The Eggtimer Apogee - A Very Simple Apogee-Deployment Altimeter

The Rocketry Forum

Help Support The Rocketry Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Hi Chris,

Sounds like a great product. A couple of questions:
1. Is there a maximal altitude above which function or accuracy would be affected?
2. If the altimeter is located next to a GPS receiver/transmitter (1 watt) or a camera (e.g. mobius), will this affect altimeter function?

Thanks,
Fred
 
Hi Chris,

Sounds like a great product. A couple of questions:
1. Is there a maximal altitude above which function or accuracy would be affected?
2. If the altimeter is located next to a GPS receiver/transmitter (1 watt) or a camera (e.g. mobius), will this affect altimeter function?

Thanks,
Fred
The baro sensor is rated to over 60K, and it's mach-safe (as are all of the Eggtimer altimeters). It has essentially the same electronics as the Quark, including the optoisolated output, which is highly immune from interference from other rocketry electronics.
 
Got my four units assembled. Ready for a vaccum test.

Designed a sled for an existing 3d printed end loading ebay.

For you terminal block lovers, pitch is 6.35 mm. Looks like Pheonix Contact 172033 will do. Mouser https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/651-1720033




1602707683702.png
IMG_3989.jpeg
 
What is the advantage of a deployment altimeter AND a JLCR? If going through the effort to build an eBay, why not use a dual deployment altimeter and be done with it? One piece of electronics.
 
What is the advantage of a deployment altimeter AND a JLCR? If going through the effort to build an eBay, why not use a dual deployment altimeter and be done with it? One piece of electronics.

Some rockets don't have room for full on dual deploy. Some longer rockets are single break only. Minnie Magg, MDRM, Goblin, Big Daddy, Phoenix, Hawk, Seawolf, Tethys, Callisto, IO, are some examples. Some folks that fly such rockets hate fiddling with delays and don't trust them, I am one of those folks. The Apogee is small and doesn't require any programming. It gets the JLCR out of the rocket so it can do it's job.

The Apogee is perfect to put in a nose cone bay to control the apogee event. I fly a lot of rockets where I only use one channel on a dual deploy altimeters. I just built a pancake bay for a 2.6" Goblin and 2.6" V2 to accommodate a Quark, which has to have a load on both channels. I will redesign the bay for the Apogee. Heck this will even work in my Mega Magg and simplifies the electronics package I was gonna put in there.

And the switch is built in. That's even better. The only way this would be better is to make it WiFi, then I wouldn't be looking for a switch. I did order a Mini WiFi and I'll see what I can come up with on that front.
 
Some rockets don't have room for full on dual deploy. Some longer rockets are single break only. Minnie Magg, MDRM, Goblin, Big Daddy, Phoenix, Hawk, Seawolf, Tethys, Callisto, IO, are some examples. Some folks that fly such rockets hate fiddling with delays and don't trust them, I am one of those folks. The Apogee is small and doesn't require any programming. It gets the JLCR out of the rocket so it can do it's job.

The Apogee is perfect to put in a nose cone bay to control the apogee event. I fly a lot of rockets where I only use one channel on a dual deploy altimeters. I just built a pancake bay for a 2.6" Goblin and 2.6" V2 to accommodate a Quark, which has to have a load on both channels. I will redesign the bay for the Apogee. Heck this will even work in my Mega Magg and simplifies the electronics package I was gonna put in there.

And the switch is built in. That's even better. The only way this would be better is to make it WiFi, then I wouldn't be looking for a switch. I did order a Mini WiFi and I'll see what I can come up with on that front.

Gotcha.

For the apogee charge, do you wire it down to the motor and under the laundry, or mount it to the nose bay?
 
Gotcha.

For the apogee charge, do you wire it down to the motor and under the laundry, or mount it to the nose bay?

Mostly in the nose cone firing down; so far never had laundry fail to come out.

I only have the one pancake bay that sits just above the motor tube under the laundry firing forward, it has yet to be flown. The laundry had to go in the nose so I had to come up with something else. Mega Magg will be set up with the charges just above the motor, under the laundry firing forward, though it is so big that the laundry will do what it wants. I just haven't decided what electronics I am putting in that one yet.
 
It's ... stuff ... like this that aggravates me. Nothing on Cris, it's USPS again. They don't know where it is.
Screenshot_20201019-163609_Chrome.jpg
 
Same for me too. Our packages must be in a bin in the corner somewhere. Hopefully they decide to move them soon.
 
I ship electronics and lithium batteries to paper mills in the US and internationally. I only use Fedex. I believe they are the most expensive, but I can track any package anywhere at anytime with surprising pinpoint accuracy. I ordered a BT-80 baffle from California via USPS and it took 12 days with barely any tracking info yet, I shipped a metal lithium battery on Friday to Germany and I received an email confirmation within 10 minutes of it being delivered on Monday.
 
I'm assuming that you just got that today... that's 11 days from mailing. It might be because of the UN3481 battery label, although in theory they are allowed to go by air. USPS might be sending all lithium batteries via ground, which is a requirement for UN3480 (batteries shipped "without equipment").

BTW, the Easy Mount 3D parts just arrived, I need to pack them up and finish the instructions. They should be available next week. I did set the price... it's going to be $16. If you have already purchased an Apogee and want one, and have not already let me know, drop me an email... I'll waive the shipping since I didn't have them ready to ship with the Apogee.

Finally, we are now carrying the recommended Adafruit Micro-USB charger for the 110 mAH LiPo batteries. It's $8... however, it does not come with the Micro-USB cable; that shouldn't be much of a problem, just about everybody has a bunch of them laying around.
 
Ditto. Maybe it'll get here today. I'm not in a bind for it. USPS usually does pretty well for me.
Not in a rush here either. I would like to see it in my hand, but USPS has delayed delivery for days a few times before. This was shipped on the 9th, last movement was on the 13th with the same "this will arrive late" message since the 17th. We're nearing the 2 week point on this one, which is long for any domestic shipment in my estimation.
 
I'm seeing exactly the same thing and it concerns me because it is out of the norm. I get rocket motors in the mail a lot faster than this and those show up with all kinds of big red stickers on them.
 
For late packages, you can send in a request to find the package if it has a tracking number. I did this for a package that was 2 weeks late (shipped as priority mail) and I received an email back from USPS within 24 hours stating where it was. It showed up the next day. Probably just coincidence.
 
Post Office just dropped off my Eggfinder Apogee package about 5 minutes ago.

As an aside, the delivery person also left my star Orbiter kit from eRockets...my Vander-Burn upgrade kit arrived a week ago for it.

Can’t recall ever building this many Estes kits...
 
got my shipment yesterday! under two weeks to the uk is pretty good!!
PXL_20201021_091031354.jpg
 
Mine came yesterday, October 22. Postmarked October 10. And I am USPS Zone 2 from Glendora, CA or about 200 miles away. Thanks, USPS. I’m glad I voted two weeks ago (and dropped it off in person).
 
Once they found mine it was in Memphis, TN
Then went to Dallas, TX
It should be about to start the Kessel Run and try to make it through Shreveport. Packages like to hang out there for a week or two sometime.
 
Back
Top