Quick Launcher and on-board HD video

We tested the new launcher this weekend with a couple of small rockets at the local park. It is very easy to setup and pack up again. Transportation is a lot easier as well. I've posted an update on our main site with details on how it works, as well as a video showing how it's set up and used.

The update is available here: http://www.aircommandrockets.com/day104.htm

The Quick Launcher in it's packed up configuration.

We also test flew our first HD camera on a rocket. For the $40 we paid for it, it produces pretty nice quality video and it's lightweight. The above update includes a couple of videos from the camera, though it's lower quality because YouTube re-compresses it.

 Panorama constructed from 3 images from the HD camera.

Repairs

This week we've been repairing the damage to the G2 rocket. Last night I finished the G2 backup parachute system. The fairing is new as is the coreflute framework. I straightened all the bent pins on the electronics and resoldered all the severed wires and fitted new connectors. I also replaced the 3 Lipo batteries. All the electronics are the same from the original rocket including the servo motor. Despite being scattered in a wide area in the explosion, it's surprising that all the important bits survived. That's around $200 worth of electronics. I'm still waiting for the camera and micro SD cards to be delivered hopefully this week.

Repaired Backup parachute system with altimeter.  

 The main deployment mechanism is also pretty much repaired and only needing a new coat of paint. There was only minor fiberglass damage to the body.

Damaging the medium launcher in the explosion is giving us the opportunity to redesign the launcher. The new launcher is going to be a single rail design and the rocket will use buttons to attach to the rail. The main driving principle for this launcher is quick setup and portability. The medium launcher although very versatile was taking around 10 minutes to set up and 10 minutes to take down. The new launcher should be about 2 minutes.

Polaron G2 CATO

We had an interesting weekend this week. We finished the new Polaron G2 rocket, and took it out for a launch. Unfortunately things did not quite go according to the script.

The full flight day report gives details how we created a nice sculpture for the rocket range.

http://www.aircommandrockets.com/day103.htm

The report includes a highlights video including the CATO in slow-mo.The rocket and launcher are already being rebuilt and we will have another go again soon. The website update also has more detailed photos of the new side deploy mechanism and payload bay with a backup parachute.

Servo Timer II test flights

This weekend we went down to the local park to start the Servo Timer II trial flights. We flew a total of 7 flights with the timer and thankfully all worked well. Two of the flights included the uMAD for triggering the timer at apogee.

The full launch report along with a highlights video is here:


http://www.aircommandrockets.com/day102.htm

We are now preparing larger rockets to continue the tests. We would like to do an additional 10-15 more flights before starting a production run of the timers. Yesterday I was going to do some tests with one of the timers, and noticed that I had left the power switch ON, and completely drained the battery over the last few days. So this morning I updated the firmware to flash the LED briefly every 5 seconds to remind me to turn the power off.

Website Issues

We host our website with GoDaddy, but it looks like they have been having some issues over the last couple of days. It was up briefly yesterday, but it looks like they are having issues again today. Lots of people are reporting the same problems as well. Hopefully the website will be up again soon.

Wet but productive weekend

Unfortunately we didn't get to test fly the servo timers this weekend as it pretty much rained both days. We had over 100mm at our place. So it was a good time to spend in the workshop. We are trying to build up our inventory of spare parts so we can focus on flying rather than fixing. I'm also trying to get components ready for rockets to fly at Williams later this year.

We are making a big run of spliced quads at the moment that will be fiberglassed, both 90mm and 110mm. This weekend we cleaned, cut, shrank and curled some 70 bottles.

Here they have been shrunk and are ready to be curled.

After curling they have been paired up ready for sanding and gluing. This should give us about 10 x 110mm quads and about 11 x 90mm quads.

We also fiberglassed two more 110mm spliced quads yesterday. These will be used as spares on the flight day of G2. We have 6 of these now, with 4 of them still needing to be pressure tested to 270psi. Some of the fiberglassed 90mm spliced quads are going to be used in Acceleron V's sustainer. I'm looking forward to this flight as it will be our first dual pressure launch.

We also made a new 90mm nosecone with the Servo Timer II which uses the small LiPo batteries. This new nosecone including the fairing it sits on weighs in at 86 grams. Our regular nosecones weigh around 154 grams. The nosecone also uses a new ejection plate mechanism that has more force to get the parachute out. I'll post details and photos with the next web page update. We are using the same technique for ejecting the G2's backup parachute.

We are currently planning to launch the G2 with just 3 spliced quads (~15L) on the first flight, just in case the rocket again decides to drill a fence post hole. If the first flight goes OK, then we will screw in the fourth bottle and launch again.

ServoTimer II video

I've posted a video on YouTube of the Servo Timer II prototype in operation. The video shows the normal operation, configuration, as well as how to interface it to external sensors like the magnetic apogee detector (MAD) from Whooshtronics. It also shows how you can chain the timers together for driving multiple servo motors for things like staging and parachute deployment, or drogue/main parachute functionality.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYx-oPSQK8c

Panorama tutorial

I've uploaded a tutorial on how to make panoramic images from on-board rocket videos taken with small cameras such as the 808 keychain or MD80 clone.

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

It requires you to have Photoshop, and VirtualDub (which is free).

ServoTimer II prototype

In the last couple of days I've soldered up the first prototype of the ServoTimer II.

 Top and bottom view of the timer

 Here it is next to V1.6 of the flight computer

I finally, got it running and bench tested tonight. I'll make up a couple more in the upcoming days and then fit them in deployment mechanisms and test fly them quite a few times. If all goes well, then I'll get actual boards made by a PCB manufacturer.

All up it weighs ~6 grams with the battery clip adding another 2 grams.

Foam flights

This weekend we went to the NSWRA launch event again, but because we didn't have the Polaron G2 rocket quite ready yet, we just flew smaller rockets. These were basically assembled the night before launch out of spare components. The update is here along with a highlights video:

http://www.AirCommandRockets.com/day101.htm

Bottle Splicing Tutorial

Over the last couple of years we’ve had a number of requests for a tutorial on splicing same sized bottles. We found that the technique we used to use ( http://www.aircommandrockets.com/construction_2.htm#SplicingBottles ) would work on 1.25L bottles but did not translate well to 2 Liter bottles. No matter how carefully we would do the symmetrical splices on the larger bottles we would often end up with a small leak and the whole splice had to be thrown away. Sleeves larger than 2L bottles which could be shrunk to size were also increasingly difficult to get.

So we developed a modified splicing technique, that we now use for 2L bottles. We posted the technique in outline form here http://ausrocketry.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=26084#p26084 last year, but finally got around to actually finishing the tutorial this week. Talk about dragging our heels.

It’s by no means the only way to splice 2L bottles, but it’s a technique we’ve found reliable and haven’t had a single leak since we started using it. The splices hold up well to repeated launches and non-destructive pressure test cycles to 140psi. We are currently using it on our Acceleron V and Polaron VII rockets.

Here is the full tutorial that also includes a how-to video:

http://www.aircommandrockets.com/construction_6.htm

If people do end up using this technique, we would love to get feedback about what worked for you and what didn’t and perhaps ways to improve or even simplify it.

Polaron G2 - Flight report

I’ve finished uploading the flight report from last weekend. The report has information about what we think went wrong and includes photos and a highlights video from the day.

http://www.AirCommandRockets.com/day100.htm

 

We are in the process of rebuilding the rocket, so hopefully it won’t be too long before it’s up in the air again. It’s always easier to build the rocket a second time, because we know how to build it and what materials we need. The first build always takes a while as we try different prototypes.

Polaron G2 - First flight

We launched the G2 rocket for the first time today, but the flight didn't quite go according to plan. As a result the rocket could now almost fit in your car's glove compartment. There were a couple of small issues that will need fixing, but overall not too bad. On the way home from the launch site we figured out what we need to do, and will start on the repairs today. We are hoping to have it ready again for the next NSWRA launch.

I will post the usual flight day report in the coming days. Though the rocket was ....well let's not beat about the bush.... destroyed, we did learn a lot from the attempt, and though disappointing, as always this is just another step in the development process.We have altimeter & acceleration data as well as on-board video so that will gives us more information about what to expect on the next flight.

... right time to head back to the workshop.....

G2 nosecone test flights

This weekend we went down to the local park to test fly the G2 nosecone on a small rocket. Both flights went well and so we can now mount the nosecone on the G2 rocket.
I've put together an update on our main website with more pictures and a video that shows how the mechanism works as well as footage from the test flights.

The update is available here:
http://www.AirCommandRockets.com/day99.htm

3 Projects

Although I haven’t done new updates to the main website for a while, I have been busy with 3 rocket related projects, mostly the reason I haven’t done an update. The main project has been to get the Polaron G2 flight ready. As a part of that I have the deployment mechanism ready for flight testing on a small rocket this Sunday at the local park. If everything goes well, I’ll mount the mechanism on the G2 rocket ready for next week’s launch. Craig lent me one of his latest flight computers to fly along and gather data. It will also serve as a backup altimeter for the flight. I still need to mount it in the payload bay.

The second project has been writing an application to go with Craig’s flight computer that can visualize the recorded data and configure the flight computer. I’ll post more data on this later with the first official release of this application. This has been taking up at least half of my rocket time.

The third project is the next iteration of the flight computer we use in our rockets. I’ve got the prototype working now on a breadboard, and all the new firmware has been written. I’m currently choosing the final SMD components and then I’ll finish off the PCB layout. This version is simpler to use and less than half the size and weight of V1.6. It should also be cheaper. It will still be a while before these are available as I need to write the documentation and do flight testing first. At the moment it’s looking like 3 months or so due to all the other projects.

Christmas vacation

It’s been a while since the last update. We’ve just returned from 3 weeks in Colorado enjoying the solid rocket fuel … err I mean snow with the family over Christmas and New Year, but it’s good to be back in the warm weather again.

We have a much better appreciation for what it would be like launching water rockets in the cold weather. While there we visited one store in a small town called the “Nearly everything store” http://nearlyeverythingstore.com/. The store itself is quite small but they do have a huge selection of stuff. Amongst the toys, guns, pharmaceuticals, fishing gear, office supplies, crafts and snow gear they had a good selection of pyro rocket kits as well as motors at a great price, and what impressed me the most was that I even found tornado couplings there! So I bought a couple. :)

We got to visit the air and space museum in Denver as well. Here I am explaining the finer details of how a cruise missile attaches to the B1 just above our heads, while leaning on the thermo nuclear device just behind us. This museum is definitely well worth a visit. 

I also purchased a number tubes of PL premium while in the US. From the last trip I knew to leave them near the top of the checked-in luggage for easy inspection by the airport TSA authorities. Sure enough, out of the four bags we had, the two that were inspected were the ones with the glue in them. I knew they were inspected because the TSA officials left a slips of paper inside the inspected bags. But all is good, and so we have more glue now for splicing. We didn’t have any issues going through customs in Oz. We still had a couple of tubes from the last trip but they are approaching their expiry date.

With the trip over we can now again start concentrating on building and launching more rockets, and more frequent updates as well.

Sneak Preview ...

Here is a sneak preview of the Polaron G2 rocket in the Phase 1 configuration. We decided to extend the rocket by another spliced quad for just over 21L of goodness.:) It's just on 3m long (~10 feet). When launched at 250psi, it will be the pyro equivalent of an H500.

Probably another two or three more days work is required before it's first test flight. Simulations for this rocket are looking quite good, and even more interesting for the boosted version. Though real life never quite agrees with the sims so we'll just have to fly it to see the actual performance.

Polaron G2 - Recovery System

I've posted more details of the G2 recovery system on our main website here:

http://www.AirCommandRockets.com/day98.htm

We didn't get it quite finished for testing at last weekend's NSWRA launch, but hopefully it should be ready for testing on the next launch. So far it is working well on the table. It will need to get painted next. The update also includes a highlights video from this weekend's launch showing both pyro and water rockets.

Simple multi-stage Parachute Release mechanism

We have been using a simple parachute deployment technique on our multi-stage rockets for the past couple of years, and although we have posted pictures of it previously we have never documented it properly. So I've added a tutorial to the main website that explains how to make it. It takes only about 15 minutes to make and doesn't really cost anything.

The tutorial can be found here:

http://www.AirCommandRockets.com/construction_5.htm

Time to Backup

I thought I'd give you a friendly reminder to GO BACKUP YOUR DATA today. This week our main computer had frozen a couple of times in unusual spots. A reboot fixed it and the computer ran fine again. It had been a couple of months since I did a full backup of everything on the main drive, all of our apps, family photos and movies as well as all the rocket related data are on it. I normally tend to forget to do backups on a regular basis, so I decided to do a full drive image backup. Normally I run it overnight because it takes about 5 hours, but I had decided to do it during the day since I wasn't going to need the computer. The back up finished just fine. The very next day, the computer would not boot at all, and it turns out the hard drive had died!

Talk about dodging a bullet!! ...

I bought a new drive the next day and restored the backup to it. A couple of minor configuration tweaks and the new drive booted with everything installed on it. I sure wasn't looking forward to having to re-install all the applications, drivers, and none of the lost data.

So go do your backups now!