Successful Level 2 !!!!!

[RocketHunter]

It looked like it was starting to arc over. Was the rocket ok?

How do you like the AIM electronics? I'm thinking of eventually getting the XTRA… Looks like the GPS mapping works well based on your video.

It would have been fine, but the parachute did not inflate fully so it came in pretty hot and dented the top end of the tube. I just need to trim a few inches off the top and it'll be good to go.

The AIM electronics are great. The USB altimeters are good units, but at $115 not really worth the price IMHO (I picked mine up wayyy back before I knew much about HPR and all the other much less expensive offerings).

The XTRA, on the other hand, is a really great unit in my opinion and an awesome value. It's $420 for the transmitter/altimeter unit and receiver, and its ready to go out of the box (minus battery). Expensive, but totally worth it. Compare that to say a telemetrum set up - $400 for the transmitter/altimeter, $100 for the receiver, and ~$50 for the recommended yagi antenna - and it ends up actually being significantly less expensive.

The live telemetry is just awesome - if you choose you can have it transmitting every sensors data back to the ground station. I usually have it send battery voltage, altitude, ejection line states, 3-axis acceleration, GPS, and baro pressure. Plus, if you pre-load the google earth maps or use your phone for wi-fi, you can watch the GPS plot in real time which is seriously cool! The GPS chip itself is great too - gets lock within a minute or two even indoors, and is most always accurate to within 5 ft or less. The range seems to be good as well - even with the smaller antenna (~2'' long), I have yet to have a flight where I lost connection, though the farthest I've landed away was ~1/2-3/4 of a mile.

My unit has been quite reliable - it had a few non-critical software bugs initially (wouldn't switch between vertical component of 16g 3-axis accelerometer to 105g linear accelerometer if the launch was over 16 g's), but some emails to David at entacore got that issue fixed pretty quickly and I haven't had any problems for quite a while now with the updated software. Mine has 14 flights on it, all successful, half of which went out of sight for all or most of the flight, and two of which were perfect 2-stage flights.

8-9 months ago, it flew in my blackhawk 38, and got stuck 70 ft up in a tree. I had to leave it there for almost three weeks, through multiple heavy thunderstorms, before I could get back to get it down. After getting it down I plugged it into the computer the next day, and somehow it still worked perfectly! :smile:

 

[BABAR]

Congrats on certification, 2 great flights, and one of the most well edited and enjoyable rocket videos I have seen in a while.
So when is L3?

 

[SCrocketfan]

It would have been fine, but the parachute did not inflate fully so it came in pretty hot and dented the top end of the tube. I just need to trim a few inches off the top and it'll be good to go.

The AIM electronics are great. The USB altimeters are good units, but at $115 not really worth the price IMHO (I picked mine up wayyy back before I knew much about HPR and all the other much less expensive offerings).

The XTRA, on the other hand, is a really great unit in my opinion and an awesome value. It's $420 for the transmitter/altimeter unit and receiver, and its ready to go out of the box (minus battery). Expensive, but totally worth it. Compare that to say a telemetrum set up - $400 for the transmitter/altimeter, $100 for the receiver, and ~$50 for the recommended yagi antenna - and it ends up actually being significantly less expensive.

The live telemetry is just awesome - if you choose you can have it transmitting every sensors data back to the ground station. I usually have it send battery voltage, altitude, ejection line states, 3-axis acceleration, GPS, and baro pressure. Plus, if you pre-load the google earth maps or use your phone for wi-fi, you can watch the GPS plot in real time which is seriously cool! The GPS chip itself is great too - gets lock within a minute or two even indoors, and is most always accurate to within 5 ft or less. The range seems to be good as well - even with the smaller antenna (~2'' long), I have yet to have a flight where I lost connection, though the farthest I've landed away was ~1/2-3/4 of a mile.

My unit has been quite reliable - it had a few non-critical software bugs initially (wouldn't switch between vertical component of 16g 3-axis accelerometer to 105g linear accelerometer if the launch was over 16 g's), but some emails to David at entacore got that issue fixed pretty quickly and I haven't had any problems for quite a while now with the updated software. Mine has 14 flights on it, all successful, half of which went out of sight for all or most of the flight, and two of which were perfect 2-stage flights.

8-9 months ago, it flew in my blackhawk 38, and got stuck 70 ft up in a tree. I had to leave it there for almost three weeks, through multiple heavy thunderstorms, before I could get back to get it down. After getting it down I plugged it into the computer the next day, and somehow it still worked perfectly! :smile:

Thanks so much for the info. I think I'll definitely get one eventually, seems like a very good system.