I500 L1 (name TBD)

[briewillcox]

I kind of live by the idea of sending it way too hard and hoping it works out, so I figured I'd go for my L1 as my first rocket and first flight, with an I500.

The rocket is all 54mm cardboard LOC tube and a plastic nosecone. It'll be carrying an Eggtimer Quantum and an Eggtimer TX. I'm gonna do drogueless dual deploy because I'm launching with Tripoli Wisconsin at Bong and I want to minimize drift as much as possible.

I'm not at my PC right now so I can't grab OpenRocket screenshots, but ideally I'm shooting for 5k ft and mach 1.15.

If my L1 with this thing goes well, I plan to attempt my L2 with a J435 at the same launch. Hoping for 5500+ ft and over mach 1.2 with that motor.

I'll be launching it at Tripoli Wisconsin's September launch.

 

[Handeman]

Sounds like a good plan to me. My L1 was DD with a I motor, so I understand where your coming from.

The only thing I'll say is, don't assume that drogueless will come down faster than with a drogue.

There are a lot of risks flying drogueless because the longest part of the flight from apogee to main deploy is completely uncontrolled. The two halves can hit and damage each other. Sometimes the rocket will "fly" in some random direction. If the fin can gets in a slightly fin down position, both parts relatively flat, the fins will act as wings, and it can start flying of in some random direction. If it's upwind, that is good, if it is downwind, that will be bad. If that happens or not, all depends on how your rocket falls in an uncontrolled manner, which can be different every flight.

It could fall ballistic, nose cone down, dragging the fin can behind it. It will come down faster that way then with a drogue. But, your main will deploy straight down. Chances are you won't tangle, but there is still a significant chance you will. If the fin can hits the main, but doesn't tangle and the main opens OK, the LCO usually says "Nice Flight" and everyone ignores the fact it was a "near miss" and could have just as easily tangled and crashed.

I would consider a drogue.

Good Luck and let us know how it goes.

 

[Hobie1dog]

Pictures would be nice too.

 

[briewillcox]

The rocket's finished now, just waiting for the launch on Saturday. I took some photos throughout the process.

Closed AV bay before the deployment tests made it look gross:


Test fitting all 4 fins. Hadn't gotten them to fit right by this point:


The whole thing except the fins and a couple small things:


36" Parachute wrapped in Nomex (no shock cord yet, just learning to fold it):


Test fitting the fin alignment jig:


All the electronics laid out next to the AV bay sled:


My garbage fillets:


The complete rocket:

 

[briewillcox]

Also I decided I'm just not gonna paint it and I'm gonna call it "name TBD"

 

[Rschub]

I would call it Thanos.

 

[Faroutspacenut]

good luck! I500s are my favorite motor. One thing to consider if you care to: the av bay couplers can get a bit shaggy on a cardboard rocket and I never like how they "stick", so sometimes I'll saturate the entire coupler aft of the switch band with thin ca and then sand with fine grit so it's glossy smooth.

 

[Jeremy Sim]

Don't go drougeless, Use a streamer

 

[briewillcox]

The flight went great!

They really advised against flying the I500 for a cert so someone actually bought the I500 off me for what I got it for and sold me an H100. Everything worked flawlessly. It did land in a little pond and I'm pretty sure my electronics are fried, but I passed the cert.

I'll see what I can do before Midwest Power. I'll salvage what electronics I can but I might have to buy new stuff.

 

[rfjustin]

 

[Theory]

Congratulations on the cert.

Did you keep the leading edge of the fins square?

If you’re looking for performance would recommend putting an airfoil on them or at least knocking off the edges

 

[mtnmanak]

It did land in a little pond and I'm pretty sure my electronics are fried, but I passed the cert.

I'll see what I can do before Midwest Power. I'll salvage what electronics I can but I might have to buy new stuff.

If the electronics for deployment got wet while they were powered up, I highly recommend that you automatically assume they are no longer good/safe to use. Even if they power up and test fine on the ground, you have no idea what, if anything, on the board may be fried and cause a malfunction in flight. Non-mission critical electronics like trackers should be fine to try and re-use. If they don't work right, your only risk is not finding your rocket again,

If the rocket itself got wet, I also recommend a full set of new ground testing, at a minimum. Cardboard and wood have a tendency to swell/shrink/misshape in weird ways when they get wet and things may not fit together exactly the way they did before. I had a LOC Bruiser EXP a couple years ago land in a small drainage ditch at METRA. Just enough water in there to fill the airframe up with water and get the electronics soaked. I let it dry off for a couple weeks and, after pretty extensive attempts to sand and seal everything again, I never got it back to where I was comfortable that it was safe to fly again. I finally decided to ditch it and buy/build a new one.

Either way, if you reuse any of the parts, I recommend a new low-and-slow shakeout flight to make sure all systems are "go".