What did you do rocket wise today?

[lakeroadster]

Worked on the redesign and preliminary drawings for THUNK!

• Launches out of a piece of 2" pvc.
• Rocket motor thrust used to provide a piston style launch.
• Gas Dynamic Stabilization to add stability.
• Canted fins induce spin to add stability during coasting phase.

Build thread link in signature line below.

 

[prfesser]

I'm hoping (and reasonably sure) that your hands are steadier than mine. My hands shake when I concentrate on fine work. I believe that it's Belle's palsy as my grandfather had it. I've sent a few SMT components to God knows where. It steadies up a little as I work though. It helps to brace my hand against something stationary.
Jim

I have been told that some find that under the influence of cannabis, hand-shaking is worse...but with concentration on the subject at hand, the hand-shaking tendency actually decreases more than without cannabis. I don't know, and considering the legality of cannabis here, I don't expect to find out soon.

 

[Antares JS]

Mail call from eRockets. All the parts I needed for the four smaller members of the Silver Anniversary Alpha Fleet. Just need Madcow to sell me a Big Fizz and I will have everything.

Also a BT-20 to BT-5 transition to use as an interstage coupler for a two-stage A10-to-micro maxx idea I had.

 

[lakeroadster]

I have been told that some find that under the influence of cannabis, hand-shaking is worse...but with concentration on the subject at hand, the hand-shaking tendency actually decreases more than without cannabis. I don't know, and considering the legality of cannabis here, I don't expect to find out soon.

What about CBD? No THC and it's legal just about everywhere. Good stuff.

 

[prfesser]

What about CBD? No THC and it's legal just about everywhere. Good stuff.

I have no idea. But I think I'll try it, as my tremor has gotten bad enough that I'll have to be very cautious in wiring altimters, setting up ejection charges, and the like.

 

[boatgeek]

Sanded the CWF-filled spirals on Project Venn, then added a coat of primer to cover the mess left behind. I should have just left them as is.

 

[Doug Holverson]

The Manufacturers' Forum at Virtual NARCON is the main thing that fought the NAR sitet erroring out for half an hour and that I paid $25 to see. Now I can't even watch it because there are more 100 members on Zoom!

That's $25 bucks down the crapper! Thanks ever so much NAR and Zoom!

 

[kuririn]

What I did today -instead- of Rocketry. | Page 179 | The Rocketry Forum

 

[teepot]

I received a slinky for the slinky rocket challenge. Have a plan already drawn up. I drew another rocket. A simple one. I have an idea for finishing it that might or not work. But if it works it'll be cool. I also put the finishing touches on the feet for the flying lamp. Should be done tomorrow.

 

[Wayco]

Drove out to Eagle eye yesterday through some nasty winds in Goodyear. Got to the TRA/PHX launch and it was a perfectly wonderful day for flying LPR rockets. After four nice flights, the wind started picking up, and my last flight with my Viper 3 was a long recovery. Today and tomorrow are HPR waivered flights, with lots of rockets to fly!

 

[Antares JS]

Antar heading for the paint pile.

 

[BruceS]

Tried to sim Estes Multi-Roc in OpenRocket.

 

[smstachwick]

I sanded fins on an Estes Yankee kit. My girlfriend and I are building one together and the root edges weren’t really flat enough to glue onto the body tube.

This is my first time cutting out fins from a template, so I had to play around a bit with sanding techniques to get a nice flat edge and also get them closer to the same size. The final job didn’t end up being perfect but it’s an improvement over what we were trying to work with earlier this week, and I did learn enough from it that I think I can guide her through that process if it comes up again in another kit.

The most important thing: Don’t rush. Get a nice, even, firm grip on it, hold it at the angle I want, and slowly rub it on the sandpaper. Finesse and control are inversely tied to speed.

 

[Jerry F.]

Working on Scratch build upscale of US Rocket's dual rear eject rocket,
LOC's Black Brant X
Mega-Vortico (painting)
PML's "Miranda" working on rename - thinking about "Event Horizon', Quantum ____?" and "Ghost Protocol"

 

[DigBaddy]

Nobody else in our household wanted to fly this morning, so I masked and painted the main body tube of the Saturn V. Good accomplishment for the day. Now, lunch and then go put up maple sap tubing at my remote trees.

 

[Old School Doug]

Nobody else in our household wanted to fly this morning, so I masked and painted the main body tube of the Saturn V. Good accomplishment for the day. Now, lunch and then go put up maple sap tubing at my remote trees.

 

[DigBaddy]

View attachment 502325

I'll make sure a bottle is set aside for ya.

 

[DigBaddy]

Anyways, did ok. My goal is to do better than the one I built when I was 11. So far, I'm exceeding my goal.

 

[Antares JS]

Soldered an Eggfinder LCD receiver with GPS. Will be mounting it into a Black Aero case and soldering the transmitter next weekend.

I've grown to enjoy soldering at this point but that GPS module was just pure stress.

 

[rharshberger]

Soldered an Eggfinder LCD receiver with GPS. Will be mounting it into a Black Aero case and soldering the transmitter next weekend.

I've grown to enjoy soldering at this point but that GPS module was just pure stress.

View attachment 502343

I think the technique for the GPS chip that works well is known as drag soldering

 

[cbrarick]

Finished painting my Higgs Farm Rocket. Next up: Decals.....then done
Another Bad Idea got it's motor mount in. It was so cold in my basement I had to bring it upstairs to cure. Hopefully get to fins next, and glue in a coupler and ready to roll down to MDRA. The only question is if it will warm enough to put color on it. Working on sourcing a special carrying device.......hmmm what would you use for a bad idea?

 

[teepot]

Didn't do much today. I started on my Slinky Challenge rocket. I see that @lakeroadster has his Slinky Challenge rocket well along. Anybody else planning to take up the Slinky Challenge? Late yesterday I finished The Flying Lamp. It is a 3" BMS BT. The shade came from Walmart. The fin/legs are 1/4" ply. The feet are 6"styrafoam balls. I did a test ball first. Put 3 coats of foam primer on it. The paint ate it anyway. On the 6" ones I put 6 or more heavy coats of the primer on them. When it came time to paint them I was a little nervous. But the paint didn't eat them. For the nose cone I used a 7" long coupler. I put a bulkhead in the middle of the coupler. Half of the coupler for an Eggtimer Apogee altimeter and the other half for nose weight. Balancing it was a challenge. It took 16 ounces to get the CG to where I'm comfortable with it. I'm counting on a lot of base drag to keep it pointed up. It looks like it will be fling on an I-175. I told Thrustcurve that the CD was 5.0. That's as high as it will go and it tells me 895'. No way. If it makes 500' I'll be surprised. When the motor stops I think the rocket stops too. So here are some pictures. One of the pictures has a piece of masking tape on it. The top edge of the tape is where the CG is. Any thoughts.

 

[Ken Wyvill]

I just now realized that the Estes Sasha is an ESAM-58 with some extra greebles and a booster stage.

Sure, but the BT is 4 whole inches longer than the ESAM-58. The only similarities between the two in my opinion are the small rectangular fins and the rocket nozzle. The rest including the NC are way different. I want mine to look like a scale rocket but it may be too much of a task.

 

[BruceS]

For some reason I was disappointed that the Multi-roc had only two stages. So I decided to rectify that and built a new booster.

 

[lakeroadster]

Didn't do much today. I started on my Slinky Challenge rocket. I see that @lakeroadster has his Slinky Challenge rocket well along. Anybody else planning to take up the Slinky Challenge? Late yesterday I finished The Flying Lamp. It is a 3" BMS BT. The shade came from Walmart. The fin/legs are 1/4" ply. The feet are 6"styrafoam balls. I did a test ball first. Put 3 coats of foam primer on it. The paint ate it anyway. On the 6" ones I put 6 or more heavy coats of the primer on them. When it came time to paint them I was a little nervous. But the paint didn't eat them. For the nose cone I used a 7" long coupler. I put a bulkhead in the middle of the coupler. Half of the coupler for an Eggtimer Apogee altimeter and the other half for nose weight. Balancing it was a challenge. It took 16 ounces to get the CG to where I'm comfortable with it. I'm counting on a lot of base drag to keep it pointed up. It looks like it will be fling on an I-175. I told Thrustcurve that the CD was 5.0. That's as high as it will go and it tells me 895'. No way. If it makes 500' I'll be surprised. When the motor stops I think the rocket stops too. So here are some pictures. One of the pictures has a piece of masking tape on it. The top edge of the tape is where the CG is. Any thoughts.View attachment 502410View attachment 502411View attachment 502412View attachment 502413View attachment 502414View attachment 502415View attachment 502416

Cool Rocket. Why not do a swing test and see if it's stable?

 

[Gemini Junkie]

I glued the motor mount into the fin-can tube of my Anaconda-15 rocket.

 

[Antares JS]

I think the technique for the GPS chip that works well is known as drag soldering

I might try something like that another time, but I'm definitely not trying it for the first time on a GPS module that I can't replace until July.

 

[jqavins]

Quantum ____?

I wasn't sure for a moment whether you meant ____ to be part of the name, or you are looking for something to fill in the blank. From fill in the blank, my mind when to X as a placeholder. And then to "Quantum X" being a pretty cool name.

Working on sourcing a special carrying device.......hmmm what would you use for a bad idea?

I currently use a rolling thing that's like a cross between a rolling suit case and a milk crate. This has proven itself to be a bad idea on more than one occasion.

Any thoughts.

Does "You're a mad man" count?

 

[user 35280]

The Manufacturers' Forum at Virtual NARCON is the main thing that fought the NAR sitet erroring out for half an hour and that I paid $25 to see. Now I can't even watch it because there are more 100 members on Zoom!

That's $25 bucks down the crapper! Thanks ever so much NAR and Zoom!

I’d send the NAR an email and ask for a refund.

 

[OverTheTop]

I think the technique for the GPS chip that works well is known as drag soldering

This is a bit of an advanced technique and usually relies on the iron temperature being stable (implies a reasonable temperature-controlled iron) and not too hot. It works because solder follows three things; heat, flux and other solder. The hot tip effectively attracts the excess solder as you move it along.

This technique can result in big blobs if you are using the wrong temperature, wrong tip or have it loaded with too much solder. I suggest practicing on something before committing to use it on something you only have one of.