Today I will cover recovery harnesses, deployment testing (and advice needed), a possible Eggtimer bug, and paint scheme.
Recovery Harnesses:
I guess I am a bargain hunter and if I can make something cheaper and of same or higher quality than what is commercially available, I will. To that end, I ended up finding 100' of 1/4 tubular Kevlar cord with a rating of 1900# break force shipped to me for $59.99. Can't beat that price. So I got it, and sewed my own three loop harnesses. I also bought Nomex fabric for next to nothing and made my own chute protectors. Everything when you add up materials and such saved me about $50. Not a whole lot to be honest, but more fun than just buying it online IHO.
Deployment Testing:
Yesterday
Rob702Martinez and I went out to the lake bed to do some deployment testing of the rocket. I had two video sources of the event but neither of them panned out. Needless to say 2 grams will get the payload section to separate and 1.5 will get the drogue out. However, I might need to do a deployment test for the drogue again. I'm planning on going mach 1.2 so I am wondering if it is advisable to put a sheer pin or two on the fin can to keep it with the AV bay before the charge goes off. I'm concerned about drag separation...
I absolutely love my AV bay design. Rob can attest to how easy and straightforward the testing was. Because the deployment charges are self contained and there is zero wire management, re-loading for another deployment test was as simple as unscrewing the spent deployment canister and screwing a new one in. It really was the easiest thing - and it worked flawlessly. Check out post 31 if you don't know what I am talking about.
Also, I burned 4 holes in my brand new main because my protector is not long enough. An 84" chute being shoved in a 3' time causes it to be quite long. The chute protector needed to be a little longer. I'll be making a new one AND patch up this chute....
Possible Eggtimer bug:
One of the reasons why I don't have video of the deployment tests is because the charges went off before they were supposed to. For those of you who may not know, all but one Eggtimer altimeters are WiFi enabled for arming. This also allows for the testing of deployment charges from a distance and wirelessly. The way they are supposed to work is by you connecting your phone to the WiFi SSD they broadcast, then go to a special test web site on your browser, select the channel to test, enter a security code, then the web page refreshes, goes to a count down page, counts down from 10 and sends a signal to ignite the charge. Easy and straight forward. I love it. However, what I learned is that once the countdown reaches zero and the charge is lit, the arming code and signal can be sent again simply by refreshing that page. Doing so does not restart the countdown either - reload the and refresh and charge is lit. So what we did, not knowing this, was test, reload the charge, then refresh the countdown page and BOOM the charge went off immediately again. I need to contact Cris to see if that is a bug and if he knows about it.
Paint Sceme:
I've settled on how this rocket will look. I am going to go simple and elegant for this one. I'll start paining it sometime this week or upcoming weekend. It will be labor intense as I am going to go for a polished finish.