Club Equipment Update
Have it play "Major Tom" or "Rocket Man" or some other rocket related song and I'm in.😀
If it plays "Afternoon Delight" I'm getting a bigger hammer! 😡
Quote from Eric Becher on September 12, 2023, 5:19 pmHave it play "Major Tom" or "Rocket Man" or some other rocket related song and I'm in.
Both of those would sound better on bagpipes.
If it plays "Afternoon Delight" I'm getting a bigger hammer!
I'd only program the rests in that.
I think would could just do a light of some kind could we? I don't think it has to be a noise.
Quote from Ckirlew on September 12, 2023, 8:34 pmI think would could just do a light of some kind could we? I don't think it has to be a noise.
A light on a bright sunny day? I put ultra high intensity LEDs in the one launch controller because you couldn't see the old LEDs in even moderate sunlight. The problem with such LEDs is that their light is emitted in a roughy 10º beam. If you wanted to have such light visible in all directions (spherically) that'd take a lot of LEDs. A sphere is 4πsr (sr — steradian). A steradian in degrees is (180/π)². A sphere is thus about 41253 square degrees. The beam from an LED (~10º) is ~π5² or ~80sq.º. About 500 LEDs ought to do it. Of course, the batteries would need to be beefed up. At an 1/8th of an A per (125mA) × 500 of them, I'd need a 60+A battery. That's one hell of a beefy LiPo or a car battery. Use a traditional bulb? Sure. A bright sunny day, average, is about 5K lumens. Find a high lumen traditional bulb that's not going to require house current and I'll add a relay to enable it. BTW, the 120V outlet at the block building is turned off.
OK, maybe we don't need a fully spherical illumination. Cut the numbers down by 4 or 5 or even 10, it's still going to be significantly LARGER than the 10mm⌀ piezo that fits with room to spare inside of the cue.
We don't have flashing lights or audible alarms now. To my knowledge, no one has been killed (yet) (knock, knock). A more simple indication of power supply status, like a large, visible switch, or the easily seen plug that we currently have, seem sufficient to me. I have also seen switch covers that are flipped up when on, and down when off, that can't be positioned any other way.
Indicators and alarms that are annoying and frequently seen/heard tend to be disabled or ignored.
Quote from Eric Becher on September 13, 2023, 9:00 amWe don't have flashing lights or audible alarms now. To my knowledge, no one has been killed (yet) (knock, knock). A more simple indication of power supply status, like a large, visible switch, or the easily seen plug that we currently have, seem sufficient to me. I have also seen switch covers that are flipped up when on, and down when off, that can't be positioned any other way.
That's because the safety consideration is place with the RSO/LCO with an arming key in the controller.
Indicators and alarms that are annoying and frequently seen/heard tend to be disabled or ignored.
Fine. I'll leave it home from now on.
Sorry to cause so much angst and stuff. I was hoping for something simple without really thinking it through completely. One would think that a bunch of rocket scientists (I use the term loosely) would be able to come up with something.
Anyway, I got to thinking about how to make a light bright enough to see in daylight. I think it could be done. They make battery powered Christmas lights. We just need to stuff them into a fresnel type lens. That's my brilliant (ha ha) idea.
Brian, thanks for the lighting math. I understood less than half of it, but I got the gist of it.
Quote from Ckirlew on September 9, 2023, 2:23 pmLet's get back to an action item list. Here is a proposed list of things to do. The next step would be to get approval to do them and then a plan on how and when to do them. There should be a who does them in there as well.
Control pads - I am becoming concerned about the quality of the pads we have. I am in favor of Brian building something new and the club compensating him for his efforts. However, I don't think we can afford what he is worth. There may be some kind of ethics question here about a board president receiving compensation from the club. I have now addressed the ethics issue and we can move forward.
Brian works cheaply. If it's a labour of love, I'm rather altruistic. A 6-pack of a good strong IPA welcomed but not necessary.
- I am not in favor of one big controller. Storing and transporting something to control 18+ pads plus all the wiring as one unit doesn't sound like fun to me. There was some mention somewhere of using a different cable. I would need to understand how that works. We have enough trouble sorting out the 6 sets of wires for each pad as it is. Doing 18 at once sounds like trouble and heavy. The biggest concern I have for having one big unit is what happens if it fails? We have no plan B available to do a launch. With multiple smaller controllers, we can keep going with the working ones. It would be great to have the larger pads (1/4" and rails) do wireless. Not sure if Brian has that expertise. (Did I just challenge him?)
My radio controller with 6 quad-channel) cues (24 channels can control 24 pads) all fits inside a wooden box 14" × 10" × 5" and the wood is ½" thick. 😉 That system can support up to 1200 channels.
- 1/8" and 3/16" pads - We have enough pads for 1/8" and 3/16" rods. Although there were a couple of times at the last launch we had people waiting to get a pad.
- 1/4 pad - Another one would be good. Could be a new design or the same as the old one. My preference would be to have all versions of any item to be very similar to the others so that setup is the same.
- 1010 rail - We need another one. We should be encouraging our members to use rails instead of the 1/4"rods for the bigger stuff. We should be supporting ARC using rails as well. The existing setup is ok but we lose about a foot or more of usable rail. One adjustment that it is missing is side to side tilt. I have handled this with wedging a hammer under one leg. Something more elegant would be nice.
Huh? That rail is using a Rockwell Jawstand. Think in polar coordinates. You can tilt the rail from vertical to horizontal (zenith) and you can rotate that 360º (azimuth). Why would we need to "tilt" the Jawstand?
- Launch board - The edging came off it awhile back. I will take on repairing it. I will also look at a way to secure it to the table.
- Batteries - 12 volts! I think any higher voltage opens us up for frying electronics. Lighter batteries would be nice. Backups or being able to recharge the PA system components is a good idea.
- NAR grant - We can apply every year for up to $250. We do have money in the treasury, but we shouldn't overlook this opportunity. The above items will cost some money. Perhaps would should cost out each group of items and approve them individually.
All comments welcome. The sooner you comment, the sooner you get to pick which item you will do,
Charlie
FWIW, I'm still in favor of CAT cable. Its 8 conductors in total. 6 could be used for the pads with one common return. With the two cables, a lower voltage could be run on one wire for continuity checks. This is the norm at almost all HP launches and they run cable to more extreme distances than we do.
I looked up the PoE specs — That's Power over Ethernet — for Ss&Gs. With the push for IoT (Internet of Things) devices can be powered by the same cable used for ethernet communications. The voltages on PoE are spec'd in the range of 44V to 57V. That puts the median voltage at about 50V. The current maximum on PoE is 350mA. That's 17.5W. Estes igniters spec at 2A. OK. 17.5W/2A = 8.75V. We're pushing 12V to igniters. The Estes launchers use 6V from 4 AA batteries and ignite their motors. Plenty of e- rushing to those igniters.
So if I read this right we could use 1 controller to launch from 1200 pads, using 4 AA batteries. Kool!😃
We keep posting lots of good ideas. Still don't have anything built. New proposal: How about we (all interested parties of CENJARS) meet in person and hammer out these technical issues, so we arrive at a set of specs and we can move forward on some of these projects. Particularly the controller and launch pads. I would suggest either a watering hole conveniently located (Huddy's in Colts Neck springs to mind, but I'm open to anything), or, I am happy to host the meeting here at my house. As some of you know, I have plenty of space, especially on the patio, and there is also plenty of parking (we've had over 60 cars + 2 stretch limos on the block for various events).
👍 or 👎?
Great idea! I'm open to whatever works with us getting together.