woferry
Well-Known Member
Okay, so my Excel DD isn't quite finished, but at the beginning of the year I ordered two kits (okay, 3 since I had ordered an Excel non-DD for my Dad as well, or 5 if you count the two Apogee 2014 Christmas ornament rockets that still have to be built 
). The Excel DD only needs finishing touches (i.e. paint & sanding) at this point, so I'm starting to think about the next one. This rocket I want primarily for night launching (goal is to have it ready by Dairy Aire, ideally flown during the day at some launch before then), so I wanted something that wouldn't go high. So I settled on a stubby rocket, liking the Minie-Magg design the best. So here is the stock kit and a dry-fit of the rocket next to my Excel DD (as it was a few weeks ago, also mostly a dry-fit).
As far as illumination goes, I was totally amazed by John's "Light Show", which sadly I didn't see launch even though I was XPRS last year (my group was eating dinner during the night launches, having a night launch rocket of my own should help ensure I see a few others launch also). So I started looking into NeoPixels and ordered a few different types as well as some Arduino boards to play with. For the nosecone I intend to use a 24-LED ring to light the entire cone from the inside, and for the rest of the body I'm planning to use EZ-EL electroluminescent wire, running down the body in line with the fins and following each fin line. So first thing after receiving the kit I chopped off the bottom of the nosecone using a really kludgy jig to try to make a clean straight cut without a saw blade big enough to do it all at once on the ~5.5" cone, and placed the LED ring inside (with some Arduino code to just light them all red), and scotch-taped the EL wire to the rocket (not perfectly straight, just a rough mock-up). It looks great in person, my cameras had difficulty taking a good picture of it, generally making the NC much brighter or less red than it really looks. Because of the NeoPixel ring in the cone I could set the cone to different colors (or changing colors) easily by tweaking the Arduino code, the EL is red-only of course, so I may only change the brightness of the cone if I do any effects, we'll have to see.
So why "Li'l Red Express", you might ask? Well, the rocket does happen to be little (short at least), and will be lit up red, but the real reason is because of something else in my garage, one of these...
The Li'l Red Express Truck is a limited production 'muscle truck' Dodge made in 1978 and 1979, after emissions controls had effectively killed the muscle car but didn't yet apply to trucks. Mine is a 1979, one of 5,118 made that year. It's a lot of fun to drive and I've always loved the look of it, and the head turns I get when I take it out. So why not have a similarly-themed rocket? My intention for paint on this rocket is to make the body red, and to stain the fins to keep the wood appearance, similar to the wood trim on the truck. I obviously can't paint the NC since I want the light to shine through, I'm loathe to leave it white though, I'm curious if I could possibly shade it red with something like magic markers and actually get something that was red but still translucent and not look like crap. Or I may look to order a second cone so that I can paint one red for any daytime flying, but also have an unpainted one for night launches. Assuming I can make it look good, I would like to make the Mobius ActionCam shroud I'd intend to attach to this rocket look like it's chrome/stainless like the exhaust stacks on the truck.
I am also considering my first decal for this rocket, I'd love to match the door decal, except of course changing the lower "TRUCK" to "ROCKET" (most of the right letters are already there). I'm no artist though, so I'm not sure how any of these custom decals work and whether somebody else could help draw it up. I'm certainly open to suggestions/help...
Because I want to keep the NC open for interior illumination, adding nose weight isn't really an option. But I also wasn't exactly comfortable with the idea of such a large volume in a 5.5" airframe and how much black powder I might need, so I'm planning on a form of piston ejection for this rocket. By this I don't exactly mean just a plug that moves and pushes things out, but using an interior 54mm tube and coupler where the charge would go off inside these tubes to separate them. The intent would be to have enough overlap in this tube/coupler set that the NC will have cleared the body tube before these tubes separate, as I'm also hoping to keep the hot charge gasses/particles away from the chute and electronics (illumination and possibly recovery, though this will likely use motor ejection so I may just fly an altimeter for data collection not deployment). Ultimately, I think I'll be adding a fair bit of weight above the CP of the rocket, which will hopefully help push the CG where it needs to be for stability.
So my current plan for the design is to have a bulkplate at the top of the nosecone shoulder with a decent sized opening in the middle. This plate will have nuts to receive another plate, that will carry the LED ring on the side that goes inside the NC and likely carry the Adruino and battery on the underneath, as well as the 54mm coupler in the middle (the top of this coupler is capped by the bulkplate). These parts combined effectively make the nosecone assembly, with the electronics to light up the interior.
The base of the rocket then will have the 54mm body tube (motor mount), which will run all the way down to the upper CR for the 38mm MMT. When installing the NC first the central 54mm tubes will fit together, then the nosecone shoulder will fit with the 5.5" airframe. The 54mm body tube will obviously have its own centering rings as well. The parachute and shock cord will be placed in the cavity formed between this top CR and the bulkplate in the NC, around the 54mm tube. These 54mm CRs will have two additional holes drilled in them, to support two pieces of BT-55 running parallel to the 54mm tube. One of these BT-55s will carry the lower illumination electronics (the battery and inverter for the EL, and possibly another small Arduino if I attempt to control this lighting instead of just leaving it on), the other would be for an altimeter. Altimeter venting would be done in this space between the 54mm CRs. The other motivation for this central 54mm tube is ultimately I'd like to be able to re-build this rocket with a clear outer airframe and more LEDs along the body instead of EL (again, John's rocket being the inspiration there), so my thought is to have a central structural core, and the outer tube really just there for aerodynamics, not so much structure. But that's a long way off assuming I can get this built and flying first.
So, all that said, the first thing I need to figure out is the fins, since attaching the fins and building the MMT is about all you have to do with the Minie-Magg kit. I'm doing some paint trials to try to get the stain right, I don't really like the color of the first stain I bought so I need to find something different there. I also want to bevel the fins, but most importantly I want to route a channel in the fins to support the EL. This is definitely going to be tricky, I need to first see if I can even find a Dremel router bit that is shaped the way I want (to make a round concave groove along the edge) or else I may be stuck using a small rotary sanding bit, and I also need to see how I'm going to attach the EL without distorting its color (either a very clear CA/epoxy, or only gluing it from the groove in the fin, nothing over the exposed parts). This will also be an issue for the runs of EL along the body tube since routing grooves here obviously isn't an option. So I have a lot of experimenting to do with extra pieces of hobby wood before I even touch the real fins. Once I have all of that figured out I think the rest of this build will be pretty simple.
). The Excel DD only needs finishing touches (i.e. paint & sanding) at this point, so I'm starting to think about the next one. This rocket I want primarily for night launching (goal is to have it ready by Dairy Aire, ideally flown during the day at some launch before then), so I wanted something that wouldn't go high. So I settled on a stubby rocket, liking the Minie-Magg design the best. So here is the stock kit and a dry-fit of the rocket next to my Excel DD (as it was a few weeks ago, also mostly a dry-fit).As far as illumination goes, I was totally amazed by John's "Light Show", which sadly I didn't see launch even though I was XPRS last year (my group was eating dinner during the night launches, having a night launch rocket of my own should help ensure I see a few others launch also). So I started looking into NeoPixels and ordered a few different types as well as some Arduino boards to play with. For the nosecone I intend to use a 24-LED ring to light the entire cone from the inside, and for the rest of the body I'm planning to use EZ-EL electroluminescent wire, running down the body in line with the fins and following each fin line. So first thing after receiving the kit I chopped off the bottom of the nosecone using a really kludgy jig to try to make a clean straight cut without a saw blade big enough to do it all at once on the ~5.5" cone, and placed the LED ring inside (with some Arduino code to just light them all red), and scotch-taped the EL wire to the rocket (not perfectly straight, just a rough mock-up). It looks great in person, my cameras had difficulty taking a good picture of it, generally making the NC much brighter or less red than it really looks. Because of the NeoPixel ring in the cone I could set the cone to different colors (or changing colors) easily by tweaking the Arduino code, the EL is red-only of course, so I may only change the brightness of the cone if I do any effects, we'll have to see.
So why "Li'l Red Express", you might ask? Well, the rocket does happen to be little (short at least), and will be lit up red, but the real reason is because of something else in my garage, one of these...
The Li'l Red Express Truck is a limited production 'muscle truck' Dodge made in 1978 and 1979, after emissions controls had effectively killed the muscle car but didn't yet apply to trucks. Mine is a 1979, one of 5,118 made that year. It's a lot of fun to drive and I've always loved the look of it, and the head turns I get when I take it out. So why not have a similarly-themed rocket? My intention for paint on this rocket is to make the body red, and to stain the fins to keep the wood appearance, similar to the wood trim on the truck. I obviously can't paint the NC since I want the light to shine through, I'm loathe to leave it white though, I'm curious if I could possibly shade it red with something like magic markers and actually get something that was red but still translucent and not look like crap. Or I may look to order a second cone so that I can paint one red for any daytime flying, but also have an unpainted one for night launches. Assuming I can make it look good, I would like to make the Mobius ActionCam shroud I'd intend to attach to this rocket look like it's chrome/stainless like the exhaust stacks on the truck.
I am also considering my first decal for this rocket, I'd love to match the door decal, except of course changing the lower "TRUCK" to "ROCKET" (most of the right letters are already there). I'm no artist though, so I'm not sure how any of these custom decals work and whether somebody else could help draw it up. I'm certainly open to suggestions/help...
Because I want to keep the NC open for interior illumination, adding nose weight isn't really an option. But I also wasn't exactly comfortable with the idea of such a large volume in a 5.5" airframe and how much black powder I might need, so I'm planning on a form of piston ejection for this rocket. By this I don't exactly mean just a plug that moves and pushes things out, but using an interior 54mm tube and coupler where the charge would go off inside these tubes to separate them. The intent would be to have enough overlap in this tube/coupler set that the NC will have cleared the body tube before these tubes separate, as I'm also hoping to keep the hot charge gasses/particles away from the chute and electronics (illumination and possibly recovery, though this will likely use motor ejection so I may just fly an altimeter for data collection not deployment). Ultimately, I think I'll be adding a fair bit of weight above the CP of the rocket, which will hopefully help push the CG where it needs to be for stability.
So my current plan for the design is to have a bulkplate at the top of the nosecone shoulder with a decent sized opening in the middle. This plate will have nuts to receive another plate, that will carry the LED ring on the side that goes inside the NC and likely carry the Adruino and battery on the underneath, as well as the 54mm coupler in the middle (the top of this coupler is capped by the bulkplate). These parts combined effectively make the nosecone assembly, with the electronics to light up the interior.
The base of the rocket then will have the 54mm body tube (motor mount), which will run all the way down to the upper CR for the 38mm MMT. When installing the NC first the central 54mm tubes will fit together, then the nosecone shoulder will fit with the 5.5" airframe. The 54mm body tube will obviously have its own centering rings as well. The parachute and shock cord will be placed in the cavity formed between this top CR and the bulkplate in the NC, around the 54mm tube. These 54mm CRs will have two additional holes drilled in them, to support two pieces of BT-55 running parallel to the 54mm tube. One of these BT-55s will carry the lower illumination electronics (the battery and inverter for the EL, and possibly another small Arduino if I attempt to control this lighting instead of just leaving it on), the other would be for an altimeter. Altimeter venting would be done in this space between the 54mm CRs. The other motivation for this central 54mm tube is ultimately I'd like to be able to re-build this rocket with a clear outer airframe and more LEDs along the body instead of EL (again, John's rocket being the inspiration there), so my thought is to have a central structural core, and the outer tube really just there for aerodynamics, not so much structure. But that's a long way off assuming I can get this built and flying first.
So, all that said, the first thing I need to figure out is the fins, since attaching the fins and building the MMT is about all you have to do with the Minie-Magg kit.
I'm doing some paint trials to try to get the stain right, I don't really like the color of the first stain I bought so I need to find something different there. I also want to bevel the fins, but most importantly I want to route a channel in the fins to support the EL. This is definitely going to be tricky, I need to first see if I can even find a Dremel router bit that is shaped the way I want (to make a round concave groove along the edge) or else I may be stuck using a small rotary sanding bit, and I also need to see how I'm going to attach the EL without distorting its color (either a very clear CA/epoxy, or only gluing it from the groove in the fin, nothing over the exposed parts). This will also be an issue for the runs of EL along the body tube since routing grooves here obviously isn't an option. So I have a lot of experimenting to do with extra pieces of hobby wood before I even touch the real fins. Once I have all of that figured out I think the rest of this build will be pretty simple.
