Bit of a crazy idea here that came up as a comment on Facebook (maybe this has already been shared / discussed here but figured I would throw it out there for TRF).
One limitation of OpenRocket is that when you override the stage mass and CG (and check to override subcomponents) you cannot play around with different nosecone weights to find optimal stability for a given motor configuration.
I usually do this differently -- I use OR to calculate the CP of the design and then add nose weight till I get CG sufficiently in front of the forecasted CP location. However, there are a number of instances when it would be nice if you could have some components (particularly nosecone weight) that was not included in the subcomponents that were overridden by the stage mass / CG.
Turns out that the only subcomponents that are not overridden by the stage mass/CG are motors. So the idea I shared was to put an inner tube in the nosecone, make this a motor mount, check "Never" for the ignition option, and change out motors to play with different nosecone weights. This is only so useful since it only lets you use motors in the database (as far as I can tell there is no way to manually set or override the mass). I was thinking it might be more useful if someone setup various weights in the motor database - I would be happy with 1/4oz increments through 4oz or so.
Anyway, below are some screen captures to show this works.
One limitation of OpenRocket is that when you override the stage mass and CG (and check to override subcomponents) you cannot play around with different nosecone weights to find optimal stability for a given motor configuration.
I usually do this differently -- I use OR to calculate the CP of the design and then add nose weight till I get CG sufficiently in front of the forecasted CP location. However, there are a number of instances when it would be nice if you could have some components (particularly nosecone weight) that was not included in the subcomponents that were overridden by the stage mass / CG.
Turns out that the only subcomponents that are not overridden by the stage mass/CG are motors. So the idea I shared was to put an inner tube in the nosecone, make this a motor mount, check "Never" for the ignition option, and change out motors to play with different nosecone weights. This is only so useful since it only lets you use motors in the database (as far as I can tell there is no way to manually set or override the mass). I was thinking it might be more useful if someone setup various weights in the motor database - I would be happy with 1/4oz increments through 4oz or so.
Anyway, below are some screen captures to show this works.