NAR S&T: New Estes motor certified - L2350

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Wonder if this is a demo motor or a spin-off of a commercial motor like the CTI M3700. I don’t think a lot of hobby flyers have rockets that have 6 inch motor mounts that are light enough to fly on L motors. It’ll be interesting to see if Estes enters the hobby market and what the hardware looks like

If Estes enters the composite model rocket motor manufacturing arena, I believe they will be single-use motors, at least initially.

Eventually, motors in the 13mm, 18mm, 24mm, 29mm, and 38mm range might become available . . . As long as they are "affordably-priced", they should sell well . . . Fingers crossed !

Dave F.
 
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Looks like we have a winner! It is government for sure and right below what you circled in 2.12, it says an L motor is the maximum impulse allowed. Maybe that is their target for this particular motor and that's it.

Sandy.
I wasn’t specifically offering the SLI teams as a user of this Estes Energetics motor - just pointing out that there are institutional users who are required to use certified motors 😎
 
If I had to speculate, that motor was developed as a booster for a small UAV or something along these lines, especially considering John Langfords background in the area. If it were for student rockets, it would leave lots of room for payloads.

The motor burns really fast, considering its diameter. Either the propellant is roughly as fast as AT Warp 9, or the geometry is quite different from a BATES grain.
The ISP is high, but the mass fraction is quite low. Everything on this motor seems to be a bit unusual - at least by HPR standards.

Reinhard
 
If I had to speculate, that motor was developed as a booster for a small UAV or something along these lines, especially considering John Langfords background in the area. If it were for student rockets, it would leave lots of room for payloads.

The motor burns really fast, considering its diameter. Either the propellant is roughly as fast as AT Warp 9, or the geometry is quite different from a BATES grain.
The ISP is high, but the mass fraction is quite low. Everything on this motor seems to be a bit unusual - at least by HPR standards.

Reinhard
Massive core
 

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  • Estes L.jpg
    Estes L.jpg
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Maybe it's just easy and cheap to make? Maybe it's rejected grains from a much larger, non-hobby product ( trim both ends and ream out the core, presto! )
 
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I wasn’t specifically offering the SLI teams as a user of this Estes Energetics motor - just pointing out that there are institutional users who are required to use certified motors 😎

Valid point, especially given the logical comment Aaron made about the dimensions. At this point, I feel like I'm tripping over my shoestrings or walking through a spider web with my replies. I think things make sense in my head when I write them and !BAM! I'm all over the place when anybody looks at the post I wrote! I truly mean that in a good way and think its been a good fun way to end the week. We're all intrigued by the concept of an 'Estes' (Energetics) motor that is NAR certified for whatever reason they chose to go through that process, I'm sure!

Sandy.
 
If I had to speculate, that motor was developed as a booster for a small UAV or something along these lines, especially considering John Langfords background in the area. If it were for student rockets, it would leave lots of room for payloads.

The motor burns really fast, considering its diameter. Either the propellant is roughly as fast as AT Warp 9, or the geometry is quite different from a BATES grain.
The ISP is high, but the mass fraction is quite low. Everything on this motor seems to be a bit unusual - at least by HPR standards.

Reinhard
For students though a high thrust hard hitting motor might not be a good thing depending on the payload and whether it can be hardened to withstand the G's, not sure how a 6" airframe would do for some of the altitude requirements either.
 
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If Estes enters the composite model rocket motor manufacturing arena, I believe they will be single-use motors, at least initially.

Eventually, motors in the 13mm, 18mm, 24mm, 29mm, and 38mm range might become available . . . As long as they are "affordably-priced", they should sell well . . . Fingers crossed !

Dave F.


They tried once before and "flunked" out, couldn't even make a G composite motor. Loved the F62's still have one left.

F-62.jpg
 
Fingers crossed for Estes single-use composite motors, 13mm - 29mm, maybe 38mm, too.

Dave F.
13mm composite would be interesting. I understand Apogee had 13mm Bs and Cs for a while, albeit in a longer case. My understanding is that they ran into engineering problems at that scale and they didn’t end up being very profitable either.

But boy would they be fun….
 
I found this....

Estes L.jpg

So, that tells me John Lyngdal has not lost his mind...yet

I know these are not allowed..
bamboo-rocket_resize_md.jpeg

but what if you turned it on it's side?
spinlaunch_first_launch-640x353.jpg

What's Estes going to come up with next?

Tony
 
Well, technically it was the guys from North Coast Rocketry after the purchase and move who were working on the composite motors, not the Estes folks.
https://www.oldrocketforum.com/printthread.php?t=16491&pp=40

Those motors were not made by Estes, only marketed through them.
Dave F.

I know the original (first)NCR motors were made by Aerotech for NCR and the Estes Pro Series ll motors were made by Aerotech for Estes, but Mr. Aerotech don't make the motors for Aerotech.
From my dealer here I heard that the reason that the G70's never got into production is that there was a fire at Estes. Maybe that was just an excuse. Everything to me points to Estes being responsible for the development/co-development and production of the Dark Star motors no matter what the name of the guy is making them. I really don't care, just wish they would be here yet.


North Coast Rocketry was moved to Salt Lake City, Utah in 1992. During this time, NCR branched out into making composite motors based on potassium perchlorate that would produce a pink flame during the burn.

North Coast Rocketry was subsequently purchased by Estes Industries' around 1995-1996 and served as Estes' mid/high-power model rocketry division. The NCR motor technology was changed by Estes to the more industry-standard APCP (ammonium-perchlorate composite propellant).



ManofSteele
02-22-2017 12:04 AM​
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jerry Irvine
Is there anything preventing Estes from simply re-releasing the motors? All the engineering is done. When they re-release kits they do all new molds now since they produce at a contract shop in China.

1) Scott Dixon made all the propellant and delay for Estes. He had the formulation, and Estes does not.

2) There is no one at Estes who knows how to make composite propellant now. There are very few people who know how to make production-sized batches of AP/HTPB propellant. It is not as straightforward as scaling up what most EX folks do. It was also more sophisticated than Aerotech's methods (though more expensive than Aerotech's methods). The process used Vulcan
Systems equipment that is no longer available to Estes
. And, Scott doesn't want to do small motors or hobby motors anymore. He does work that pays much, much better.

3) The cases used some special engineered materials and were molded in the US. As far as i know, those materials are not available in China, and not able to be exported.

So, no, Estes can't do it anymore.





 
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