Rouse Tech CD 4
Although, he doesn't come right out and say it, but I think it's like CD3, uses a tiny bit of BP to fire the plunger.
Rules for buying black powder?
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Although, he doesn't come right out and say it, but I think it's like CD3, uses a tiny bit of BP to fire the plunger.
In that particular instance (for drogue), most would transition to NC based gun propellants which require a bit more work to operate effectively. Next in line would be the commercial CO2 devices that use a small amount of BP to actuate a piercer/piston in combination with a CO2 cylinder. Then there are the completely pyroless devices which are/were available commercially but expensive enough to limit them to a niche segment of the market.
For the main, I imagine most would be utilising something like a Jolly Logic device.
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Gastrok
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"NC based gun propellant" sounds like using a smokeless powder (nitro cellulous) blank cartridge to me. Interesting. Do I have that right?
I'm not an authority to answer that, but I'm pretty sure there are flyers who use smokeless powder regardless if BP is available or not.
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Interesting indeed. https://www.ramset.com/Products/Accessories/Powder-Loads
Would be pretty straightforward to figure out a striker mechanism that could be actuated with most altimeters, but it is another layer of stuff that could go wrong, independent of existing electrical controls.
Gastrok
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A cheap rim-fired nail gun cartridge could work. The striker/hammer mechanism would be pretty involved though. hmmmm...
ETA: It could be a simple mechanical clockwork mechanism initiated by the motor eject charge, that strikes the rim of the cartridge after a set duration. No smoke and EMP-proof. lol
ETA: It could be a simple mechanical clockwork mechanism initiated by the motor eject charge, that strikes the rim of the cartridge after a set duration. No smoke and EMP-proof. lol
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For smokeless powders, (to my understanding) you initiate them the same way you do to BP. The difference is, you need to confine them to achieve a useful (fast) burn rate ie. they're very pressure dependant.
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Using the motor ejection to activate it would lose the benefit of altimeter-controlled deployment.
The blank cartridges are confined in a short tube to support the walls, but AFAIK, the crimping on the end takes care of confining the charge to obtain a consistent burn in an engineered, quality controlled manner.
I'm thinking about some kind of solenoid activated double-action system so the rocket could be launched in a mechanically non-energized state. The energy to move the striker into the "cocked" position would be provided electrically through the altimeter at the time of deployment. There should additionally be some kind of block mechanism to ensure drop safety.
An obvious thing I don't know is how much charge is available in those loads, and how much volume they could pressurize to 15 psi or so. It might turn out they are actually small and could only be used in small rockets.
The blank cartridges are confined in a short tube to support the walls, but AFAIK, the crimping on the end takes care of confining the charge to obtain a consistent burn in an engineered, quality controlled manner.
I'm thinking about some kind of solenoid activated double-action system so the rocket could be launched in a mechanically non-energized state. The energy to move the striker into the "cocked" position would be provided electrically through the altimeter at the time of deployment. There should additionally be some kind of block mechanism to ensure drop safety.
An obvious thing I don't know is how much charge is available in those loads, and how much volume they could pressurize to 15 psi or so. It might turn out they are actually small and could only be used in small rockets.
I can see where you're coming from, but by the time you achieve all that, you're probably over 1/2 way to developing a totally non pyro deployment system in terms of mechanical complexity.
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I don't really care about pyro/non-pyro. It's all stored energy. I am pretty comfortable with energy stored chemically. I would only look at going in the direction I brainstormed above if I thought there was a significant problem with using BP the way we do now.
The trouble with CO2 is that all but one of the systems I've seen require black powder to actuate, and the one system that doesn't was designed for drones and thus has a very awkward layout for a rocket, and besides has been sold out forever.
Thinking about it though, some of the CO2 systems require very little black powder, possibly little enough that it could be taken from the motor (either DMS or reload) if one were willing to dispense with backup motor ejection (which I am more than willing to do when I have deployment electronics onboard).
The other obvious choice would be carefully confined smokeless powder, but I'd guess that's regulated the same in Massachusetts as black powder.
After that, you get into springs, etc. @air.command has done some neat work on mechanical ejection. Due to restrictions on black powder in many countries, some of the rockets built for ESRA (Spaceport Cup) also end up using various mechanical ejection schemes.
The same striker mechanism could be used to puncture a CO2 cartridge too, but these nailgun cartridges would take up a lot less space. Also available in several sizes and found in many hardware stores. Mass of the chamber would be offset by not needing to carry the mass of a CO2 cartridge, and since it would only be acting as a gas generator, the chamber might not need to be very robust. Intriguing idea!
The only measurement I could find regarding how much powder the Ramsets have was 2.3g in a .27 Green cartridge. As to what the powder is, I've seen various speculation, but if it's actually black powder, that might be a solution for Mass residents to acquire powder, though they'd need to be out of state to extract it legally.
I'd be comfortable with single-action cocked on the pad, perhaps by pulling a "remove before flight" pin.
I do wonder though in these days of monster LiPos if enough heat could be generated by a high-C battery to discharge these consistently with electricity alone.
Using it behind a piston could help it scale a bit. Not infinitely of course.
Sorry, I don’t follow. To discharge what?
A Ramset nailgun cartridge.
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Probably, but it would take time to get something hot and then for that to conduct through the brass case to the primer. I think mechanical would be much quicker. And could probably be actuated with a smaller LiPo for us nerds of little rockets.
Use Motor Ejection for Apogee, Jolly Logic for main.
Yes I flew a plugged I-65 in 2018, I used a Strato Logger CF in the coupler for the Apogee charge, so cheated but had to.
The CO2 systems were made because BP does not work well at 3 miles plus high.
Yes I flew a plugged I-65 in 2018, I used a Strato Logger CF in the coupler for the Apogee charge, so cheated but had to.
The CO2 systems were made because BP does not work well at 3 miles plus high.
My charges in my 4" M rocket at Black Rock had one charge in surgical tubing for apogee, another in steal tube.... Black Rock is 4K at the surface so Above ground at 17.5K feet is huge over sea level charges
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