HED, what do I need to know???

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David Schwantz

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What is there different about HED? I have a 38mm XXL Black Hole kit that I installed the MD retainer into the coupler and glued it all together so that I could stuff a full 1080 into her. I just got my parts from SMT for the NC bay, looks great by the way, and am planning on putting a quark in it for deployment. Was thinking that I would run e match leads and BP charge down on top of the motor to blow out chute.
 
Awesome rocket, I love mine.

So what you describing isn't really head-end deployment, but more head end avionics. So it will be a single apogee deploy that you could add a chute release too.

I dont believe the SMT parts have any charge lead consideration. But you could simply drill a small hole and run your charge out of it sealed with a little bit of putty. And yes in that case I would run the charge all the way down to the top of the motor case. So it blows all the recovery gear out of the tube. I always like putting my charges below my recovery gear. I just use a glove finger tip zip-tied to the ematch.

Can you post some images of your assembly. I thought Steve's minimum diameter retainer fit into the body tube, not in the coupler. Did you use an Aeropack?
 
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Head-End Deployment is where the Ebay is in the nose cone coupler of glass/carbon rockets. Apogee fires like a normal nose blow rocket, but the main chute is in the cone and the charge blows the nose off of its coupler.
 
I had a rocket where I would put the charges down near the motor. I stopped bothering because unless your recovery gear is wrapped up and tight in the BT so it acts as a piston, the ejection charge doesn't really move the recovery gear much. I know most people feel the charge pushes the gear out, but mostly it's the pressure in the BT that pushes the nosecone off and the NC is what pulls the recovery gear out. Having the electronics in the NC will add some inertia to the nose cone and help it pull the gear out. Unless you have your gear acting as a tight piston, ejection may work better with the charge just below the NC.

The other advantage of the charge under the NC, the gear will tend to push down on top of the motor during acceleration during motor burn. The NC charge will be further from the gear and have less chance of burning/melting nylon.

Just some points to consider... Good luck.
 
I had a rocket where I would put the charges down near the motor. I stopped bothering because unless your recovery gear is wrapped up and tight in the BT so it acts as a piston, the ejection charge doesn't really move the recovery gear much. I know most people feel the charge pushes the gear out, but mostly it's the pressure in the BT that pushes the nosecone off and the NC is what pulls the recovery gear out. Having the electronics in the NC will add some inertia to the nose cone and help it pull the gear out. Unless you have your gear acting as a tight piston, ejection may work better with the charge just below the NC.

The other advantage of the charge under the NC, the gear will tend to push down on top of the motor during acceleration during motor burn. The NC charge will be further from the gear and have less chance of burning/melting nylon.

Just some points to consider... Good luck.
I really struggled with HED when I was putting the main far up into the NC. Once I moved the main to back closer to the coupler, I have had no troubles. Previously, the NC would come off and the main would stay stuck in the NC.
 
Hi Eric, I did use an Aeropack retainer. I had SMT, but there was no access for a deployment charge to flow thru. I bought the Aeropack one and it was to small for the tube so that is what gave me the idea of gluing it into the coupler and have a solid tube. I positioned it so I could fit the 1080 motor in it, but the reload needs the floating forward enclosure for the eject charge. So I am thinking if I put my stuff in NC and then blow out the recovery gear, I will be able to run a full 1080 and not just a 720 in her.
 
I really struggled with HED when I was putting the main far up into the NC. Once I moved the main to back closer to the coupler, I have had no troubles. Previously, the NC would come off and the main would stay stuck in the NC.

Can you put the deploy charge further up the nosecone than the chute to push the chute out of the nosecone? I’ve never done HED but am asking out of curiosity. I want to prevent the scenario you describe.
 
Can you put the deploy charge further up the nosecone than the chute to push the chute out of the nosecone? I’ve never done HED but am asking out of curiosity. I want to prevent the scenario you describe.
No need, really. Just pack the chute near the coupler end.
 
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