Loki Research 2014

[Loki Research]

Close. Measuring pixels in GIMP, I get 11 feet long.

And when it's passing mach 1 at ~450 feet you'll get.........................a really wicked looking flight ;-p

 

[DAllen]

Dear Santa,

All I want for Christmas is:

One 54/4400 Loki Motor
Several L3000's
Several L2450's

THANKS

-Dave

 

[Binder Design]

And when it's passing mach 1 at ~450 feet you'll get.........................a really wicked looking flight ;-p

Agreed. If used in minimum diameter applications, I'd recommend aluminum parts. My 38mm L breaks mach @ 300 feet and I now use all aluminum including the airframe. I folded over a lot of composite tubes, some in obscene thickness.

 

[CarVac]

Agreed. If used in minimum diameter applications, I'd recommend aluminum parts. My 38mm L breaks mach @ 300 feet and I now use all aluminum including the airframe. I folded over a lot of composite tubes, some in obscene thickness.

I would argue that that is a matter of quality... Aluminum is assuredly strong while it takes very good technique to make a defect free composite part.

 

[Binder Design]

In my case, Shadow Composites couldn't do it, nor performance rocketry, nor myself. I don't believe the listed tubing had defects, it was just under engineered for the stress. Imagine firing a rocket from a cannon. 300 g's maximum, with over 100 g's sustained for .50 seconds. You really would have to see it to understand fully. It does not look like a typical rocket launch. In minimum diameter applications, Scott's new motor will shred or melt composites no matter how well they are made. These erosive motors burn really fast, and with thrust levels as high as 98mm motors, but in smaller diameters, you will get a lot of aerodynamic heating.

 

[CarVac]

In my case, Shadow Composites couldn't do it, nor performance rocketry, nor myself. I don't believe the listed tubing had defects, it was just under engineered for the stress. Imagine firing a rocket from a cannon. 300 g's maximum, with over 100 g's sustained for .50 seconds. You really would have to see it to understand fully. It does not look like a typical rocket launch. In minimum diameter applications, Scott's new motor will shred or melt composites no matter how well they are made. These erosive motors burn really fast, and with thrust levels as high as 98mm motors, but in smaller diameters, you will get a lot of aerodynamic heating.

I've personally flown extremely quick acceleration, and extremely high speed. Maybe not together. But in straight flight, nothing should damage a properly engineered composite part.

Disappearing Act pulled 220 G for 0.3 seconds, breaking Mach at 100 ft, and that had a balsa nosecone. Of course, my charges came apart so it didn't separate at apogee but it did fly straight after burnout so it clearly didn't shred until it met the lakebed. That's only Mach 1.7, though.

Bare Necessities (N5800) pulled 65-70 g sustained, but even though it began corkscrewing starting at Mach 3.7 (or 4, depending on which altimeter you believe), our composite nosecone didn't care one bit. This is despite the huge slug of copper hanging off the front end. If anything could snap an under-engineered or even slightly defective part, that flight would be it.

I'm absolutely certain that a scaled down version of BN's nose would be just fine riding one of these Loki 54/4400 motors.

I'd be very glad to hear from you what you tried that shredded, but I think it could be done in composites.

 

[JDcluster]

Yup, just like a top fuel dragster hitting a wall at 300+ MPH....

JD

And when it's passing mach 1 at ~450 feet you'll get.........................a really wicked looking flight ;-p

 

[Binder Design]

I've personally flown extremely quick acceleration, and extremely high speed. Maybe not together. But in straight flight, nothing should damage a properly engineered composite part.

Nosecones can be made from just about anything. It is the airframe that takes the load. Every one that I tried snapped just above the motor casing. You have no reference for the type of flight I'm describing unless you've flow micrograin or fired artillery rounds.

 

[RocketHunter]

Out of curiosity, when are the smaller (38/240, 38/480) loads with the new propellant mixes (tropical cocktail?) expected to become available? I cant wait to try them out!

This past weekend I flew an Loki I405, what an awesome motor! It was definitely the loudest I-class motor I have flown (excluding sparkies), with a tremendous kick and huge flame! I think my new favorite non-sparky motor!

 

[CarVac]

I'm looking forward to flying an I430 once I get my cases and repair my rocket and get an altimeter and...

 

[pyrobob]

Would love to see pictures of you 38mm L; video would be even better. Have anything you could share??? Length, total impulse, average thrust, etc.??

Agreed. If used in minimum diameter applications, I'd recommend aluminum parts. My 38mm L breaks mach @ 300 feet and I now use all aluminum including the airframe. I folded over a lot of composite tubes, some in obscene thickness.

 

[CarVac]

Would love to see pictures of you 38mm L; video would be even better. Have anything you could share??? Length, total impulse, average thrust, etc.??

It's the image at binderdesign.com.

 

[pyrobob]

It's the image at binderdesign.com.

Nice, thanks. Mike, any specs or video?

 

[Binder Design]

Nice, thanks. Mike, any specs or video?

3000 lb max thrust at ignition, total rocket weight 10 lbs, so 300:1 thrust to weight. Mach 1 @300', mach 2 @1100' mach 2.7 at burnout. Sorry no video, closest rocket launch I've seen to it is a Loki dart and even the Loki dart was slower. Flight should have broken 30K' but lost a fin near end of boost, still managed to cone its way to about 20K'. Parrot recorded just under 300g's, tough altimeters.....As to not further hijack Scott's thread, please PM me if you have further questions.

 

[Loki Research]

Out of curiosity, when are the smaller (38/240, 38/480) loads with the new propellant mixes (tropical cocktail?) expected to become available? I cant wait to try them out!

Sadly it's still very hard to say as I am always the only one juggling all the things there is to do. I'm probably also trying to do too much at once. As the weather is warming up I'll be able to do more delay time tests with less worries about temperature affects. The other burden with winter has been that business is much slower this time of year. It makes it hard for a small business to be productive when the cash flow is low. The propellant that I do make I need to sell asap and pay bills with. I just made about 70 lbs of blue Tuesday. I was going to make 4 L-3000's, 3 for cert testing and one for a flight test, but I opted to only make 1. I decided it was more important right now to make more 76 & 38mm and sell it to make back needed money on it instead.

I will say, it is definitely more difficult and time consuming to get motors ready for cert testing that have delay ejection than just a simple tracking smoke grain.

The 38mm hardware will be on it's way to me next week. The rest of the 54/76mm bulkheads, 54/76mm hardware will be in the week after. I've ran into some problems caused by some vendor miscommunication and that has unexpectedly delayed things even more this past week.

 

[Loki Research]

BTW, thank you for sharing your photo of the I-405. That has to be the most popular and best selling 38mm Loki Research motor.

I also started a Facebook page for Loki Research at the beginning of the year for customers to share their photos on.. Feel free to post them to the time line, or if you want to send them to me, I'll post them to the customer photos section. Please send me permission to use the photo along with who gets the photo credit and some information on the motor reload and rocket. I don't know that people can post to that section or just the time line.

 

[Binder Design]

Scott, have you ever considered the business model of "Signature Loads"? There are quite a few nice propellants developed by the research community that might be nice to share with the commercial crowd. I'd give permission for any of my formulas to be mass produced as long as my name was kept on it. I'm sure there are a few of us out there that feel the same way.

 

[CarVac]

Scott, have you ever considered the business model of "Signature Loads"? There are quite a few nice propellants developed by the research community that might be nice to share with the commercial crowd. I'd give permission for any of my formulas to be mass produced as long as my name was kept on it. I'm sure there are a few of us out there that feel the same way.

I don't know if getting even more formulas and motors certified would be cost-effective...

Aside from that, I have a question (I asked on the youtube 38mm assembly video too, but here might work): What's the best way to remove O-ring from the nozzle without scratching up the groove?

 

[Binder Design]

I don't know if getting even more formulas and motors certified would be cost-effective...

That is why I'm posing the question to Scott. On your O-ring, squeeze the o-ring into the groove and pull towards you until one side lifts out of the groove then hook it with a small screwdriver to pull it out.

 

[chuck5395]

That is why I'm posing the question to Scott. On your O-ring, squeeze the o-ring into the groove and pull towards you until one side lifts out of the groove then hook it with a small screwdriver to pull it out.

I do this but use a small bamboo skewer instead of the screwdriver. Call me paranoid.

 

[H_Rocket]

I would love to see some of the cast insanity that Mike makes available on even a special order basis. Rumour has it he has an 18mm J that is six feet long.

I'd really like to see Ultraviolet (Todd's special blend) and Al G.'s Blue Diablo available. I think John DeMar did a red motor with Ti-sparks that would get the crowd on their feet...

Oh the possibilities.



I use a razor knife to slit the O-ring and peel it out of the groove with a cuticle stick.

 

[prophecy]

I would love to see some of the cast insanity that Mike makes available on even a special order basis. Rumour has it he has an 18mm J that is six feet long.

I'd really like to see Ultraviolet (Todd's special blend) and Al G.'s Blue Diablo available. I think John DeMar did a red motor with Ti-sparks that would get the crowd on their feet...

Oh the possibilities.



I use a razor knife to slit the O-ring and peel it out of the groove with a cuticle stick.

And this is why you gotta start making motors, Al No hoping, wishing, or begging involved!

~S

 

[Loki Research]

Mike, I'd have to get DOT shipping numbers for other propellants and that is very costly. And then it would need to be a pourable propellant. I dont know if you pour yours or pack them but I'm not going back to hand packing. Its a pita!

I use a small flathead jewlers screwdriver to carfully get behind the oring, pull it up and roll it off. That is if its not melted and stuck to the graphite. For about 6 months or more now, I've been shipping reloads with silicone orings for the nozzles on every reload that I feel would melt a buna-n oring. Silicone orings turn to dust once the get heat soaked by the nozzle and are very easy to clean off of the graphite.

 

[Binder Design]

Mike, I'd have to get DOT shipping numbers for other propellants and that is very costly.

Understood, thanks.

 

[Zeroignite]

I would love to see some of the cast insanity that Mike makes available on even a special order basis. Rumour has it he has an 18mm J that is six feet long.

...ok, suddenly I feel this inexplicable surge of interest in EX...

 

[blackbrandt]

Same. I have wanted to get into EX since I joined rocketry (the motors are cheaper as well).

 

[cavecentral]

Same. I have wanted to get into EX since I joined rocketry (the motors are cheaper as well).

As long as you make a lot of motors!

 

[cwbullet]

Same. I have wanted to get into EX since I joined rocketry (the motors are cheaper as well).

Only if they do not CATO. Watch a few more research launches and you will understand why it is not more wide spread.

 

[thobin]

Sadly it's still very hard to say as I am always the only one juggling all the things there is to do. I'm probably also trying to do too much at once. As the weather is warming up I'll be able to do more delay time tests with less worries about temperature affects. The other burden with winter has been that business is much slower this time of year. It makes it hard for a small business to be productive when the cash flow is low. The propellant that I do make I need to sell asap and pay bills with. I just made about 70 lbs of blue Tuesday. I was going to make 4 L-3000's, 3 for cert testing and one for a flight test, but I opted to only make 1. I decided it was more important right now to make more 76 & 38mm and sell it to make back needed money on it instead.

I will say, it is definitely more difficult and time consuming to get motors ready for cert testing that have delay ejection than just a simple tracking smoke grain.

The 38mm hardware will be on it's way to me next week. The rest of the 54/76mm bulkheads, 54/76mm hardware will be in the week after. I've ran into some problems caused by some vendor miscommunication and that has unexpectedly delayed things even more this past week.

I hope they will be certified soon, I really want to do my NAR lvl 2 cert on one of the new 38mm 1200 motors this summer. :headbang: We understand though that it takes time to get it right and wouldn't expect anything less.



TA

 

[pyrobob]

Mike, I'd have to get DOT shipping numbers for other propellants and that is very costly. And then it would need to be a pourable propellant. I dont know if you pour yours or pack them but I'm not going back to hand packing. Its a pita!

Out of curiosity, approximately what does it cost and how long is the process? No doubt it's a hassle, just wondering.