RRC3 recorded no data and did not beep out altitude. PROBLEM -- OR NOT?

[George Lynn Paul]

Question: I had an atypical dual deploy flight that went more sideways than usual, due to a motor anomaly. The drogue and main chutes appeared to deploy when they were supposed to. HOWEVER, when I approached the rocket at its landing site, the RRC3 altimeter was not beeping out altitude, like it is supposed to. It was beeping voltage. I have now been able to communicate with the altimeter using its bluetooth dongle. I tried to retrieving that RRC3 Flight Data from the RRC3 Flight Data Upload Manager -- but there was no data there.

What do people think this means? Is the altimeter damaged and malfunctioning? Do odd flights that don't have a normal flight profile throw off the data collection, but for that flight only?

Any ideas? Or has it happened to someone else before?

Thanks in advance for your help.

George Paul

 

[GalantVR41062]

More information needed:

What is a quick run down of the rocket, motor, electronics package, recovery plan, pictures and video?

I have had altimeters fail to detect launch due to low power/slow off the rod. A failure to detect launch would leave the electronics in the pre flight state, the rrc3 would be beeping out voltage and ematch continuity.

~John

 

[tim cubbedge]

Firmware might need to be reflashed. Had similar issue. Try contacting Jim Amos.

 

[MikeyDSlagle]

What battery were you using?

Sounds like maybe power got interrupted during flight, possibly by losing connection or a weak battery overtaxed by two deployment charges. It lost power and regained power before you arrived to recover. I don't know how/when flight data is stored but if it lost power after the main came out, but before it landed then the flight wasn't over and it may not have stored anything yet.

Without knowing all of your settings in the RRC3 it's impossible to know what would be reported at startup with no deployment charges attached. It is a wonderful device but the plethora of settings can be overwhelming.

Hook it up with some Christmas lights or LED resistor combos and make a DIY vacuum chamber. See if it works and reports accordingly.

And email Missileworks, Jim is responsive and friendly. He'll help.

Report back when you have a solution.

Mikey D

 

[rfjustin]

OP, I would guess your motor anomaly caused less than optimal readings for the altimeter. If it deployed correctly, I would bench test the altimeter, see if you get a nominal result.

If it were mine, I would have no issue flying the altimeter again... YMMV

 

[mrwalsh85]

I had three instances of RRC3's not programming properly at LDRS38... One being brand new from a vendor (buddy bought it and asked me to program it). One flew on Marvin the Martian and I had a heck of a time programming it, error each time. Finally got it to program. So I've been procrastinating gathering up all of my altimeters to send back to Jim for a check-out. The common variable between all the instances would be the RRC3 programming interface. Either way.

 

[MikeyDSlagle]

For the record.
My RRC3 has worked flawlessly every time it has flown. I did have one RRC2+ with some issues, it was bought used from a user on here and it was giving fault codes. Jim fixed it for me. But the RRC3 has been great.

 

[Rocketclar]

I have had great success with RRC2+'s. Usually they are the redundants for my Stratologger CF's. My RRC3 has worked well too. You need to follow the directions exactly to get it to work with the PC interface. I did have one anomaly with my RRC3. I sent the data to Jim and he concluded that there must have been a pressure blow by in my ebay from an ejection charge that caused the funny looking data. Upon close examination of the bay, I concurred....it seemed there was an over pressuring of the bay. Unit still works well and I'm extra careful with all of my ebays to make that they are tight.