Quest altimeter

[Fred22]

Has anybody bought one of the quest altimeters and how well does it work?
Thanks
fred

 

[tquigg]

Indeed! I've also been curious to see if someone has purchased this little beastie, and how well it works.

 

[Bravo52]

I bought the same altimeter from a different vendor and I can tell you it is super cool........sorta.........

I've flown mine about 15 times and each time it reads out with no problems. I assume the data is accurate because I'm getting similar numbers for the same motors in the same rockets. I've flow a Semroc "Lil Hustler" with the altimeter on several different motors and the altitude goes up with each increase in impulse (just like you'd think it would!).

Up-side is that it is compact and works great. You can fit it inside a BT50 payload tube like on the recent X-Ray I got from Semroc. I also built an Estes Patriot with a payload bay and fly the altimeter in that. The possibilities are endless.

https://www.questaerospace.com/Itemdesc.asp?ic=7820&eq=&Tp=

You can buy a digital reader or use the on-board led to read-out the altitudes. It uses the flashing LED method to blink out the numbers. Or in the case of digital reader, you just hold the altimeter near the reader and it will digitally display the altitude in feet.

https://www.wingedshadow.com/seehow.html

I would highly recommend the altimeter and reader.

The down side.........I found out my rockets weren't going as high as I thought they were...

 

[tquigg]

Wow, the reader is a neat little gizmo! Think I'll give it a try. Thanks for the input!

 

[shreadvector]

Has anybody bought one of the quest altimeters and how well does it work?
Thanks
fred

I ordered 4 of them as soon as they went on sale (one for me and 3 for other club members). They arrived fast. They work great. I've flown mine many times.

Perfect for anyone of any age or skill level who wants a simple and accurate altitude measuring device. Also perfect for kids doing science projects or "Pre-TARC" students.

 

[Fred22]

Thanks fellas I apreciate the information. Bravo I am sure your rockets peg good heights. Thanks to you as well fred.
Cheers
Fred

 

[Larry Curcio]

I bought the same altimeter from a different vendor and I can tell you it is super cool........sorta.........

I've flown mine about 15 times and each time it reads out with no problems. I assume the data is accurate because I'm getting similar numbers for the same motors in the same rockets. I've flow a Semroc "Lil Hustler" with the altimeter on several different motors and the altitude goes up with each increase in impulse (just like you'd think it would!).

Up-side is that it is compact and works great. You can fit it inside a BT50 payload tube like on the recent X-Ray I got from Semroc. I also built an Estes Patriot with a payload bay and fly the altimeter in that. The possibilities are endless.

https://www.questaerospace.com/Itemdesc.asp?ic=7820&eq=&Tp=

You can buy a digital reader or use the on-board led to read-out the altitudes. It uses the flashing LED method to blink out the numbers. Or in the case of digital reader, you just hold the altimeter near the reader and it will digitally display the altitude in feet.

https://www.wingedshadow.com/seehow.html

I would highly recommend the altimeter and reader.

The down side.........I found out my rockets weren't going as high as I thought they were...

I've never laid eyes on one. Will mention three things with no authority at all.

Someone on the Rocketry Planet forum asserted the sampling interval is long.

The things are calibrated for fairly low altitudes AND THAT CAN BE GOOD for model rockets. The ADC divides up the total possible range into a fixed number of intervals (there's a displacement in there too...). Smaller range means more precision - all else held equal.

The onboard beep out is, by the admission of the manufacturer, an approximation. The digital readout is likely more accurate. This is true of many altimeters. The goodness of the approximations varies among them more than the goodness of the hardware.

 

[shreadvector]

There is no beep-out. The LED blinks out the atitude in feet or meters.

The digital meter simply reads the blinking LED and counts the blinks and displays a number. This is just as accurate as counting the blinks for most people. if you cannot count, then buy the electronic counting device. (that's a joke, folks...) The reader does store several flights worth of data. "Data" = altitude.

I'm sitting next to mine right now at work. I brought it in to show a coworker who is helping his daughter buy the necessary stuff to do a science project. Since they are interested in measuring altitude and the effect of some variable on altitude, I suggested this unit. He digs it.

I've never laid eyes on one. Will mention three things with no authority at all.

Someone on the Rocketry Planet forum asserted the sampling interval is long.

The things are calibrated for fairly low altitudes AND THAT CAN BE GOOD for model rockets. The ADC divides up the total possible range into a fixed number of intervals (there's a displacement in there too...). Smaller range means more precision - all else held equal.

The onboard beep out is, by the admission of the manufacturer, an approximation. The digital readout is likely more accurate. This is true of many altimeters. The goodness of the approximations varies among them more than the goodness of the hardware.

 

[Larry Curcio]

There is no beep-out. The LED blinks out the atitude in feet or meters.

The digital meter simply reads the blinking LED and counts the blinks and displays a number. This is just as accurate as counting the blinks for most people. if you cannot count, then buy the electronic counting device. (that's a joke, folks...) The reader does store several flights worth of data. "Data" = altitude.

I'm sitting next to mine right now at work. I brought it in to show a coworker who is helping his daughter buy the necessary stuff to do a science project. Since they are interested in measuring altitude and the effect of some variable on altitude, I suggested this unit. He digs it.

OK you're right - Beep or LED is a detail. Sorry.
Also, I misremembered what Quest had said - I misremembered that you could download the data if you liked. That is not so. The read-out is something else, as you describe.

What they DID say is (Taken from their web-site, excerpted in fair use...)

"It uses a state-of-the-art pressure sensor and proprietary calculation technique to provide a very high level of accuracy for such a low cost instrument."

Since the standard (full) formula is not proprietary, it is reasonable to infer that this is some other method of data reduction. (No judgment made either way.) Normally, an embedded system like a rocket altimeter uses an approximation which may be linear, a polynomial, or something else, and these are commonly proprietary.

Instruments that allow one to download data to a computer normally use the standard formula in the computer software. Normally, the differences are small.

As I say, I do not speak with authority. Thanks for the correction.

-Larry

 

[The EGE]

Someone on the Rocketry Planet forum asserted the sampling interval is long.

A 1 second sampling interval isn't perfect, but it's still pretty good. Even at a worst-case scenario, where the samples are exactly 1/2 second on either side of apogee, the worst possible error is 4 feet.

 

[Leo]

Coincidently my maiden flight with my new "How High" gadget happened today.

I flew my very old Alpha with a payload bay section housing the device.

Here is the blink readout of the maiden flight:

Video download (File: 3.4 MB, .wmv)

I set it up to read in meters. What is the height showing in the video?

 

[KerryQuinn]

There have been several other threads discussing the Quest How High Altimeter this summer... I've linked to a couple I recall below.

I've flown the How-High on 42 flights so far - this has included 2 no-deploys
and 1 lawn-dart an it doesn't seem to have caused any damage. I have even flown it inside the main body tube protected from the hot exhaust gases only by aluminum foil (pictures are in one of the links below). To see if it might be damaged by this process, I flew it in the same rocket on six flights all using a B-6-4 engine. On flights 1,2,5 and 6 it was in a standard payload bay and on flights 3 & 4 it was in the main body tube,just above the parachute. All six flights recorded altitudes within 21 feet of each other (285 to 306 feet).

I watched the video posted of the "blinks" - and that doesn't look like anything I've seen before on mine. When you first turn it on there is usually a short delay and then a series of blinks at about 2 or 3 Hz rate (much slower than your video). It does have a fast-double-blink that it does to represent a "zero", but again it is not like your video.

-Kerry

(PS- as I read this post to myself it comes across as if I might be from Quest or somehow financially benefiting from the product - I'm not, I'm just a happy customer.)

I built the "4 Square" rocket from Newway Spacemodels.
This rocket uses a 1.375"x1.375" square body tube, a pyramid nose "cone", and four square tube fins.....(snip)

Here is one such product is available on the market - and it's relatively cheap.

The Quest How-High Altimeter (now also available a apogee) uses a red "blinkie" led flasher to blink-out the altimeter after flight. I've been using this altimeter all spring/summer and it works great - it is also tiny. The LED is easily seen even in very bright sunlight.

There is an optional display called the "See How" that interprets the blinks and turns them into a numeric ...(snip)

I ran an experiment today using the QuEST How High altimeter that I thought might be of interest to the group....

The how-high is SUPPOSED to be used inside of a payload bay - away from the hot gasses and high pressure of the ejection charge... but, since I wanted to see if it would work... and because the thing is only $45... I decided to break the rules and put it into the main tube of a rocket.

.....(snip)

 

[Leo]

After the low responses here I sent the video to the manufacturer
The conclusion is that most likely the ejection charge caused the unit to reset (e.g. loss of battery power) and that is why it read 1 meter. I should add the device was not cushioned in the payload bay tube. With flight# 3 I properly cushioned the altimeter. Since then I haven't had any false readouts.

Last Sunday I had some more flights with the device:
[YOUTUBE]jmP8ui61Ea0&hl[/YOUTUBE]

 

[KerryQuinn]

I lawn darted a rocket from 327' today into a gravel parking lot. Impact was dramatic - there are lots of bits of gravel stuck into my nose cone, the motor mount broke loose and slid forward upon impact etc.....

I know that it was from 327' because my QuEST HowHigh Altim survived the event eventhough it was all by itself and unpadded inside the av-bay....

 

[Fred22]

Reminds of that bic pen commercial where they put the pen in the top of a javelin and hurled it and it still worked
Cheers
fred

 

[BRC]

Ten bucks to ship something the size and weight of a postage stamp is kinda steep...:y: