3 liter bottles?

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U.S. Water Rockets
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Re: 3 liter bottles?

Post by U.S. Water Rockets »

DogLover wrote:
Spaceman Spiff wrote:P.S. USWaterRockets: Where in the world did you get all those bottles????? I counted 106 bottles!!!! That is a lot!
The cheap store brands are often $0.89 or $0.99 for 3 liters, so it doesn't break the bank to collect that many. If you get everyone on the team to drink the same soda, it accumulates fast enough. It only took about a year to get this many bottles. We also used a number of the clear ones, in addition to the green ones shown here.
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Re: 3 liter bottles?

Post by U.S. Water Rockets »

DogLover wrote:The coupler that they used looks like one of these: http://www.uswaterrockets.com/construct ... torial.htm

That is the best way to make a connector, unless you have a lathe. Then you could make a giant Robinsons Coupling.
We were using a different method for these. It turns out that the low energy glue we used in that tutorial is not widely available in some countries, so we tried other methods for making them. We're interested in making procedures that people can follow and not need expensive tools and skills to reproduce. Sometimes the simplest answer is the best, unless your goal is to try and impress people with your ability to make things that they can't.
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Re: 3 liter bottles?

Post by Spaceman Spiff »

U.S. Water Rockets wrote:
Strattocoaster wrote:Thanks for the info. I didn't watch the bottles when I pressure tested them, I had them in a bucket of water and just made sure they wouldn't blow. For this project, I can deal with 100lbs, that will be a bit safer anyway.

Where did you get the 3 liter Tsunami tube connectors?

Thanks again.
We made them, of course. 3 liter bottles are rare enough that there really aren't any adaptable items that can be used to join them. This was our first foray into 3D printing a few years ago, and we learned a lot. We'll eventually be doing a tutorial on the subject. We've been revisiting the idea periodically to see if the shortcomings have been reduced with newer materials and technologies.
That looks sweet! I hope I can convince you guys do a tutorial on it soon so I can make stuff like that!
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Nick B
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Re: 3 liter bottles?

Post by Nick B »

U.S. Water Rockets1 wrote:Oh... by the way...

We went through a LOT of 3-liter bottles, so we've got a lot of experience with them...

nice Madone.

Where you ride that at?
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Re: 3 liter bottles?

Post by Blenderite »

The only have 2 questions, how much did it cost to have those printed and are you going to release the plans for anyone to use?
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Re: 3 liter bottles?

Post by U.S. Water Rockets »

Nick B wrote:
U.S. Water Rockets1 wrote:Oh... by the way...

We went through a LOT of 3-liter bottles, so we've got a lot of experience with them...
nice Madone.

Where you ride that at?
Thanks. We don't all ride, but those of us who do mainly ride with friends on the local roads and parks. We also take part in an annual charity ride, to raise money for Cancer research. We're not into racing, or anything too serious. It would take too much time away from rockets!
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Re: 3 liter bottles?

Post by U.S. Water Rockets »

DogLover wrote:The only have 2 questions, how much did it cost to have those printed and are you going to release the plans for anyone to use?
It was in the $60 ballpark to have it printed. We had some lighter versions which were less costly to fab, but they would fail at lower pressures.

We can't publish the mesh files, since they were done and tested for a 3rd party under contract that prohibits us from doing so. Sorry.
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Re: 3 liter bottles?

Post by Blenderite »

U.S. Water Rockets wrote:
It was in the $60 ballpark to have it printed. We had some lighter versions which were less costly to fab, but they would fail at lower pressures.

We can't publish the mesh files, since they were done and tested for a 3rd party under contract that prohibits us from doing so. Sorry.
No problem. I could problem create them fairly easily. I do use Blender after all.
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Re: 3 liter bottles?

Post by Novamarine »

I think the best option would be to reinforce it like the way Nick B did.
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Re: 3 liter bottles?

Post by Team Seneca »

Novamarine wrote:I think the best option would be to reinforce it like the way Nick B did.
Not really. Everything that he ever said and did and claimed has been called into question because he's a career troll. I'm surprised he hasn't tried to come back and cause trouble with a fake username already, he usually tries that on the forums he is banned from. :dielaugh:
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Re: 3 liter bottles?

Post by U.S. Water Rockets1 »

DogLover wrote:
U.S. Water Rockets wrote:
It was in the $60 ballpark to have it printed. We had some lighter versions which were less costly to fab, but they would fail at lower pressures.

We can't publish the mesh files, since they were done and tested for a 3rd party under contract that prohibits us from doing so. Sorry.
No problem. I could problem create them fairly easily. I do use Blender after all.
Isn't blender more of an animation tool, and less of a CAD tool? Can you work with some degree of precision with it?
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Re: 3 liter bottles?

Post by Strattocoaster »

3 liter full bore launch tube. 3/4" pvc inside 1" EMT and an o-ring.

Whaddaya think?
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3 liter full bore.jpg
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Re: 3 liter bottles?

Post by arjan »

Looking good to me. :cl:
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Re: 3 liter bottles?

Post by Blenderite »

U.S. Water Rockets1 wrote:
DogLover wrote:
U.S. Water Rockets wrote:
It was in the $60 ballpark to have it printed. We had some lighter versions which were less costly to fab, but they would fail at lower pressures.

We can't publish the mesh files, since they were done and tested for a 3rd party under contract that prohibits us from doing so. Sorry.
No problem. I could problem create them fairly easily. I do use Blender after all.
Isn't blender more of an animation tool, and less of a CAD tool? Can you work with some degree of precision with it?
Blender can be used with great precision, thousands of an foot or meter. Try it. You will like it. There are a ton of tutorials and such all over the place. Here is a link I would check out: http://cgcookie.com/blender/cgc-courses ... beginners/

Good luck!
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Re: 3 liter bottles?

Post by U.S. Water Rockets1 »

DogLover wrote: Blender can be used with great precision, thousands of an foot or meter. Try it. You will like it. There are a ton of tutorials and such all over the place. Here is a link I would check out: http://cgcookie.com/blender/cgc-courses ... beginners/
Thanks for the links, it is something worth checking out.

Just curious though that Blender is precise to thousandths of an inch, but that doesn't mean it is a good engineering tool. It just means it has high resolution. The difference is that with a tool like AutoCAD, you can change a parameter in the design and the entire design will regenerate with the change. For example, you can assign a group of holes with a certain thread pitch and another group with a different thread pitch, and later you can decide the first group needs a larger hole with a different thread pitch and you can change just that one group and it will update just that group... even if you change it after you have done hundreds of other tweaks to the design.

Blender, which we last looked at perhaps 4-5 years ago, was more of an artistic design tool, where the objects are meant for making animations and such. It didn't have a hierarchical basis for the modeling, like a CAD program. If they added CAD features, it would be quite interesting.
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