Do you own an Altimeter or any electronics for your rockets?

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Do you own an Altimeter or electronics for your rocket

  • Yes

  • No

  • No, but thinking about getting one or more...

  • I don't need any electroincs for my rockets


Results are only viewable after voting.
Yeah, I am all eyes! Even though I am broke right now..Can always use another RRC2 ;)
 
Condition? And what do you want for them?

-Kevin

Good condition. I flew one of them 5 times and the other once.
Both are the 25k version
How 'bout $125 for both shipping included?

(I'm saving up for another Marsa4)

PM me so we don't hijack JD's thread.
 
Not yet, but I intend to get one or more. I've been launching rockets for a total of 10 years without one, but it's getting to be time now to join the 21st century. (I did some of my launching decades before altimeters for model rockets had even been invented, though.) I have never defined myself as a Luddite.

Question: OK, I can quite easily see having a handful, and perhaps even a half-dozen or so altimeters. (You do need to have back-ups and redundancy.) But how does anyone end up with dozens of them? A buying frenzy? I suppose that like socks, one can probably accumulate a drawer full of these devices over time, though.

There are many good altimeters out there from what I understand. I'm not overly concerned about which one I buy first, because I expect to acquire a few different ones before too long, and I'll endeavor to pick the top ones. I've been following various altimeter threads here on the forum for awhile, and they have all been quite informative. I've also picked up quite a bit of useful information from Modern High Power Rocketry 2.
 
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Question: OK, I can quite easily see having a handful, and perhaps even a half-dozen or so altimeters. (You do need to have back-ups and redundancy.) But how does anyone end up with dozens of them?

1) It's a pain to switch them between rockets.

2) Need a new one for a unique application (Mach Madness, for example, requires accelerometer based Altimeter).

3) They are really cool! :)
 
You never have enough...:D

Why do people hoard Estes motors?


If you loose one, what would you do during a launch?
Some vendors don't always have what you are looking for.

I tried the one altimeter for all rockets & it just doesn't work as you would expect it to.


JD






Question: OK, I can quite easily see having a handful, and perhaps even a half-dozen or so altimeters. (You do need to have back-ups and redundancy.) But how does anyone end up with dozens of them? A buying frenzy? I suppose that like socks, one can probably accumulate a drawer full of these devices over time, though.
 
Different altimeters work better in different situations, and for different applications.

Accelerometer based used are a bit better in oddly shaped rockets, as you may not get clean airflow for detecting apogee.

But, some of the simplest to use altimeters are barometric only, so they're nice to have for general-purpose use.

Others are better for high-performance -- the minimal weight of the Featherweight line is great for this.

Some altimeters support staging and air-starts, others do not.

Then there are the feature-rich units, like the Parrot, ARTS and RDAS. Lots of features, they slice, they dice, they julienne. But they take a bit more work to setup, and if all you want to do is fly a LOC Warloc on a K motor, they're overkill.

So, various units for various applications.

-Kevin

(MAWD, RRC2 Mini, Timer2, 2 Parrots and a Raven 2 coming)
 
Then there are the feature-rich units, like the Parrot, ARTS and RDAS. Lots of features, they slice, they dice, they julienne. But they take a bit more work to setup..

Not ALL feature-rich units take more work to setup....some take less.;)

and if all you want to do is fly a LOC Warloc on a K motor, they're overkill.

If you want fly that Warloc with the highest reliability possible then the advanced diagnostic features of the easy to setup 'feature rich' units are definitely not overkill.
 
Not ALL feature-rich units take more work to setup....some take less.;)

Can't say I have any experience with said unit(s).... If someone wanted to send me one, I might gain said experience.... :p

-Kevin
 
Not yet, but I intend to get one or more. I've been launching rockets for a total of 10 years without one, but it's getting to be time now to join the 21st century. (I did some of my launching decades before altimeters for model rockets had even been invented, though.) I have never defined myself as a Luddite.

Question: OK, I can quite easily see having a handful, and perhaps even a half-dozen or so altimeters. (You do need to have back-ups and redundancy.) But how does anyone end up with dozens of them? A buying frenzy? I suppose that like socks, one can probably accumulate a drawer full of these devices over time, though.

There are many good altimeters out there from what I understand. I'm not overly concerned about which one I buy first, because I expect to acquire a few different ones before too long, and I'll endeavor to pick the top ones. I've been following various altimeter threads here on the forum for awhile, and they have all been quite informative. I've also picked up quite a bit of useful information from Modern High Power Rocketry 2.

For me, I've been in the right place at the right time with money in pocket.
I've also gotten many of mine on sale or trade.
Sometimes they're cheap enough that I'll buy two.
Also I had a couple of projects that had needed a specific altimeter because of size, capabilities, ect.
 
Can't say I have any experience with said unit(s).... If someone wanted to send me one, I might gain said experience.... :p

-Kevin

I've found both the RDAS and the Raven to be quite easy to use.
 
All good answers to my question! :cheers: I guess that as you use them, you realize just how much you need them. And you do need to have spares, too. So just as with motor cases, one or two won't cover all situations. Being able to set the recovery deployment delay to anything you want must be awfully convenient.
 
I've found both the RDAS and the Raven to be quite easy to use.

Consider the amount of documentation that comes with both of those units, and how easy it is for the average flier to have it up and running in a short amount of time.

In other words, you're not average....nor, really, is anyone who's fiddled with a wide range of altimeters.

-Kevin
 
Consider the amount of documentation that comes with both of those units, and how easy it is for the average flier to have it up and running in a short amount of time.

In other words, you're not average....nor, really, is anyone who's fiddled with a wide range of altimeters.

-Kevin

Well, if all you want is the altimeter to be up and running, the Raven will work with no fiddling at all, hooked up as the included quick-start diagram shows. The default program works fine for a tremendous number of rockets (accel based apogee, with main at 700) The RDAS takes slightly more effort, but I personally didn't find it excessive. As you said though, I'm not really average as far as altimeter-fiddling is concerned.
 
The Raven, Parrot & the R-DAS all use a common wire when connecting your charges / igniters. They are different from most other altimeters out there. which use a 2 wire connection per channel. Some may find this a bit of a challenge when wiring up these units.




JD
 
The Raven, Parrot & the R-DAS all use a common wire when connecting your charges / igniters. They are different from most other altimeters out there. which use a 2 wire connection per channel. Some may find this a bit of a challenge when wiring up these units.

Yep -- it's not "typical" and thus, takes a second or two of extra thought.

It's the details that matter.

Not that this means that there's anything wrong with any of these altimeters -- they all enjoy excellent reputations, for a reason. But, they're also a bit more involved to setup, and the features make them a bit more daunting to the novice.

-Kevin
 
Admitted electronics junkie here:

Transolve P3
PML Co-Pilot
R-DAS Classic
R-DAS Kompact
R-DAS Tiny
Parrot v1
Parrot v2
Raven (x2)
AltAcc 2C

Of the lot, I found the easiest to operate "out of the box" was the R-DAS Classic. It was the first unit I actually flew, and I became an instant fan. I'd put the Raven as my #2.

Don't think I've ever actually flown the P3. The thing is a massive brick by today's standards.
 
I had originally voted "no but thinking about it". My AltimeterOne was delivered yesterday. We've only got three rockets so far, all three with plastic nose cones, and I spent this afternoon cutting into the bottoms so that the altimiter will fit inside the cones. I tried it out this evening in my daughter's Astrobeam. I knew that sucker wasn't going anywhere near what the chart said it should. :(
 
2 Transolve P5s
5 Ravens
2 RRC2 minis
1 Marsa 4
1 Pico
1 MAWD
1 HiAlt 45
2 how high
 
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