illini
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I'm interested in trying my hand at NAR competition. Don't expect or even want to be a BTC, but hope to at least be competitive when and where I do compete (i.e., I'd like to avoid total humiliation ). So...I'm researching building or buying some GSE for competition. Specifically, been looking for ideas on building a tower, pistons, and combinations thereof. I have the following minimum requirements:
I recently came across the following idea by George Gassaway that appears to be close to what I want:
https://www.spacemodeling.org/gcg/omnipad_tower/omnipad_tower.txt
https://www.spacemodeling.org/gcg/omnipad_tower/omnipad_tower.jpg
https://www.spacemodeling.org/gcg/omnipad_tower/tower_assembly.jpg
https://www.spacemodeling.org/gcg/omnipad_tower/tower_ring.jpg
The basic idea is to make your main rails from rigid fiberglass tubing commonly used for kite spars, with smaller diameter tubes acting as connectors to form any length you want. These are attached with tape to a cylinder of fixed size (build one cylinder for each diameter you need) with epoxy fillets to guide their placement. A piston may or may not be included by installing the piston tube through the core of the cylinder. The tower is lightweight, rigid, and doesn't appear to require a massive (but impressive looking!) structure to support it. The greatest expense appears to be the fiberglass tubing which runs about $5 for a 54" piece, buy 6 of these and 1of smaller diameter for connectors and for $35 you're almost there.
Anyone have any thoughts on this? Seen one in action? Built one? See any pitfalls? Got any better suggestions?
- Ability to accommdate a variety of model sizes (e.g., 13mm, 18mm, 24mm, eggloft)
- Ability to integrate tower with a piston
- Low cost
- Configurable to a variety of lengths (e.g., short tower for small models w/o piston, longer tower for models with piston)
- Configurable as tower only, piston only, or tower with piston
- Small footprint for transportation and storage
- Did I mention low cost?
I recently came across the following idea by George Gassaway that appears to be close to what I want:
https://www.spacemodeling.org/gcg/omnipad_tower/omnipad_tower.txt
https://www.spacemodeling.org/gcg/omnipad_tower/omnipad_tower.jpg
https://www.spacemodeling.org/gcg/omnipad_tower/tower_assembly.jpg
https://www.spacemodeling.org/gcg/omnipad_tower/tower_ring.jpg
The basic idea is to make your main rails from rigid fiberglass tubing commonly used for kite spars, with smaller diameter tubes acting as connectors to form any length you want. These are attached with tape to a cylinder of fixed size (build one cylinder for each diameter you need) with epoxy fillets to guide their placement. A piston may or may not be included by installing the piston tube through the core of the cylinder. The tower is lightweight, rigid, and doesn't appear to require a massive (but impressive looking!) structure to support it. The greatest expense appears to be the fiberglass tubing which runs about $5 for a 54" piece, buy 6 of these and 1of smaller diameter for connectors and for $35 you're almost there.
Anyone have any thoughts on this? Seen one in action? Built one? See any pitfalls? Got any better suggestions?