Simple break-wire trigger

We've had a number of requests now for how to add an external trigger to the Servo Timer II for the very slow launches that the built-in G-switch may have trouble detecting. I've added a tutorial on how to add a simple break-wire option to trigger the timer on launch. In most instances it should not cost anything.

http://www.aircommandrockets.com/servo_timer_V2_0.htm#_tip5

Shadow pressure test, and deployment mechanism

We have been making good progress on the Shadow. During the week we tested the deployment mechanism and made a short video of how it works.

Today we pressure tested the launcher and rocket to the full initial launch pressure. This was the first time we had the rocket and launcher up to this pressure, so we were happy when everything worked. We even tried to see how hard it will be to launch the rocket at the full pressure. This was nice and easy and shouldn't be an issue on launch day.

 
The recent updates from the last week have been posted to our main website with photos here:
 http://www.aircommandrockets.com/shadow.htm#_171111

The update also includes the deployment mechanism video.

Alternative Fuels

This weekend we flew with some “alternative” fuels in our water rockets. OK so technically they weren’t “water” rockets, but hey still it was a bit of fun with the kids. From a scientific point of view it was interesting to see how these fuels behaved.

Fuels Tested:
    - Bread crumbs (dry)
    - 100’s and 1000’s (dry)
    - Sugar (dry) - the other kind of “Candy” motor :)
    - 2 minute noodles (cooked and in broth)

So how did they go? … read on:

http://www.AirCommandRockets.com/day113.htm

 

Shadow Launcher work

We’ve had a busy week in the workshop working on the Shadow. We’ve been mostly focusing on getting the launcher complete, so we can pressure test it and the rocket. We want to test the pressure chamber before we attach the payload bay and fins, because if it bursts, it would be wasted effort. However, we can only test the pressure chamber with the launcher.

The latest set of updates with photos is available here:
http://www.aircommandrockets.com/shadow.htm#_061111


Here is a progress photo of the launcher release mechanism. This launcher is being built for 500+ psi pressures.

11/11/11

This post has no purpose other than being posted at 11:11:11 on 11/11/11 .... Happy Binary Day. :)

From The Web #1

As you trawl through the interwebs, you often find interesting things that are relevant to water rockets. As I collect these, I'll try to post them here.

• Rocket Electronics Info
  Although this covers mostly pyro rocket electronics, there are many good bits of information relevant to water rockets, especially the altimeters section.
  http://www.rocstock.org/wizards/rocket.electronics101.pdf

• Build Your Own Servo Controller
  Here is a tiny PICAXE-08M board that's very affordable and should be fairly easy to adapt to make a simple servo controller for parachute deployment.
  http://www.hvwtech.com/products_view.asp?ProductID=1056
  You could do all your configuration through it's serial port so there would be need for only minimal external components. You could also solder one of those small Assemtech G-switches directly to the board to detect launch.

• PL Premium in Oz
  Water rocketeer Voytek Szapirko contacted us last month with the news that he was able to find PL Premium for sale at his local hardware store Bowens in Melbourne/Hallam for $6.99 a tube.Thanks for the tip Voytek! :) If you are from Victoria keep a look out at your store. We don't have the chain here in NSW, but hopefully other stores here will catch on with the need for PL.
  
• Retro Water Rockets from 1959
  Apparently you need to wear a tie to launch these: http://books.google.com.au/books?id=KdwDAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA54&pg=PA94#v=onepage&q&f=false

Looking Up

I've uploaded the flight report from last weekend to our main website here:
http://www.AirCommandRockets.com/day112.htm
On this flight day we flew with the out-rigger boom again but this time looking up at the rocket to watch the parachute deploy mechanism in action. The update also contains photos and a highlights video from the day.

Migrating Videos to New YouTube channel

As we did a couple of years ago with the website, we’ve finally decided to bite the bullet and start migrating all the videos from the current YouTube channel to a specific Air Command Water Rockets Channel. I’ve been wanting to do this for quite a while since the existing channel was only ever a temporary one. With the normal slow down over the Christmas period, it will be a good opportunity to do so. We have a number of videos spread across Vimeo, MySpace, YouTube and several other hosts so we will consolidate all these into the single channel. It will be easier to make up playlists of related videos and keep them all organised, especially as they relate to each project. I’m also hoping to upgrade the YouTube channel so we can provide extra features.

The biggest drawback is that the comments from people will be lost, links to the videos will be broken, but if I don’t do the migration now, it would just get worse into the future. I am backing up the comments though. Expect videos to start disappearing over the coming weeks/months from our current channel, and they will be re-uploaded to the new channel over time. I will also update the links to the video from our website, or where I can.

Some of the older videos were also uploaded only in lower resolution, so where I can I will re-compress these again at higher resolution before uploading.

If you have been subscribed to our youtube http://www.youtube.com/user/gk123434534 channel and wish to continue receiving subscription updates please subscribe to our new channel here:

http://www.youtube.com/user/AirCommandRockets

All new videos from now on will also be uploaded to the new channel.

Thanks everyone for your support

Rockets - Dawn 'til dusk

We had a very busy rocket day yesterday with our regular NSWRA launch at Doonside from early morning until noon, and then in the evening we had our NSWRA display at the Macquarie University Astronomy open night. We had lots and lots of people come up and ask questions about rocketry, and I'm sure there will be a few people that will come to the launches as a result of it. I'd say close to a couple of hundred people came to look at the display and have a chat. We had the G2 on display as well. I didn't get home until after 11:30pm last night.

I'll write up a full flight report and info about the Uni display in the next few days.

NSWRA at Mac Uni Astronomy Open Night

NSWRA (NSW Rocketry Association) is going to have a stall at the Macquarie University Astronomy Open Night this weekend Saturday October 29th from 6:30pm. If you want to find out more about rocketry and haven't had a chance to come to one of our NSWRA launches at Doonside, then why not stop by and have a chat.

There will be a number of NSWRA members to talk to. We'll be there as well for a part of the night.

Find out more here:
http://www.nswrocketry.org.au/PublicPages/Public_Mac_Uni_Open_Night.html

So how big is The Shadow?

Now that we have most of the components made, we are in the process of assembling them into the actual rocket. Here is a picture of the pressure chamber with payload bay and nosecone fitted on top. The entire rocket is 2580mm tall (~8.5 feet).

 I've added some more progress photos from the last week of construction here:
http://www.aircommandrockets.com/shadow.htm#_151011

There is still lots to do on this rocket, but it's good to see it finally in context so that we can finish designing the launcher and figure out how we fill it with water and launch it. We're hoping to assemble the pressure chamber over the next week and pressure test it. For the pressure test we are going to need to finish the launcher, as it will be the only thing that will seal against the nozzle.

Otherwise progress on other projects is on the back burner for now as my regular daytime work has been extra busy lately.

Shadow progress update

We've been busy this week making good progress on The Shadow. We now have a new set of fin guides that will be used to align the fins. We made a new coupler mandrel and have made a number of fiberglass couplers for joining tubes. We also started working on the business end of the rocket today and machined the nozzle and the nozzle seat it will sit on. We are having to build a completely new launcher for this rocket to handle the higher pressures.

Updates from the last several days are here:
http://www.aircommandrockets.com/shadow.htm#_270911

(NOTE: You may need to refresh the page as sometimes it gets cached and you won't see the updates.)

Nozzle seat and nozzle

 Fin guides to align fins

Casual flights

While we still work on the bigger rockets, we took the opportunity last weekend to do a few casual flights at the NSWRA launch day. It's always nice to get out and launch a few without having to do a lot of preparation. These rockets were quickly assembled from the set of spare parts we have on hand. We flew the HD camera again on all the flights.

Here is the update: http://www.AirCommandRockets.com/day111.htm

Panorama taken from the last flight

The Shadow

Rocket build progress has been continuing at a good pace. We currently have a number of concurrent builds under way. These include the Acceleron V high pressure sustainer upgrade, the Polaron G2 phase 2 booster development and our newest project called "The Shadow".

We have actually been working on The Shadow for a number of months, but hadn't published details about it yet, though we have been taking pictures and keeping a build log of the rocket development. We have now uploaded the build log to our website so you too can follow along with the development. So far it's been an interesting project to work on and has consumed perhaps 60% of our build time.

The project now has its own build page rather than scattering bits of information about it in the various flight log updates. We'll keep the page updated as we go and post the flight reports in the regular updates.

http://www.AirCommandRockets.com/shadow.htm

Side Deployment Parachute Mechanism Tutorial

It's been a while since the last update, but rocket development has continued. We are currently working on the G2 boosters and have been doing a number of tests. We’ve also been building up our spliced bottle stock pile and spare deployment mechanisms for our rockets. It’s always good to have both components on hand so that we can assemble rockets quickly and have spares when they crash. While making the spare nosecones we took some time to document how we build them.  

The new side deployment mechanism tutorial is mostly based on our previous version. This one incorporates a couple of improvements we’ve been using for a while that makes them easier to build and more reliable.

And a big thank you also goes to Doug from Escape Water Rockets for helping us source some components for the Servo Timer II when the local supplier ran out and was going to take a couple of months to get them back in stock. 

G2 - Phase 2 Development

We have been continuing to do further development on the G2 rocket. This week we did a number of static tests with the G2 main stage to see what amount of thrust it will produce and what the thrust duration will be.  The rocket was connected to the load cell so we could measure the thrust accurately. We are looking for a nice long burn with this rocket and managed to get about 10.5 - 11 second long burn. :)

The full progress report is here:  http://www.AirCommandRockets.com/day110.htm

G2 launch report

I've updated the main website with the launch report from this weekend. The update includes photos and a highlights video from the two G2 flights we did on the day.

The update is here: http://www.AirCommandRockets.com/day109.htm

I'll soon be posting build progress updates as we get rolling on phase 2 of the G2 project.

Right, time to get back to the workshop...

More Polaron G2 flights

After a short break from building water rockets to catch up on a number of other projects, we decided to take the Polaron G2 for an airing again. The launch conditions were great today with blue skies and virtually no wind. The rocket configuration was identical to the previous flight. We launched the rocket twice, once at 230psi and once at 240psi. The rocket performed really well with good deploys just past apogee and both the primary and backup parachutes opening right on cue on both flights. 

Turning on electronics prior to pressurising.
Paul at the ready to arm and launch the rocket.

We'll do a full write up with more photos and video on our main website in the next few days.

Pan Cam - A different perspective

This weekend we trialled our Pan Cam to try to get a different perspective on a water rocket launch. The camera is set up on a tripod and controlled by an RC servo, so that when the rocket launches the camera pans with the rocket to keep it in frame.

We were happy with how the videos turned out. The full details and video have been posted on our main website here:

http://www.AirCommandRockets.com/day108.htm

Update: The original concept of the panning camera for a water rocket triggered by launch was first developed by wyldbytes. He presents his idea here: http://www.wyldbytes.co.uk/?p=225 as a part of an automated and servo controlled launch trigger. A video demonstrating the concept is here: http://youtu.be/F284FmfZuMI

This is the Pan Cam camera:

Here is a captured video frame from the camera:

Quick update

I've done a quick update on the main site from the last test flight launch day:

http://www.aircommandrockets.com/day107.htm

The last couple of weeks have been really busy with the timers so not a whole lot of new rocket development has been happening. We want to thank everyone for their support on the timers. We ran out of stock from the initial run a lot sooner than we thought, but new parts were ordered over the weekend so hopefully they should start arriving shortly, and the timers will be available again soon after that. Some of the components come from the US and some from the UK.