Agreed... However, adding tape is part of the instructions, and I suspect it is what is being missed by so many who's kits end up coming in ballistically.
Your Bigger Daddy is no longer that, its a Estes Leviathan, no way it should ever fly on an E12.
OK. Now that it has flown on an E12, what should it fly on, a D12-4? EDIT: (Should be D12-3) That's my plan.
Thanks for the SIM K'Tesh. I changed the length so that the total length is 40" and added the D12-3 motors to mine. But I still have to add the inner 40" long x 24mm diameter ejection tube and the stuffer stop 4" up from the exhuast port made from a 1" section of a spent C11 motor. I also have a plywood plate on the bottom of the NC and a center bolt under it to add.
If its 40" long, it nearly doubled in weight if not tripled, you need bigger motors F's or G's, some CTI E's might be safe to fly on, but high thrust F and G motors will be your friend.
How about an Aerotech E30? It would be easy to put this in the sim and check it out.
I don't understand why I would want a more powerful motor. The rocket went almost out of sight with the E12-6. I'd prefer it not go that high and deploy the chute sooner than the last time. I think I posted the YT of the flight on the last page. If you watch it, you'll see it went plenty high.
Run the OR sims for YOUR rocket as built.
I'm planning on trying the RELOADABLE motors once I'm comfortable with just launching and recovering my rockets with the ESTES motors I have. A couple of weeks ago I didn't know RELOADABLES existed.
Here are 2 OR sims that I redid today after they were redone by 2 others on Rocketry Forum. Their redo is based on the original ORK file I posted here and in another thread, today. I redid them within the past few hours, but yesterday was the first time I've ever used the program. So I'm not sure what the sims are going to tell me.
What length of rail or rod are you using to launch off off? The sim says a 39" rod/rail. A E18W reload, E28T reload or E30T single use (all Aerotech motors in the 24/40 case or are single use), will get the rocket off the pad at about 70fps which is good and a flight to ~750 which is resonable, and a 5 second delay (reloads have delays that may be adjusted down to 4 seconds). The Estes motors are marginal IMO as A) they don't get off the pad quick enough except in very low wind conditions, and B) the delays are not adjustable, the D12-3 has a good delay for that motor, but the E12 needs to be a 4 second delay, either way the rail exit velocity is too low and needs to be a bit faster.
The rod is 3/16".
Honestly you are getting into the territory of 1/4" launch rods, due to length and motor requirements. I would consider stepping up to a Micro rail or better yet a Mini rail (20mm rail, railbuttons.com sells the rail buttons for both) which are available on Amazon.
There is nothing wrong with that- I've used the 24-40 case myself. There are pros and cons to the reloadable. Many people buy the casing so they can save money but it takes a lot of launches to just break even. It takes time to assemble the motor prior to a launch but it is rewarding to assemble the motor yourself and then have a successful launch. For our discussion of powering your rocket I think the E28 and the E30 would be fairly interchangeable, and even if you do buy the casing there is no shame in also buying single use motors sometimes.
I'm on my phone right now so I can't attach links very easily. Do a search for K'Tesh's OpenRocket Files.
It seems that too many people are missing the step that instructs them to wrap tape around the NC to improve the fit, and there's nothing telling anyone about how to tell the difference between too loose, and too tight. Combined with the ramp that vents the gasses when drag separation occurs this kit has a serious flaw. It'd be easy enough to fix (eliminate the ramp)(easy... not necessarily cheap), and at the same time make the instruction to add tape less vague and easy for someone to miss, but until that happens, I'm certain this is an accident waiting to happen. And if/when it does... I'm sure that any halfway decent lawyer will find these threads, and try to subpoena me to testify on the behalf of the victim. My time in China isn't going to be forever, and I will quite likely be able to be found.
I just did the same yesterday from 10 year old build and I swear I'm just seeing this, lol!!!
I just went to Coles and bought one pc rods. 6 ft 1/4", 3 foot of 1/8" and 3/16" zinc rolled steel rods(dont get brass!!). I hate those two pc rods. And those rods fit into the Porta pad 2 I have. When I was a kid my dad built a launch stand with a plate of 1/4" steel about 16" x 16", with a 1/4" dal rod in the middle with braces at the base to insure it went straight up. Heavy, didn't shrug for Super Big Bertha launches and was pretty much indestructible for about 5 bux worth of supplies and maybe 20 mins build time.. Need to make another one of those.
I have always cut my own, as I have a hole saw that fits my drill -- but if you're looking for blukheads as a "for sale items", I'm going to suggest erockets.biz as they have the biggest inventory of spare parts I can think of.
I did not see any reason to cut the stock nosecone. I just epoxied a bulkhead to the base of the NC. The hole in the bottom of my bulkhead is for the explosive gas charge to go inside the NC and push it off. I ran a 24mm tube all the way up to go inside the NC. Wherever you put your bulkhead, just below the should, or at the bottom, it will stop gases from escaping out the slanted bottom part. That's b/c the gases will never get to the slanted section of the NC bottom.
