A Phone Call To Quest about the 20mm D5-6...

[RWmarlow]

I called today to check pending date of "back in stock"...was told today that they "would not be restocked".....

 

[Green Jello]

Well, as cool as those motor are, it really does make sense to get rid of them. It was pretty dumb to try and fit in another "non-standard" engine size. I wish someone would make a long burn engine like it in a 18mm size.

 

[plano-doug]

Well, as cool as those motor are, it really does make sense to get rid of them. It was pretty dumb to try and fit in another "non-standard" engine size.

Dumb is a harsh description.

I'm pretty sure the deal was something like this: D5's, in 20mm diameters, were available in reasonable quantities at reasonable prices with no engineering costs. But if Quest wanted the supplier to make them in 18 or 24mm diameters, the supplier was going to require ~50K dollars in engineering charges and a minimum of ~200,000 units. (Numbers are swags.)

You have a few bucks to invest in some inventory of a product you may or may not be able to sell at a profit. You may not even be able to sell it without losing money. How much do want to spend? How much of your house or your IRA are you willing to risk on this deal? How much of your net worth are you willing to hock to buy the motors the way you want them packaged, when you can already get them with a lot less risk with the only caveat being they're in a non-standard (but not-impossible-to-use) form factor?

Now, do you still think it was dumb to take what was available rather than paying a bunch more for something still to be designed and qualified for production?

Doug

.

 

[Green Jello]

Ok, I didn't know the story behind it. When I say "dumb" I meant it as a business decision. I just assumed that Quest sent out to have these made as a specific product for them. If it happened as you say, then I completely agree they made the right decision.

 

[plano-doug]

Ok, I didn't know the story behind it. When I say "dumb" I meant it as a business decision. I just assumed that Quest sent out to have these made as a specific product for them. If it happened as you say, then I completely agree they made the right decision.

I'm taking an educated guess at most of the details. But I'm quite sure they didn't commission 20mm motors - they took what was available without having to invest additional capital.

Doug

.

 

[Rocketbuilder]

That's too bad. I've only ever flown one of these motors, but it was really cool to have such a long burn time in a small motor. That one flight still holds my personal altitude record.

 

[cvanc]

...I'm quite sure they didn't commission 20mm motors - they took what was available without having to invest additional capital.

Not sure I follow. Do you mean some other company was already making these motors and Quest just did a bulk buy with custom labeling? If so, who the heck was the other company? How many small BP motor makers are there in the world?

 

[plano-doug]

Not sure I follow. Do you mean some other company was already making these motors and Quest just did a bulk buy with custom labeling? If so, who the heck was the other company? How many small BP motor makers are there in the world?

Not many. But these were brought in from a Chinese motor maker. They make several sizes ranging from A to E or F. As I recall, Quest had several of them certified, but most of them were never available retail. I can't recall the maker, but there have been several threads on it here (and on Yorf), so there's plenty of additional info out there.

Doug

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[samb]

What I gather, anecdotally from postings on these forums, is that Quest sources their motors from a Chinese manufacturer and has in past years sourced them from a German manufacturer. I believe that Stine fellow has some serious cred in the model rocket community world-wide. I understand that Estes is the only domestic (US) black powder motor manufacturer.

 

[Marc_G]

Bummer! I love these motors and was planning a cool cluster around them. But if they will now be hard go get (eventually impossible) then its back to the drawing board...

I still have several of them but I will mostly stash them away....

 

[RoyAtl]

What I gather, anecdotally from postings on these forums, is that Quest sources their motors from a Chinese manufacturer and has in past years sourced them from a German manufacturer. I believe that Stine fellow has some serious cred in the model rocket community world-wide. I understand that Estes is the only domestic (US) black powder motor manufacturer.

You are correct. That has been true since about 1999. Before that, Quest manufactured their own motors, or had Flight Systems Inc. make them. Flight Systems went down in 1994, and Quest briefly bought WECO/Sachen motors from Germany until, i think, about 1996 when they started manufacturing motors on a native american reservation near Yuma, AZ. That lasted until 1998, when a post-production fire led to casualties and the shutdown of those facilities, and they once again went to WECO/Sachen for motors.

Model Rectifier Corp bought their motors from Sachen in the late 80's. Bill Stine was a consultant for MRC in '89-'90, so he was familiar with Sachen, and probably would've used their motors initially for Quest if FSI hadn't bought the old MPC/AVI machines.

 

[luke strawwalker]

Not sure I follow. Do you mean some other company was already making these motors and Quest just did a bulk buy with custom labeling? If so, who the heck was the other company? How many small BP motor makers are there in the world?

Quest USED to produce their own motors back in the late 80's early 90's timeframe. (about the time I exited rocketry on a long hiatus.) They had a motor plant down along the border in Arizona IIRC...

Then sometime in the early-mid 90's they had a fire at the plant and someone got killed. At some point after that, they started importing their rocket motors and relabeling them as "Quest" motors...

The first motors they imported were from a German manufacturer. This went on for a good while, but eventually the costs crept up or something and they decided to switch to Chinese produced motors. All the motors they sell now are made in China. You MAY still be able to find a few of the German motors floating around, but they're pretty scarce. I never flew any of the German motors but I heard they were pretty good. The Chinese motors, on the other hand-- they burn VERY dirty, they have longer burn times than their American equivalents (Estes) BUT they can't lift as much weight, and their ejection charges are much weaker by comparison... and the casings are MUCH thinner and so the motors get hotter and can suffer casing burn-throughs or near-burnthroughs... (hot enough to turn the white label paper with the Quest information on them a chocolate brown by carmelizing the paper! Now that's HOT!)

Later! OL JR

PS. as for how many motor makers in the world... quite a few-- I know there's makers in Russia, Czechoslovakia (or whatever they call it now), Germany, China, and who all knows where else...

 

[samb]

You are correct. That has been true since about 1999. Before that, Quest manufactured their own motors, ...

Quest USED to produce their own motors back in the late 80's early 90's timeframe...

Fascinating history, at least to some of us. Thanks Roy and JR.

 

[luke strawwalker]

Fascinating history, at least to some of us. Thanks Roy and JR.

If you can get ahold of some old back issues of "American Spacemodeling", they ran a story on Quest's motor plant and operations at the time (before the fire). It was interesting. I remember reading some stuff in there, and going from memory they were talking about the rocket kit plant being on the other side of the border (cheap labor) and the motor plant being on this side of the border (due to import regs and all that-- would've been a regulatory nightmare to do the motors on the other side of the border or something to that effect).

Don't remember exactly what issues it was in... I remember reading about the fire later on... didn't seem to be TOO long after the first story, either.

Course if you're into APCP, you probably know about the Aerotech fire years ago... they relocated the entire factory and there was a big shortage of composite motors for about a year... or so I read...

Somewhere around here there was a thread, about a year or so ago IIRC, in which some Russian teacher was posting pics of projects his kids were working on, and pics of Russian made model rocket motors... really interesting to see... he had some neat stuff going on too... wish he was still posting here...

Later! OL JR

 

[Andre]

Here in Europe there are quite a few motor manufacturers. WECO is the largest european producer of 18mm black powder motors for sport flying, but for FAI competitions mostly AP motors are used. Most of them are made by small garage companies. Two brands of motors that take most of the market are Delta from Czech republic and Ultra from Serbia. These motors are usually made in 1/2A, A and B sizes. They are 10,5mm in diameter. Propellant is pressed AP composite. Motors for S8 radio controlled gliders are made in D and E sizes. They are 20 mm in diameter. Burn times are 4-5 seconds for a D and 8-10 seconds for an E. Most of the larger teams use their own domesticaly manufactured motors. They are made in Russia, Poland, Slovakia, Latvia, Ukraine,...

Andrej

 

[samb]

Now we're talking ! Thanks for that information and expanding the horizons of this motor discussion.

Hvala Andrej

 

[shreadvector]

The 20mm D5 motors already existed in China. They 'simply' bought them and glued labels on them here is the USA.

Other motors were engineered by Quest and have not yet been sold retail, but some were certified. See S&T list for the not-yet-released motors.

Not sure I follow. Do you mean some other company was already making these motors and Quest just did a bulk buy with custom labeling? If so, who the heck was the other company? How many small BP motor makers are there in the world?

 

[dpower]

Well, it was fun flying these motors, especially on FSI clones, but honestly, I don't know that I would have bought any more, due to problems burning through the thin walled casing.

 

[Green Jello]

I'd love to see Estes make a 18mm engine that was the length of an E so it had a longer burn than a C6.

 

[cerving]

That would probably make it about a 50% D. Put it in a minimum-diameter rocket like a Viking, and you'd never see it again... but it would fun to watch it go!

I'd love to see Estes make a 18mm engine that was the length of an E so it had a longer burn than a C6.

 

[plano-doug]

I'd love to see Estes make a 18mm engine that was the length of an E so it had a longer burn than a C6.

AVI used to make such a motor. I have limited experience with them, but I picked one up a few years ago at a rocketry rummage sale. Because of the long burn, they were prone to burning thru the sidewall.

That said, I've always wondered why they don't make boosters that are more filled. For example, on any booster motor (in any motor family), they have lots of empty space above the fuel grain where the delay and ejection charge would be on the other family members. So why not fill up a C6-0 to make a baby D booster, or fill up a D12-0 to make a baby E booster?

In the latter case, I suppose I could cut off the empty end of an E12-0 to make something similar (altho that wouldn't be kosher).

As I understand it, the old 18mm Cox D8-0 was more-or-less just a C booster with extra fuel. So making a baby D booster this way is not unprecedented.

Doug

.

 

[SteveA]

In reading the discussion, it prompts a couple of questions regarding burn-through. One, could they laminate the casing with a foil liner to act as somewhat an insulator and at least slow the rate of potential burn-through? Two, if they could, I guess the next question would be how much does the extra material add to the cost? Or is this completely out of the realm of possibilities?

 

[plano-doug]

In reading the discussion, it prompts a couple of questions regarding burn-through. One, could they laminate the casing with a foil liner to act as somewhat an insulator and at least slow the rate of potential burn-through? Two, if they could, I guess the next question would be how much does the extra material add to the cost? Or is this completely out of the realm of possibilities?

Foil burns thru very easily. Furthermore, the fuel grain would be more prone to side burning (cato'ing). The better way to manage it is to simply make the case wall a little thicker while keeping it all one material, but then that results in having an odd-ball motor case - it becomes an inventory burden.

I think the better approach is to experiment with adding extra powder, in varying quantities, using the standard C motor case, then test them to see which ones are the most reliable and which ones are more prone to burn-thru. That will reveal how much extra powder can be safely added to the standard case and thus avoid needing a special motor case.

The result would be a baby D booster of some sort that is still reasonably reliable without using special materials and, hopefully, wouldn't require tons of extra engineering to develop.

Doug

.

 

[SteveA]

the fuel grain would be more prone to side burning (cato'ing).

Just out of curiosity, what is it about the foil that makes it more prone to this? I think I know the answer, but thought I would ask to be sure.

 

[shreadvector]

Done already.

Cox D8 was fine.

AVI D6.1 motor started out at a full 20 N-s and it had burn through problems (as the E11-point-whatever had when it was 40 N-s). They then reduced the amount of propellant and the problem was nostly gone. I think it ended up at 15 ot 17 N-s (with a similar drop for the E).

Foil burns thru very easily. Furthermore, the fuel grain would be more prone to side burning (cato'ing). The better way to manage it is to simply make the case wall a little thicker while keeping it all one material, but then that results in having an odd-ball motor case - it becomes an inventory burden.

I think the better approach is to experiment with adding extra powder, in varying quantities, using the standard C motor case, then test them to see which ones are the most reliable and which ones are more prone to burn-thru. That will reveal how much extra powder can be safely added to the standard case and thus avoid needing a special motor case.

The result would be a baby D booster of some sort that is still reasonably reliable without using special materials and, hopefully, wouldn't require tons of extra engineering to develop.

Doug

.

 

[CarVac]

Just out of curiosity, what is it about the foil that makes it more prone to this? I think I know the answer, but thought I would ask to be sure.

Foil conducts heat down the side.

 

[plano-doug]

Done already.

Cox D8 was fine.

Yes. I originally had a reference to that in my message, but ended up removing it before I posted.

AVI D6.1 motor started out at a full 20 N-s and it had burn through problems (as the E11-point-whatever had when it was 40 N-s). They then reduced the amount of propellant and the problem was mostly gone. I think it ended up at 15 ot 17 N-s (with a similar drop for the E).

Yes, that's the motor I was referring to.

Doug

.

 

[SteveA]

Foil conducts heat down the side.

That's what I thought.

 

[plano-doug]

Foil conducts heat down the side.

That's true. But I was mainly thinking about it being yet another failure point. As it is, the packed powder has to form a bond with the paper case. With the foil, you're trying to get it to bond to the inside of the case, then trying to get the powder to bond to the foil. So the degree of difficulty goes up. IOW, the reliability will go down because the whole process gets more complicated.

Doug

.

 

[luke strawwalker]

Here in Europe there are quite a few motor manufacturers. WECO is the largest european producer of 18mm black powder motors for sport flying, but for FAI competitions mostly AP motors are used. Most of them are made by small garage companies. Two brands of motors that take most of the market are Delta from Czech republic and Ultra from Serbia. These motors are usually made in 1/2A, A and B sizes. They are 10,5mm in diameter. Propellant is pressed AP composite. Motors for S8 radio controlled gliders are made in D and E sizes. They are 20 mm in diameter. Burn times are 4-5 seconds for a D and 8-10 seconds for an E. Most of the larger teams use their own domesticaly manufactured motors. They are made in Russia, Poland, Slovakia, Latvia, Ukraine,...

Andrej

Thanks for the info!

Shame we can't get these motors in the US...

Later! OL JR