Monday, June 17, 2013

Competitor 4 Electronics Bay

I have continued work on my Competitor 4 rocket. This is my all fiberglass kit that is build from 4 inch fiberglass tubes and will be about 8 feet tall. It is a high performance rocket, and will easily hit mach 1.5 on 5 grain M motors.

Currently, I have nearly completed the electronics bay. All is done except mounting the charge holders on the bulkplates (the "caps" that seal the bay and hold the U-bolts for the recovery gear attachments).

The assembled forward airframe.

The air sampling holes (for the altimeters).

The air sampling holes are positioned to arm the electronics by inserting a screwdriver through to the arming switches.

The forward bulkplate. This will have the main parachute charge canisters mounted to it as well.

A look inside the electronics bay.

The top of the electronics sled. The altimeters and the rotary arming switches. (the switches are what the screwdriver turns to arm the electronics. I constructed the electronics sled with a 1/16" balsa sheet core with 2 layers of heavy fiberglass on either side. It is mounted onto the 2 #10 threaded rods with aluminum spacer pieces.

The bottom of the electronics sled. The 9 volt batteries will be fully secured before flight with a copious amount of tape wrapped around them.


A sample bulk plate. They are identical on both ends of the electronics bay.