I was prepping the electronics for the next flight of my rocket yesterday, and when I attached the igniter to the electronics terminal... POOF!!! The igniter fired. Needless to say, something was malfunctioning. I checked th manual, and one thing I saw was that if you switch the battery polarity it would result in the immediate firing of any attached igniters. So I checked and triple-checked the terminals, and they were definately in the right order. So I have a puzzle on my hands.
This was a very dangerous situation. Had I stuck the igniter into the motor first, a G71 would have fired in my bedroom!
Things will probably work out, however, because the launch for today got postponed because of rain and thunderstorms, so that gives me time to order new electronics.
4 comments:
I don't think I wanted to know that was what I heard last night Bro! (Just kidding)
sWow, I am glad you are alright. Hope nothing was damaged to bad.
Your multi stage rocket was really nice. My homeschool group is doing a small competition with rockets and I was wondering if maybe you could please point me in the right direction for something cool but not to complex and expensive?
Chip
Well... what kind of competition is it? What is the goal? Is it maximum altitude? Is it scientific inquiry?
It's hard to give advice like this, but one thing I can recomend is checking out a few books on the subject, like the "Handbook of Model Rocketry" by G. Harry Stine. That book really helped me get started in rocketry.
I used to build all my components myself...so I ended up learning how to do things the hard way sometimes. A cheap place to get quality components for your rockets (like nosecones, body tubes, motor mounts, etc) is ApogeeRockets.com. Or, if you want to build a kit, there are a lot of cool ones out there from Estes Rockets, but I tended not to go this route because I like an engineering challenge...so I designed all my rockets from scratch.
Hope I helped, and have fun. There is a TON to learn in the field of model rocketry.
~DTH Rocket
Okay thanks. I think the competition is something like the highest it can go, but the rocket has to be a certain size.
So thanks again, I will look into those things.
Chip
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