Hello from Indiana, USA!

[skysaber89]

Hello all. I have been a member of the forum for a while, but I have not been active. I decided it may do me some good to introduce myself to the crowd and not just lurk.

I am 16 an I got started with water rockets a few years ago when we started doing it at scouts. I have since made several rockets, many of which are simple demo rockets. However I have built a couple larger rockets using a bunch of 24 oz Pepsi bottles. They have been quite successful, but in the end the parachute failing killed them both. I will try to include pics of my latest rocket, but if not shown please let me know. I hope to have some useful input in the future. Later y'all.

[anoymous]

what kind of deployment system do you use? a servo timer and side deploy? Or something chimical? Are the bottles at the right for foam in the rocket or for a sort of chimical deployment? And what is the black thing at the right above the bottles? A last question: wich launching mechanism do you use?
So, I think I have posted all questions possible.

[RaketfuedRockets]

This looks like a really nice rocket, sorry to hear about the crash.
What did you put in the top of the rocket? Looks like a sausage. ;)
Cheers
Julian from Team Raketfued

[skysaber89]

what kind of deployment system do you use? a servo timer and side deploy? Or something chimical? Are the bottles at the right for foam in the rocket or for a sort of chimical deployment? And what is the black thing at the right above the bottles? A last question: wich launching mechanism do you use?
So, I think I have posted all questions possible.

The bottles to the right are my water supply, soap for foam, and also a small nalgene for measuring the water capacity. There is also a makeshift funnel lying on the ground. I am not sure what black thing is being referred to, but I am guessing it may be my nalgene on the ground.

I used a servo timer and a side deploy mechanism.

My launch system varies. For this specific rocket I used a Gardena quick connect with a launch tube, but some of the rockets use the cable tie release. The launcher base has the capability to have launch systems be swapped in and out.

[skysaber89]

This looks like a really nice rocket, sorry to hear about the crash.
What did you put in the top of the rocket? Looks like a sausage. ;)
Cheers
Julian from Team Raketfued

The nosecone has some random bits of foam insulation (maybe?) cylinder things. I did that in the (inevitable) instance of my rocket crashing. I hoped it would add some padding... This it did not do...

[Blenderite]

The bottles to the right are my water supply, soap for foam, and also a small nalgene for measuring the water capacity. There is also a makeshift funnel lying on the ground. I am not sure what black thing is being referred to, but I am guessing it may be my nalgene on the ground.

I used a servo timer and a side deploy mechanism.

My launch system varies. For this specific rocket I used a Gardena quick connect with a launch tube, but some of the rockets use the cable tie release. The launcher base has the capability to have launch systems be swapped in and out.

What kind of servo timer did you use?

[skysaber89]

The bottles to the right are my water supply, soap for foam, and also a small nalgene for measuring the water capacity. There is also a makeshift funnel lying on the ground. I am not sure what black thing is being referred to, but I am guessing it may be my nalgene on the ground.

I used a servo timer and a side deploy mechanism.

My launch system varies. For this specific rocket I used a Gardena quick connect with a launch tube, but some of the rockets use the cable tie release. The launcher base has the capability to have launch systems be swapped in and out.

What kind of servo timer did you use?

I used the servochron system that US Water Rockets came up with, and also the little springy g-switch thing they designed to trigger the countdown

[Blenderite]

I used that for quite a while. Worked fairly well.

But the new USWaterRocket's ALTmeter is a better system, and not very expensive either. I would recommend that you upgrade to that.

[skysaber89]

I used that for quite a while. Worked fairly well.

But the new USWaterRocket's ALTmeter is a better system, and not very expensive either. I would recommend that you upgrade to that.

Funny story that is...I had originally intended to use the aforementioned system, but I managed to kill my first msp430 by plugging the power wires in hot to the board. I also killed the original altimeter thing I had purchased. I was working with a really limited time frame, about two weeks to launch day, so I ordered another msp430 and altimeter. This board I managed to get to the point where it will no longer flash the firmware, and I was testing the servochron firmware when I discovered this, so there it stayed. I have not gotten around to ordering more bits.
I contacted US water rockets for support, but they said that they had never seen my issues before.
I has skillz...

[Blenderite]

Hmm it won't flash the firmware? I assume that the program says it can't flash or does it say it succeeded but the new software isn't on the board?

Assuming it is the first, I would try to swap out the MSP430 chip and see if that fixes the problem. If it doesn't, take a double look at the board to make sure there isn't some blob of solder that fell where it wasn't supposed to be.

Last possibility I can think of is that you got a Lemon board from TI. I have gotten one of those out of the 6 I have ordered. Normally I would be kinda perturbed about something like that, but since the product is so cheap, I am not going to raise a fuss.