Dedicated Altimeter(s) For Each Rocket

The Rocketry Forum

Help Support The Rocketry Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
For me, it's easier to have a dedicated bay & avionics for each rocket. Cuts down on my "oops, I forgot that" and configuration errors.
 
With the advent of @cerving (Cris') EggFinder product line and the extremely low cost of the Quark (and Quantum), I have now been doing dedicated electronics in my rockets. Before, even with the MissileWorks RRC2+ and 2L, it was possible bit still could get expensive if you have a large fleet of rockets. With the Quark being $20, its far easier to justify a dedicated electronics package to all your rockets that the Quark or Quantum will suit.

Don't get be wrong, I still have like (8) MissileWorks units and (2) Ravens and love them. Its just not affordable to stick those in all my rockets and I am too much of a procrastinator to try and swap electronics around in advance of a launch.
 
I ordered (3) new RRC2 altimeters from Missileworks, and (3) Quantum kits from Eggtimer. I should be able to outfit what I have and at least two future builds (yet to be determined ;))
 
I’m in the club of dedicated altimeters for each rocket. The only thing that I swap among my fleet is trackers. I have started building a modular tracker bay for my nosecones that so that I can easily swap one of my MW RTx units between several rockets
 
I've fluctuated between swapping things around, and keeping electronics with each rocket. The way my fleet has developed, I tend to have a generalist rocket or two, and then several special projects in the works. The general fliers keep their electronics year round, while the special projects typically only fly once or twice before the electronics move to the next one.

When I first started flying with electronics, I tried to integrate them into small pods that could be swapped between avbays that just had several 29mm tubes. This ended up being a pain in the rear, and I converted my only rocket with the system to a conventional avbay. From there, I've mostly had one avbay with electronics for each rocket, although I have moved altimeters around to get various rockets up and ready.

I did come up with a really nice solution for easily swapping electronics between rockets while working on my second L3 attempt. I built a really compact avbay for a 75mm minimum diameter BALLS project this year, which managed to fit a Stratologger CF, EasyMini, and a Featherweight GPS into 2.5" of 75mm coupler once the GPS antenna was relocated. For my L3, I rewired it with wires going to connectors, and then put corresponding connectors and wires on the bulkheads and switches for my L3 and a 5.5" Nike Smoke I helped my dad build. Swapping the electronics around was pretty simple, and I'll probably keep the same spacing between the threaded rods on future large avbay designs to allow this sled to work with them.
 
I try to do this, but I usually remove them if I mothball the rocket.
 
Right now I only have one DD rocket. My plan for the next two, though, is to use the same threaded rod spacing and re-use the same sled and electronics with those rockets (the current one is 4", the newer ones are 5" and 5.5"). I do have several more altimeters, though, so I may reevaluate. Any smaller rockets will likely get dedicated altimeters so I can refly them (I don't anticipate flying more than 1-2 L2 motors per launch day, but I fly lots of L1 motors).

My Marco Polo trackers just get wrapped in foam and nomex and taped to the shock cord, so those are shared.
 
I have an altimeter for each rocket. I've been in the hobby for so long now I have a museum of electronics in my kits: Olson, Adept, Transolve, Missileworks and more. No Cambridge. For large kits, the price has come down where I am putting dual altimeters in each kit. My first kits were in the $90-130 range per unit.
 
Back
Top