Lonnie Utah
Member
Hi everyone,
First time poster.
About a year ago my 12 y/o boy scout son bought a rocket kit from hobby lobby to complete the "space exploration merit badge" where Requirement #3 is "Build, launch, and recover a model rocket.* Make a second launch to accomplish a specific objective." He had such a good time with it, he parlayed it into two other badges, electronics and movie making. As part of the process, we've built his own launch controller and several Arduino based altimeters (with a custom printed circuit board.) Our next project is designing an Arduino based altimeter and GPS transmitter along with a corresponding base station receiver.
We had an exceptionally nice day yesterday for Feb so headed out to the soccer fields where we normally fly. He'd recently gotten an deal on an Estes Amazon and wanted to test it out. He decided to do a double launch with his ESAM-58 (comparable size weight) We put our small altimeters in the nose cones and launched both of them. Both of them ended up being ground strikes. The body tube of the amazon was torn/damaged by the impact. We launched the ESAM again without the electronic package with similar results. Ground strike. I'm including the flight data below.
As you can see, both rockets flew ballistically and less than 120' in altitude. (the tracks end early because either the battery came off the altimeter or the microSD card was dislodged by the impact.) I know these are heavy rockets for these engines. But we've flown the Esam on B4-4's before with good results. The question is, did we get a bad batch of engines? Seems like it to me. Trying to figure out if it's worth an e-mail to Estes or not.
Anyway, looking forward to learning alot from the smart folks here...
First time poster.
About a year ago my 12 y/o boy scout son bought a rocket kit from hobby lobby to complete the "space exploration merit badge" where Requirement #3 is "Build, launch, and recover a model rocket.* Make a second launch to accomplish a specific objective." He had such a good time with it, he parlayed it into two other badges, electronics and movie making. As part of the process, we've built his own launch controller and several Arduino based altimeters (with a custom printed circuit board.) Our next project is designing an Arduino based altimeter and GPS transmitter along with a corresponding base station receiver.
We had an exceptionally nice day yesterday for Feb so headed out to the soccer fields where we normally fly. He'd recently gotten an deal on an Estes Amazon and wanted to test it out. He decided to do a double launch with his ESAM-58 (comparable size weight) We put our small altimeters in the nose cones and launched both of them. Both of them ended up being ground strikes. The body tube of the amazon was torn/damaged by the impact. We launched the ESAM again without the electronic package with similar results. Ground strike. I'm including the flight data below.
As you can see, both rockets flew ballistically and less than 120' in altitude. (the tracks end early because either the battery came off the altimeter or the microSD card was dislodged by the impact.) I know these are heavy rockets for these engines. But we've flown the Esam on B4-4's before with good results. The question is, did we get a bad batch of engines? Seems like it to me. Trying to figure out if it's worth an e-mail to Estes or not.
Anyway, looking forward to learning alot from the smart folks here...