How much I like Perfectflite Altimeters

The Rocketry Forum

Help Support The Rocketry Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Dave A

Well-Known Member
TRF Supporter
Joined
Jan 21, 2013
Messages
1,263
Reaction score
220
Location
Fort Myers, FL
Due to my underestimation of deployment charges AND too small of a drogue (won't do that again), my 85# 9" Patriot took a swan dive. Apogee deployment-1, main-0.
Because of the small drogue, all the sections cam down horizontally, fast. I seem to have landed in the only rock hard ground to be found at Higgs Farm.
The g-forces of the landing damaged every section heavily.
When I approached the site I could hear the alitimerers reporting. They were mounted in an old GLR aluminum housing. The av bay was unharmed. The g-forces were such the printed sleds broke along the center, batteries broke away but wires still connected. The 10-32 SS rods were bent. Hell, all the rods in the vehicle were bent and the batteries were dented from the Gs.
When I did postmortem at my shop, all the altimeters were were intact, data retrieved and no error reporting all the while STILL bolted to the broken sleds.
I've used Perfectflite for most of my hobby years and convinced I'll stay with them.
Early on I had not-so-good sealing of my first av bays and the charges damaged the barometric sensors. Peter fixed them twice, for the postage back to me.
That is service!20190413_214804.jpeg20180715_143356.jpeg
 
Good for you! When I core sampled my MAC Performance Radial Flyer some years ago, my SL and RRC alts got shattered to smithereens. Ground was seriously frozen that day, as, probably, were the batteries.

We really need that facepalm icon back.
 
If only the Stratologger would come back in stock....
 
My Perfectflite miniAlt was a beast. Super reliable, sturdy, easy to use. A poorly designed interstage on a custom two-stage did it in, but I recovered a little of the circuit board and the capacitor from the wreckage and still keep it. Man I loved that thing.
 
3 MAWDs for me, all going strong, even after some water landings. And, the big capacitor allows for a small battery.
 
I learned a little trick to help when booting up the altimeters.
To save time hanging off the away cell, I turn both on (I have 1 Strato and 1 CF in each bay)
When they start reporting continuity, they each have a different tone. It's easy to discern that each has 3 beeps.
 
this is an older post but they update inventory between 5 and 6 PM Eastern daily, that's when to check. They sellout within hours pretty much.

Now it will be within minutes. They'll see a spike in web traffic as folks will be sitting on their website at 5pm hitting refresh, over and over and over.
 
Now it will be within minutes. They'll see a spike in web traffic as folks will be sitting on their website at 5pm hitting refresh, over and over and over.
hah well now that mine is safely at home and installed, i would suggest they set an inventory threshold and then auction the remaining units once that threshold is met. That's a good way to bump up the margin and prolong inventory. (that's also a good way to do some price discovery)
soo...how many did you buy?
I have 2, a primary and backup. I should be set barring a major crash.
 
Back
Top