What a weekend! Starship catch and a new video from you guys. Love it. The release mechanism looks quite sketchy with the bend sheet metal, in comparison to the carbon brackets 😅. Very well thought through though. The multiple redirects of the 100kg forces is real clever to get the load of the servos and therefore reduce weight. And the 6 year old components fitting right in. This project amazes us every time. Greetings from Germany
Thanks! The booster catch was mind blowing! :) The sheet metal seemed like the appropriate material to use in this instance for what we needed it to do. I also had half a day to get it done so we would launch on schedule.
Hello George and family. I've watched the whole series in a few day, since I stumbled upon it. I must congratulate you and your whole team of helpers/family. I also like your dads accent in the times he talks, I won't make any predictions though 🙂. This is a super and meticulously thought through project with many years of dedication, just amazing. Thanks to you all and a world record isn't done lightly either, bravo! Cheers 👍💪✌
Always love to see an update from you guys! I could imagine if your neighbours didn't know what you were doing they'd probably think you were crazy haha :)
Yup, they already know we are crazy. Actually all the neighbours are really good about it and know that the odd explosion in our back yard is nothing to be concerned about.
Watching each video with awe and joy! Question: can the cam in the release mechanism shake itself free during launch? Or is it held back via spring tension?
I love you guys! I guess if the second stage came down fully presurised, you would have to disarm it with a rifle? I hope you guys watch BPS space? Can you not use his micro controller?
Yup, that was my concern too. In the end we ended up removing the non-return valve in the stager, and left only a little hole so it had a slow leak. If the sustainer didn't release then it would have depressurised in around 50 seconds.
Great job! Cannot wait for the other videos! What I'm wondering is why are you releasing the 2nd stage so early? It looked like there were still a few meters to go...
Thanks! That's a really good question. You normally want to release the second stage when the 1st stage is going at maximum speed rather than at the apogee of the 1st stage. The second reason is that when the 1st stage starts slowing down, the water in the second stage is going to start moving up inside the rocket, and the air will go down towards the nozzle. If you stage at that point a lot of the air will exit the nozzle before the water does and you won't have a very efficient burn. So we stage the rocket before that happens too much.
Wouldn't it be possible to do staging without electronics? (esp considering that seems it's only doing preset time, so not even that smart). I think in some of your older rockets you relied on the fact that booster was providing more thrust/force and thus it sorta would fall down when it ran out of pressure. Couldn't there be some mechanical linkage relying on let say "break line"/string and booster thrust that keeps sager locked, then during launch break string "pulls the pin" so to speak and only thrust from boosters is keeping levers locked, and when they run out of pressure it auto unlocks (I suspect spring needs to be involved :) )? Seems like a lot of weight and complexity just to time, when mechanical force detection might even be simpler (provided it does not jam due to vibrations and what not)?
That is a very reasonable question. In our drop away boosters set up, it was possible because the main stage was firing at the same time as the boosters, and so when the boosters produced less thrust than the main stage, then they would slide backwards. In our setup here we don't have a way to measure thrust, so realistically the only mechanical option would be to detect negative Gs when the thrust is lower than drag and then somehow be able to generate enough force to stage the next stage. However, we don't want to wait for -ve Gs as we don't necessarily want to give the water in the second stage an opportunity to move too far forward and switch places with the pressurised air, because staging at that point would let all the air out first before all the water has a chance to come out. With the electronic timer we can exactly set the timing and we know we can get enough force from the servo to drive any release mechanism. We can also test it repeatedly on a static test stand.
@@AirCommandRockets Yeah I guess test-ability is one very strong point for electronics. Yet, I'm still thinking that it's possible to do it without, suppose you have spring trying to open the staging, and as long as booster is pushing with sufficient force, spring is overpowered and there is no staging, put spring on some screw and one should be able to tune the force, thus allowing to say stage then booster looses 90% of it's thrust, or 80% if you compress spring even more. Other potential pure mechanical triggers could also be option, but probably even harder to test, something like "mechanical air speed sensing", but that's probably way to theoretical to be practical. In any case love your work through all the years!
You reminded me that I have been watching you guys for 10 years already :)
What a weekend! Starship catch and a new video from you guys. Love it.
The release mechanism looks quite sketchy with the bend sheet metal, in comparison to the carbon brackets 😅. Very well thought through though. The multiple redirects of the 100kg forces is real clever to get the load of the servos and therefore reduce weight. And the 6 year old components fitting right in.
This project amazes us every time.
Greetings from Germany
Thanks! The booster catch was mind blowing! :) The sheet metal seemed like the appropriate material to use in this instance for what we needed it to do. I also had half a day to get it done so we would launch on schedule.
Hello George and family. I've watched the whole series in a few day, since I stumbled upon it.
I must congratulate you and your whole team of helpers/family. I also like your dads accent in the times he talks, I won't make any predictions though 🙂.
This is a super and meticulously thought through project with many years of dedication, just amazing.
Thanks to you all and a world record isn't done lightly either, bravo!
Cheers 👍💪✌
Thanks very much for following along. :)
I love the analogy to an OR gate
I thought a few people might get it. :)
Lovely and informative as ever!
Excellent as always 👌
This just keeps getting more impressive. Thanks to you all.
Cheers!
Very clever and inspirational!
Always love to see an update from you guys! I could imagine if your neighbours didn't know what you were doing they'd probably think you were crazy haha :)
Yup, they already know we are crazy. Actually all the neighbours are really good about it and know that the odd explosion in our back yard is nothing to be concerned about.
Next up, catching the sustainer with a giant mechazilla tower 8)
haha! I'm really keen to see who is actually going to try that with a model rocket.
Watching each video with awe and joy!
Question: can the cam in the release mechanism shake itself free during launch? Or is it held back via spring tension?
Thanks! That's a really good question. There is a little rubber band at the bottom of the cam for exactly that reason.
@@AirCommandRockets
Thanks for your reply!
I didn't spot the rubber band ;)
I love you guys! I guess if the second stage came down fully presurised, you would have to disarm it with a rifle? I hope you guys watch BPS space? Can you not use his micro controller?
Yup, that was my concern too. In the end we ended up removing the non-return valve in the stager, and left only a little hole so it had a slow leak. If the sustainer didn't release then it would have depressurised in around 50 seconds.
Great job! Cannot wait for the other videos!
What I'm wondering is why are you releasing the 2nd stage so early? It looked like there were still a few meters to go...
Thanks! That's a really good question. You normally want to release the second stage when the 1st stage is going at maximum speed rather than at the apogee of the 1st stage. The second reason is that when the 1st stage starts slowing down, the water in the second stage is going to start moving up inside the rocket, and the air will go down towards the nozzle. If you stage at that point a lot of the air will exit the nozzle before the water does and you won't have a very efficient burn. So we stage the rocket before that happens too much.
@@AirCommandRockets Thanks, that makes sense.
Wouldn't it be possible to do staging without electronics? (esp considering that seems it's only doing preset time, so not even that smart). I think in some of your older rockets you relied on the fact that booster was providing more thrust/force and thus it sorta would fall down when it ran out of pressure. Couldn't there be some mechanical linkage relying on let say "break line"/string and booster thrust that keeps sager locked, then during launch break string "pulls the pin" so to speak and only thrust from boosters is keeping levers locked, and when they run out of pressure it auto unlocks (I suspect spring needs to be involved :) )? Seems like a lot of weight and complexity just to time, when mechanical force detection might even be simpler (provided it does not jam due to vibrations and what not)?
That is a very reasonable question. In our drop away boosters set up, it was possible because the main stage was firing at the same time as the boosters, and so when the boosters produced less thrust than the main stage, then they would slide backwards. In our setup here we don't have a way to measure thrust, so realistically the only mechanical option would be to detect negative Gs when the thrust is lower than drag and then somehow be able to generate enough force to stage the next stage. However, we don't want to wait for -ve Gs as we don't necessarily want to give the water in the second stage an opportunity to move too far forward and switch places with the pressurised air, because staging at that point would let all the air out first before all the water has a chance to come out. With the electronic timer we can exactly set the timing and we know we can get enough force from the servo to drive any release mechanism. We can also test it repeatedly on a static test stand.
@@AirCommandRockets Yeah I guess test-ability is one very strong point for electronics. Yet, I'm still thinking that it's possible to do it without, suppose you have spring trying to open the staging, and as long as booster is pushing with sufficient force, spring is overpowered and there is no staging, put spring on some screw and one should be able to tune the force, thus allowing to say stage then booster looses 90% of it's thrust, or 80% if you compress spring even more. Other potential pure mechanical triggers could also be option, but probably even harder to test, something like "mechanical air speed sensing", but that's probably way to theoretical to be practical.
In any case love your work through all the years!
Early