Altimeters

[Conway StevensParticipant]

Bruce thats a great question. Not only the durabillity but how about those Mach issues. With delays and such I think motors like this can be trick for that. The biggest things Ive seen is Capacitors and tall standing componets that arent layed down and fastened to the board real great. As much as I love my RRC2X from Jim i think they may have some bad issues trying such hot loads like these. Im pretty confident at the looks of my ARTS (finally got it) that this may not be a problem also because it arms with g switch should fix any Mach delay issues. I think its up to us as consumers of these products to actually push on or better term suggest lots that we need these improvements for such reasons.

[Bruce R. Schaefer]

Agreed. Plus we always have epoxy. 😀

[Conway StevensParticipant]

But I would like for the manufactures to help solve this problem as the epoxy does void all warranty. I think with a lil creative thought it could be done very easy. They just have to relize things change and they must match those times. Its the progression of supplying better new inovative products.

[Bruce R. Schaefer]

Absolutely, Conway. As I write this I’m going through my altimeter manuals for mach delay times. You’re right. The MAWD goes in increments of 2 seconds (remember these are < one second powered flights), my Blacksky AltAcc2C is immune to mach effects (with both accelermeter and barometric sensors, it will lean towards the accelerometer over mach 1... I hope), and the G-Wiz LC uses an accelerometer (no mach worries), [NOTE: both of these have a max acceleration of 50g's], the MWC RRC2X/40K has mach delays of 4/10 sec., 8/15 sec., and 12/25 sec. I have two Adept altimeters that are used just for altitude, no ejection. If anyone expects acceleration of 50-100+ g's, then I don't know of any altimeter that's going to work reliably. Any thoughts?

[Doug GerrardParticipant]

I have a G-Whiz MC high G that is rated for 100 g’s. The components are coated in epoxy and perhaps a different accelerometer. Check out

http://www.gwiz-partners.com/html/g-wiz_mc2.html

[Bruce R. Schaefer]

Doug,
That’s perfect, and what I feel it will take to get a reliable ejection charge with these new reloads. I plan to use my G-Wiz LC as the redundant part of my L3 (it’s not the nice G-Wiz MC2 that you have though)–although the MWC radio controlled ejection charge electronics would be my first choice, but can’t afford it right now, and the Blacksky AltAcc2C for the primary charge. Actually, they’ll both fire in the best case. My bird isn’t dual deploy, keeping it simple and as cheap (but reliable) as I can.

[Doug GerrardParticipant]

Sounds like a good plan. For redundancy you can use the two electric matches going into the same charge. If you want to have separate charges for each unit, you can program the MC to fire 1 sec after apogee to ensure they don’t fire at the same time. I don’t know if that feature is available on the LC.

Doug

[Bruce R. Schaefer]

Doug, you made me get out the manuals. 😀 And I wasn’t able to find which altimeter of mine does that. It’s either the G-Wiz I have, the Blacksky or the MWC that does that, too. The only concern I have is if the battery on one altimeter becomes dislodged, and I’m left with two dead channels. On the cert, I want to use two separate altimeters, just to be safe and certified.

[denverdoc]

You guys have more guts than I–you can already see a shape to AT’s new plan–make motors so fast, you need AT electronics. OK, unduly cynical. I suggested to Jim A that he continue the legacy products and offer an upgrade as in a prone supercap for this reason.

Until then I am not using anything but the microgram timers that Robert DeHate sells for a song. Lose one, its 15 bucks, yea they need to be programmed and you gotta read a shematic, and add a few parts depending on app, but all one needs is a Li photo bat and friendly e-matches….
John S

[Doug GerrardParticipant]

I was at LDRS next to Aerotech and they were demonstrating their new products. In particular ws a nifty littly device that was an electronic delay element. It screwed onto the forward end of the motor and was programmable from 1 to 6000 seconds, talk about a coast time!

Anyway, beside the obvious advantages there is one subtle reason why they would have come out with such a device now. Its the new “warp-9” motors. The burn time on some of them is only 0.3 sec and I suspect that some electronics may not sense take off unless the acceleration is over 0.5 seconds long. Before flying the H999 and other warp 9 motors you want to look at the manuals for your electronics on what it takes to detect liftoff.

Doug

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