Night Launch (Arizona Rocketeers?)

[Hospital_Rocket]

I picked up the neatest thing from Countdown Hobbies. It is a product by a company called Night Launch. It's a Electroluminescent strip with a pwersource that operates it of a 9v battery.

I wanted some tech support and dropped them an e-mailand have not seen a response.

www.nightlaunch.com

The local address is:

PMB #160
6671 E. Baseline Road, Suite 105
Mesa, AZ. 85206

Does anybody know if they are still in business? If there any rocketeers in Mesa who can find out, I'd be grateful.

Thanx

 

[Micromeister]

We've been flying Night launch electro-luminescent panels for about 3 years. Pretty Cool stuff. bit on the heavy side but hey. I don't think they monitor their e-mail much.. I've sent at least 5 over the past 3 years but have yet to get a reply on any of them

What's your question maybe one of the guys has run into the same situstaion. I've been trying to lighting the load by running the strips off a stack of 3v lithiums... the jury is still out I have the pack made up but haven't tested the life yet There are a couple other manufactures out there most are smaller than Night flights.

 

[Hospital_Rocket]

I just want to spend some money and would rather make sure that it's not just a dead end.

I found a couple of eBay suppliers, and they have great feedback. I have always been gunshy of the suppliers that have hong kong listed as point of origin.

In anycase NightLaunch looks like a small firm based on rocketry and I do try to place my rocketry business with rocketeers whenever possible.

One thing, do you guys glue the EL strips in place or do you use the packing tape solution? Also, does anybody cut them into designs?

Pictures?

 

[Karl]

My friend used some of those things on his RC car at the edge of the Bodyshell (I nealy said Bodytube then ). IIRC, there was a small peel-away strip that left some adhesive, so you could stick the light stip onto what ever you wanted to. They where pretty bright too!
I have no idea why we haven't seen more of these on TRF before! They seem any Night - Launchers dream!
Karl

 

[Stymye]

atleast In my area, night launches are rare.

 

[Micromeister]

H-R:
Most of our club folks, have used packing tape attachments. this allows the strips to be moved if desired from one model to another, We've even had guys do this during a night launch. I've only used one strip which I ran inside a 2.6" clear mailing tube backed with a piece of .030 clear lexan to sort of spring hold it in place. Sorry No pics of this model, The experiment was a success but flight suffered a recovery system failure which eliminated any chance of photos
You don't really cut the panel at least not the kind Night Flight sells. the way to alter the shape is by overlaying printed clear vinyls or cutting out vinyl overlays and graphics. At our last night launch in September. Doug Pratt flew a Large Loc model with a strobe lit nose and his logo on both sides in electroluminescent panels. Yellow background with black overlay copy.. Very good looking, unfortunately Dougs G80 motor had one of those famous bonus delays which put the model into Middeltown park Pond,the rocket was not recovered I'm experimenting with several other smaller semi rigid panel types used mainly for model railroad scale signs. I picked these little kits up at a local hobby shop for 18.00buck I think, power supply, 4" x 6" sectionable panel and overlay self adhesive vinly masks background colors. Pretty cool little kits, can be cut to fit as amsll as a BT-20 payload section if you alter the PC board mounted electronics, and reduce the 9V to a stack of 3V lithium coin cells.

Stymye:
Keep an eye on Narhams.org's web site, we try to have at least one, or more scheduled Night Launches per year, I'm looking for at least 2 in 2005 If your anywhere in close it would really be worth the trip.

 

[FredA]

Check out this picture of a Skidmark Drag Race from Saturday night at Brothers. Rob Lamb and myself flew twin K1000-SK's - Rob had a thermite igniter and left first.
Way cool!

 

[Stymye]

cool looks like lit up christmas trees

 

[Hospital_Rocket]

The EL Panel applied to a payload tube - powered off

The EL Panel applied to a payload tube - powered on

The EL Panel applied to a payload tube - powered on (lights out)

This is going to be a add on payload bay to a LOC Viper III

 

[FredA]

Cool - I thought about an external EL panel like that - I worried that it would be stripped away on a supersonic flight as planned with the K1000-SK unless the forward edge was just perfect.

What kind of battery life do you get from one 9V?

Since the load is proportional to the square area of EL driven, what is your approximate area?

Do you think this is bright enough to stand out from 500 feet?

Have you tried making it flash?

Thanks,
FredA

 

[Hospital_Rocket]

Originally posted by freda
Cool - I thought about an external EL panel like that - I worried that it would be stripped away on a supersonic flight as planned with the K1000-SK unless the forward edge was just perfect.

What kind of battery life do you get from one 9V?

Since the load is proportional to the square area of EL driven, what is your approximate area?

Do you think this is bright enough to stand out from 500 feet?

Have you tried making it flash?

Thanks,
FredA

Nightlaunch recommends using clear packing tape fo hold the el strip on. If you worked close to the front end of a BT you could fold the edge over into the BT and then there would be no edge to shear. However, I'm not sure this stuff was ment for the trans sonic range. You have to feed the wires thru the BT to the inverter.

I timed one fresh battery @ 1:32:15 got dimmer after about 45 min.

For the 2.63" dia payload bay, I trimmed the ribbon to fit and hav approx 16.5" of surface.

Easily

The inverter Nightlauch sells has either a one second flash or is constant on.