Hello all,
I recently got into rockets again after a 15 year hiatus. My first discovery is I prefer not to look straight up at the beasties as they launch. It hurts my neck and is more dramatic to see them ascend from a distance. The method I chose to overcome this is quite simple.
Get yourself a low priced complete airplane setup like the yellow bee from any online rc shop. Should cost you NO MORE than 50 bucks not including shipping, although they can be had for 40. This planes electronics work great for rocket launching. Yes you really can get a complete rc plane for this cheap.
What you do is take the guts out of the plane and mount them in a metal or plastic enclosure box from radio shack etc. The speed controller and receiver are all on one tiny circuit board. It has two outputs since it is a simple 2 channel 2 motor airplane. It normally flies by powering both motors at once to go up(they are angled downwards) and then powers one or the other for left and right. Anyway,, there are two pair of wires, one pair goes to each motor normally. All you do is use one pair of the control wires and extend them through the enclosure with thick wire at whatever length you want out to alligator clips. On mine I made the thick launch wires link up with the control lines inside the box for a clean finish. If you want a lot of length between the receiver and the rocket then you need to use heavy wire so you don't have as much voltage drop. You also need to run a wire to the antenna wire inside the box and then solder an alligator clip to it's other end. This you will clip to the base of your metal launch rod. It makes an absolutely perfect vertical whip antenna. You then run your two aligrator clips from the control line over to the ignitor and you're set.
Now, the important thing about safety is simply that you want a switch on the receiver which cuts all power to it. Once you have attached your clips to the igniter you go back to where the receiver is laying on the ground, TURN YOUR TRANSMITTER ON FIRST(although in my experience this setup is not prone to interference and I have not had a problem either way) and then flip on your receiver's on switch.
For the yellow bee setup you simply push the throttle control on the transmitter all the way one direction or the other(by default it's down but the reverse switch on the transmitter makes UP the throttle apply position, rather appropriate for rockets.) and WHOOOOSH up goes your rocket.
I have used this method to launch around 15 times or so now. It's all I use. I have never had a premature firing.
If you can't get a yellowbee setup cheap then I would recommend any FM 72 mhz setup but frankly a 27mhz am rig would work to but it MAY be prone to interference and your rocket could go up prematurely. THis is why it is very important that you make the length of wire going from your receiver to the rocket be at a comfortable distance.. this way if it does go off prematurely you are out of the way.
My wires are very short and I turn the receiver on as I am facing away crouched from the rocket. I use short wires that are heavy gauge(thick aligator jumpers like radio shack sells) because I don't want any voltage drop. The yellow bee will only supply 5 volts to the igniter but that is plenty to light it right up. Normally your handheld launcher uses 6 volts.
The benefits of this are wonderful as far as I'm concerned. I can get back hundreds of feet(probably around a 1000 but I never tried that far) and then use a handheld altitude tracker or just watch it ascend without craning my head back. Also it makes tracking the rocket's descent much easier.
This is a really fun way to launch them and it's perfectly safe as long as you run enough wire between your receiver and the igniter connection point.
Again I recommend the yellow bee because I know for a fact it's radio system is not prone to interference. I don't remember now what band it's on or even if it's AM or FM but I do know it works beautifully. Normally AM radio systems are more prone to interference because they are usually on 27mhz which shares the spectrum with CB radio users,, plus naturally generated broad band radio signals are AM as well. Any radio system that can apply enough power to directly drive a model airplane motor should be able to apply enough voltage and current to light the ignitor.
Oh and this is a really cool way to get far enough away to film your launches to all by yourself.
I recently got into rockets again after a 15 year hiatus. My first discovery is I prefer not to look straight up at the beasties as they launch. It hurts my neck and is more dramatic to see them ascend from a distance. The method I chose to overcome this is quite simple.
Get yourself a low priced complete airplane setup like the yellow bee from any online rc shop. Should cost you NO MORE than 50 bucks not including shipping, although they can be had for 40. This planes electronics work great for rocket launching. Yes you really can get a complete rc plane for this cheap.
What you do is take the guts out of the plane and mount them in a metal or plastic enclosure box from radio shack etc. The speed controller and receiver are all on one tiny circuit board. It has two outputs since it is a simple 2 channel 2 motor airplane. It normally flies by powering both motors at once to go up(they are angled downwards) and then powers one or the other for left and right. Anyway,, there are two pair of wires, one pair goes to each motor normally. All you do is use one pair of the control wires and extend them through the enclosure with thick wire at whatever length you want out to alligator clips. On mine I made the thick launch wires link up with the control lines inside the box for a clean finish. If you want a lot of length between the receiver and the rocket then you need to use heavy wire so you don't have as much voltage drop. You also need to run a wire to the antenna wire inside the box and then solder an alligator clip to it's other end. This you will clip to the base of your metal launch rod. It makes an absolutely perfect vertical whip antenna. You then run your two aligrator clips from the control line over to the ignitor and you're set.
Now, the important thing about safety is simply that you want a switch on the receiver which cuts all power to it. Once you have attached your clips to the igniter you go back to where the receiver is laying on the ground, TURN YOUR TRANSMITTER ON FIRST(although in my experience this setup is not prone to interference and I have not had a problem either way) and then flip on your receiver's on switch.
For the yellow bee setup you simply push the throttle control on the transmitter all the way one direction or the other(by default it's down but the reverse switch on the transmitter makes UP the throttle apply position, rather appropriate for rockets.) and WHOOOOSH up goes your rocket.
I have used this method to launch around 15 times or so now. It's all I use. I have never had a premature firing.
If you can't get a yellowbee setup cheap then I would recommend any FM 72 mhz setup but frankly a 27mhz am rig would work to but it MAY be prone to interference and your rocket could go up prematurely. THis is why it is very important that you make the length of wire going from your receiver to the rocket be at a comfortable distance.. this way if it does go off prematurely you are out of the way.
My wires are very short and I turn the receiver on as I am facing away crouched from the rocket. I use short wires that are heavy gauge(thick aligator jumpers like radio shack sells) because I don't want any voltage drop. The yellow bee will only supply 5 volts to the igniter but that is plenty to light it right up. Normally your handheld launcher uses 6 volts.
The benefits of this are wonderful as far as I'm concerned. I can get back hundreds of feet(probably around a 1000 but I never tried that far) and then use a handheld altitude tracker or just watch it ascend without craning my head back. Also it makes tracking the rocket's descent much easier.
This is a really fun way to launch them and it's perfectly safe as long as you run enough wire between your receiver and the igniter connection point.
Again I recommend the yellow bee because I know for a fact it's radio system is not prone to interference. I don't remember now what band it's on or even if it's AM or FM but I do know it works beautifully. Normally AM radio systems are more prone to interference because they are usually on 27mhz which shares the spectrum with CB radio users,, plus naturally generated broad band radio signals are AM as well. Any radio system that can apply enough power to directly drive a model airplane motor should be able to apply enough voltage and current to light the ignitor.
Oh and this is a really cool way to get far enough away to film your launches to all by yourself.