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For main deployment, I’ve been doing my own servo chute releases for a while. A 9g servo, small sled and an elastic band triggered by a custom altimeter. Very reliable once I got it dialled in.

Not to be overly flippant, but this is a hobby where we’re basically burning time and money for the fun of it. I kiss every rocket goodbye before hitting the launch button. Stuff blowing up on the pad most certainly sucks, but it’s just one of the dozens of ways a flight can end badly...

Aerotech delays can be so variable (in my experience anyway) that absolute precision here isn’t really that critical. After adjusting a couple dozen RMS delays with the tool, you get a pretty good feel for how large a dimple you need to drill to get reasonably close to the result you desire...

People are doing interesting things with gimballed ducted fan motors. These are really just IMU stabilized rocket-looking tubular single rotor aircraft flying mostly vertically and not “rockets”. This is expert level custom built RC stuff of course but requires no material the ATF cares about.

https://github.com/barnstar/Open-Altimeter/tree/master/SimpleAltimeter See filters.cpp You absolutely need to filter your pressure readings. Spikes due to ejection pressure and other transient changes that have nothing to do with your actual altitude can ruin your day. Adjust the gains to...

It is possible the charge burned after “landing” too and just vented out the back because the nose was subterranean. Somebody mentioned the trick of making sure there was no space forward of the ejection charge so that the powder can’t “fall away” from the delay grain when/if the rocket arcs...

Some pics as requested... The L brackets are just something I had sitting around but you could easily make some from flat stock. The bolts are just standard carriage bolts. A 2x6 is a better choice for clearance. I have a couple with fins that just barely clear the stand. The deflector...

I may try 3d printed gussets (if they’re not made of glue, are they still fillets?) on my next larger diameter build. Spoils all the fun of playing with epoxy ... presuming one considers that fun.... Semi-hollow (30% fill) cutsom PETG gussets would stiffen/adhere the fins with only minimal...

My vendor just got these back in stock. It had been over a year. Buy 2....

Pre season motor inventory day... Should be enough for a launch or two..

So 266 grams with the motor for a minimum 3-1 thrust to weight ratio. 130 grams dry weight give or take. With some kind of electronic deployment... Not impossible but darn close to it. ...starts weighing parts....

I’ve had this happen twice now with slightly generous delays. My theory is that when the rocket arcs over, the bp falls away from the delay charge and with no contact, doesn’t light - or lights very late and/or randomly. The hole to the delay charge gets a little crufty over time and can keep...

Attend enough launches and you’ll see a lot of pain and suffering related to landings or launches gone wrong. It’s just part of the hobby. Some days you get everything back. Some days, 30 hours of painstaking work and a few hundred bucks worth of hardware ends up in an unmarked shallow grave...

The fallout will The the least of your concerns. The simultaneous detonation of 50 high yield warheads (such as in a war on the Indian sub continent or between the US and North Korea) will be catastrophic. It’s not just the bombs, but the resulting firestorms and their effect on the...

“International” rocketeers often have very very few vendor options (I can can count my options on 2 fingers) and I seriosly doubt my vendor is the problem. It simply takes months or years for aerotech to fill orders and the quantities are limited when they do. Importing casings is possible...

PSA: Don’t print motor tubes. The printed tubes will warp with the heat and one day, you’ll find the motors just don’t fit anymore and your fin can is no longer flyable. Tubes are cheap. Just use cardboard.

I’m using Amaz3d PETG from amazon and it works really well. 0.05mm +z offset and really really slow speed (like 10mm/s) on the first layer - temps 245/70... Blue tape on the bed. my stock Prusia seems ok with this - but 245 is pushing the absolute max... The roll keeps tangling though which...

Automotive is the absolute worst for this. I did an internship stint at Toyota and I swear they went out of their way to make everything an acronym. Even the all the signs in the plant were acronyms. “Heh, and you go ask the SME over in BS what the situation is in PITA with GTFO?” .. WTF?

I just finished something similar. I used a Bluetooth LE module an arduino and wrote an iOS app to control everything. It gets at least 30m of range in the open. Hard safety/lockout at the pad combined with several lockouts and safeguards in the software. I added a remote continuity...

The cheap nanos are usually cheap because they use the CH340 USB serial bridge. With windows I don’t believe this is a problem. with macs you need to install the drivers and they’re crappy but tolerable (I get odd kernel panic and very frequent failures to connect or complete transfers). Not...