Testing beyond 300psi and old videos

This week dad set up new test equipment for us to use so that we can test beyond 300psi. Which is what our high pressure test panel went up to. We now have test capability up to around 800psi, though we would need to replace the air hose with a high pressure one for the upper range. We mostly wanted to see at what pressure the fiberglass bottles will fail so that we know what the safe launch pressure is.

We now have a nice giant pressure gauge which makes it easy to see.... even by those at the back of the classroom. :)

As we look to upgrade Acceleron V to higher pressures we have to check the individual components to see if they will be up to the job. Here dad was testing the thin plastic tubing we are using for the sustainer air supply line. It goes between the baseplate release mechanism and the staging mechanism with a non-return valve along the way. It says on the side it is rated to 50psi operational pressure. We have been pressurising it to 130psi (having previously tested it to 180psi) With our rocket pressures now nearing 250psi, this was always likely to be a weak point ......

Here it is still holding around 630psi! ....If you notice in the background, the whole experiment is now covered with a pile of concrete pavers.

Old Videos

About a week ago we noticed that some of the older videos on our website weren't playing. I'm not sure how long it's been like that. These mostly covered flight days 1 to 55. It turns out MySpace changed how videos are embedded and that broke all the existing embeded URLs. *sheesh*

So tonight I've gone back and fixed up all the embedding code to reflect how MySpace wants to do it .... until next time. We've stopped using MySpace around day 55 for our videos and now almost exclusively upload to YouTube.

I must go back and check over other broken links on the website as some things have disappeared. I try to fix them as I come across them, but there are always new ones. If people come across broken links please let me know and I'll try to fix them if possible.
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