing "mind sims" all the time. I'm now trying to find some time to calculate the drag coefficent of my granddaughter's "Duck Dodgers" rocket from the altitude/velocity data from a Flightsketch mini - a very good little altimeter for the price.

 

[techrat]

I've been back in the hobby for 18 months and haven't touched the electronics of it yet. I've just been building Estes kits, then building much bigger and better rockets from LOC, and then scratch building rockets. I am just now starting to think about flight computers, but I think that's still another 18 months down the road. And what's funny is that I come from an IT background, and I am a ham radio guy, so you would think I would be into that aspect, but writing code isn't something I'm looking forward to. And I still don't know which end of an O-Scope is up. So you're doing better than me!

 

[karl.lambley]

i am off to try again. this time i shall tape the sd card in. this is the data when running on my desk. im rather excited to see it from a flight.
Timestamp,Pressure (Pa),Temperature (C),Altitude (m),Accel X (g),Accel Y (g),Accel Z (g),Gyro X (deg/s),Gyro Y (deg/s),Gyro Z (deg/s),Temperature (IMU, degC)
420,100663.00,24.40,0.17,-0.29,-0.65,0.68,-0.11,-0.01,-0.03,28.24
626,100660.00,24.40,0.34,-0.28,-0.66,0.68,-0.06,0.00,0.00,28.24

 

[karl.lambley]

I've been back in the hobby for 18 months and haven't touched the electronics of it yet. I've just been building Estes kits, then building much bigger and better rockets from LOC, and then scratch building rockets. I am just now starting to think about flight computers, but I think that's still another 18 months down the road. And what's funny is that I come from an IT background, and I am a ham radio guy, so you would think I would be into that aspect, but writing code isn't something I'm looking forward to. And I still don't know which end of an O-Scope is up. So you're doing better than me!

that's jolly kind. thank you. and code isnt a problem anymore, i think. just ask chatGPT to write it.

 

[karl.lambley]

all taped up and ready for dropping in my rocket!

 

[karl.lambley]

because cheap bits can be a bit rubbish sometimes everything is socket-ed.

 

[karl.lambley]

sorry mods. i imagine my piece-meal posting makes bother for you. i am just so thrilled to show off my stuff, this page is my first interaction with model rocket people. i feel as though I'll be accepted here for my proclivities. ;-)

 

[tsmith1315]

sorry mods. i imagine my piece-meal posting makes bother for you. i am just so thrilled to show off my stuff, this page is my first interaction with model rocket people. i feel as though I'll be accepted here for my proclivities. ;-)

Yes, you’re among friends!

 

[karl.lambley]

Yes, you’re among friends!

lol. that's made me smile

 

[karl.lambley]

my mind is positively afizz with questions.

 

[Blast it Tom!]

Dear glory, man, if you can get good results off of that, you could probably sell it! Gyros and all?!?! As long as you have the accuracy and the computing speed to keep up with it all, in a 26mm package, that's grand!

 

[karl.lambley]

Dear glory, man, if you can get good results off of that, you could probably sell it! Gyros and all?!?! As long as you have the accuracy and the computing speed to keep up with it all, in a 26mm package, that's grand!

at launch it takes readings ten times a second, i have set this to happen for 40 seconds for my test launches, then it only records 4 times a second. the nano seems to keep up with that okay.
it is gratifying fo you to say people may want to own one. i can understand a bt, as a year ago i looked into buying one, i found they were all big, expensive, or both big and expensive. however i wouldn't want to inflict my soldering on anyone! but for V3, which i imagine will be ready in a week or 2 I am learning how to use PCB design tools, so i will get a PCB made, it will be a single piece about 6 inches by25mm, with sockets for the components. I will gladly share this in any way if people were interested in it.
weather has been awful here for days now, so my launch has been delayed. i live in the vale of belvoir and about 30ft from my front door is a 20 acre park. all good, however around but the edge are some amazing willows, around 3m circumference, so about 300 years old. and they are full of the strange fruit of my old rockets. gently swaying and depending from the branches are inumerable bobbing tubes and chutes. i don't want computer V2 to join them so I am waiting for better weather.

 

[karl.lambley]

so you can see how progress has occurred this square flight computer is last week's, it is 3inches by 3inches, from a time when i thought about expensive re-loadable motors and 3inch body tubes.
the battery features a little innovation of mine. i don't like soldering to the end of batteries, and luckily i found ,in the greenhouse, some thin copper tape, bought by my wife to keep slugs off plants. experimentation revealed the glue is highly conductive, so if a strip is stuck over a battery contact it conducts beautifully, and being pure copper is so easy to solder to. so my flight battery has that with a shrunk fit layer to keep everything secure.
the third pic is flight comp. v2 with battery fitted and all running. the last pics show it all fitting in a 1 inch tube

if you look flight computer v1 had a compass (the only socket-ted bit, other than the nano, as it was a later idea when i decided sockets were the way forward fr everything). unit as well as the bmp180 pressure sensor and the mpu6050 imu. but i got rid of it for several important reasons, it seemed a bit pointless getting bearings on a thing that moves upwards, it made everything bigger and used more power. but most importantly it was a bugger to make work properly.

 

[Huxter]

Welcome to the forum! Very impressive what you have accomplished in such a short period of time! Thanks for sharing pics!

3D printers are a wonderful companion to many hobbies - including rocketry. Keep some energy to explore them! Great for prototyping things. There are many here who print a "sled" for their electronics.

 

[karl.lambley]

how odd you should say that. i was just writing - next month, after we get paid, as long as the washing machine or similar doesn't explode first I intend to buy a 3d printer. i have been getting more familiar with computer-y stuff, for instance i have been trying all my rockets in open rocket before launch. i love the idea of using solid works to simulate forces on things, and i have been practising with tinkercad and blender. or would you reccomend something else? again i am an utter beginner. i ve never seen a 3d priter

 

[karl.lambley]

it is great to hear that i shall be accepted here. my wife is awesome, but even she gets a bit cross sometimes. before i learned about model rockets we had a normal drawing room. then i said i may need it slightly altering. this is the drawing room a year later. now it is called my study!

 

[karl.lambley]

i must admit now i have said it out loud and shown others my handiwork it has just occurred to me that a/ i may have gone a bit further than the average person would think normal, and b/ my wife is brilliant. Again, it is all to put a computer in a rocket because Youtube showed a bps space Joe Barnard video to me a year ago.

final quick confession, when i have been considering power delivery for the rocket and the launch igniter my main consideration is - does it have potential for me to say 'now running on internal power' before launch, so i can pretend to be part of the Apollo team.
so i can do this i have been planning to power the 'launch stand' from a car battery, and have a li-po Batt charging from it inside the rocket. the igniter will then be attached to the rocket's internal battery. then i can send a command, via 433 radio, to the rocket telling it to stop charging, before telling the arduino to allow a relay to let the 9v reach the igniter. i intend to use copper wool (again, believe it or not it is from my wife's anti-slug warfare!) inside the rocket, with little holes made in the side, so a wire thrust in the wool makes a connection. then i can say 'running on internal power' and feel like gene kranz.

 

[Blast it Tom!]

i must admit now i have said it out loud and shown others my handiwork it has just occurred to me that a/ i may have gone a bit further than the average person would think normal, and b/ my wife is brilliant. Again, it is all to put a computer in a rocket because Youtube showed a bps space Joe Barnard video to me a year ago.

final quick confession, when i have been considering power delivery for the rocket and the launch igniter my main consideration is - does it have potential for me to say 'now running on internal power' before launch, so i can pretend to be part of the Apollo team.
so i can do this i have been planning to power the 'launch stand' from a car battery, and have a li-po Batt charging from it inside the rocket. the igniter will then be attached to the rocket's internal battery. then i can send a command, via 433 radio, to the rocket telling it to stop charging, before telling the arduino to allow a relay to let the 9v reach the igniter. i intend to use copper wool (again, believe it or not it is from my wife's anti-slug warfare!) inside the rocket, with little holes made in the side, so a wire thrust in the wool makes a connection. then i can say 'running on internal power' and feel like gene kranz.

Oh, there is so much "grand" here! Slug warfare with copper wool and tape, we do the same here! And normal? What the heck is that?
But you take the cake with "The vehicle is now on internal power,"like Gene Kranz (and the countdown voice was, I believe, Jack King, referenced a couple of paragraphs into the very funny linked story). Bless your heart, I'm enjoying this so much - I'm an Apollo nut myself. I almost fear igniting another fire in your creative brain - I was considering making a miniature "countdown clock" like the one in the spectator area from Apollo days, but my goodness, I just don't have the time.

And yes - I have a very tidy wife, good with plants, who bemoans both the tumultuous state of my workshop and my choice of hobby in hilly, tree-covered Western PA.

 

[karl.lambley]

i, being English, knew bugger all about western PA earlier, but now i know you have the following -

• The Duquesne Incline, a historic funicular that offers panoramic views of Pittsburgh and the rivers.
• The Andy Warhol Museum, a tribute to the pop art icon and Pittsburgh native.
• Fallingwater, a masterpiece of architecture by Frank Lloyd Wright, built over a waterfall.
• The Cathedral of Learning, a Gothic tower that houses the Nationality Rooms, each representing a different culture.
• The Carnegie Museums, which include the Museum of Art, the Museum of Natural History, the Science Center, and the Warhol Museum.
• The Frick Art & Historical Center, which displays the art collection and mansion of Henry Clay Frick, a steel magnate.
• Kentuck Knob, another Frank Lloyd Wright-designed home with stunning views.

 

[karl.lambley]

sounds great . id love to see those places. especially one called Kentucky Knob! have you ever experienced Kentucky Knob?

 

[OverTheTop]

Welcome to the forum. Definitely an impressive year of work.

 

[Blast it Tom!]

sounds great . id love to see those places. especially one called Kentucky Knob! have you ever experienced Kentucky Knob?

Well, I've never been to either of Frank Lloyd Wright's creations here, but I've certainly been up and down the inclines, up and down the Cathedral of Learning (despite nor being good with heights at all), and we've done the museums... I did my engineering degree at Pitt, and I'm living in a home less than 2 miles from the one I grew up in - never moved away.

What I really like about this area right now is a parcel of tree-free ground over 2 square miles in area that I really hope to be able to secure launch permissions for. That would be a game-changer for all aviation related hobbies in the area. It's under environmental remediation now, but I'm hopeful! Then maybe my rockets won't decorate the local trees like yours do!