NickelRock
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- Oct 29, 2017
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Hey all,
I've seen a lot of topics on the JLCRs but haven't found much about this specific failure.
I'm part of a USLI team and we've been the Chute releases have been in our design since the beginning. We used them on a smaller rocket in January with no issues, but last weekend we had one fail and release the main at apogee.
Upon inspection we found that one of the rubber bands broke. I though this should be a simple fix and tested the retention using kevlar cord in place of the rubber bands. After, I found that all 4 of our JLCRs will open up with a little downward tug on the pins, which gives me very little confidence. It does this whether the unit is on or off. It seems that the tension from the rubber band helps, but a tug will still pop the pin out prematurely. I also attempted to replace the spring inside with a stiffer spring, and the pins still won't stay in.
We've got tender descenders ordered on back-up, but modifying the current rocket for them would be kind of a pain.
As anyone experienced this issue or have any reasonable mitigation for it? All of ours units experience the problem, so it seems to be either something inherent to the JLCR design or something stupid I'm overlooking. I'll try to get pictures up tonight too.
I've seen a lot of topics on the JLCRs but haven't found much about this specific failure.
I'm part of a USLI team and we've been the Chute releases have been in our design since the beginning. We used them on a smaller rocket in January with no issues, but last weekend we had one fail and release the main at apogee.
Upon inspection we found that one of the rubber bands broke. I though this should be a simple fix and tested the retention using kevlar cord in place of the rubber bands. After, I found that all 4 of our JLCRs will open up with a little downward tug on the pins, which gives me very little confidence. It does this whether the unit is on or off. It seems that the tension from the rubber band helps, but a tug will still pop the pin out prematurely. I also attempted to replace the spring inside with a stiffer spring, and the pins still won't stay in.
We've got tender descenders ordered on back-up, but modifying the current rocket for them would be kind of a pain.
As anyone experienced this issue or have any reasonable mitigation for it? All of ours units experience the problem, so it seems to be either something inherent to the JLCR design or something stupid I'm overlooking. I'll try to get pictures up tonight too.