We put a few more hours in today and last night. Major progress: wiring harnesses have been completed. The forward altimeter bay is nearly complete, requiring only the addition of some pressure vents for proper operation of the Raven altimeter, which is mounted inside on a custom-CNC milled carbon fiber sled (Scrap material from an earlier project, actually.) The top piston is nearly complete, it requires that the wiring terminals for the ignitor be installed and a small hole drilled through the plate for the ejection canister/ignitor to pass through. The hitch is that I provided false instructions on where to glue in a bulkhead, the center bulkhead in the middle of the twin recovery bay structure. This has left us with a very very short span for the main parachute bay; the piston has only about a foot of possible travel, meaning that either the piston will clear the end of the main deployment bay by slightly more than an inch, or we'll have to cut the main bay shorter, packing the parachute bay in a smaller space. That's what you get for making me tell you how to build it, Jane. =p We decided to fly as our fake payload a payload bay that I built in 2" blue tube for a different rocket, which i obviously won't be finishing and flying this month. *sigh* Anyways, this one will let us fly two more recording altimeters, verifying the accuracy of nosecone based altimeters. (This might be an issue because the pressure ports we'll be making are not totally perpendicular to airflow, due to the curvature of the nose cone, but they shouldn't be an issue.) Remaining tasks: Drill pressure ports in nosecone bay; complete wiring hookup (15 min) Drill pressure relief holes in my fake payload bay; apply some sort of spacing ring to simulate the "sensor ring" on the full-scale. Also complete wiring hook-up. (15 min) Resolve (somehow) my screwup with the shockcord. (?) Assemble second piston (~30min since constrained by pre-attached threaded-through shockcord) Final assembly (~30min) Finishing (sanding, painting, clearcoat, etc.) (however long we have) We fly in 13 days!!!!! |
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