2013.06.02 NEWS *Preparations continue to go well for the planned test firing of the ‘dual-burn’ DSS TM-2 rocket motor on June 15th. Paul Avery reports that he is basically finished with TM-2 preparations 1. Drilled the hole in the 2 grain case for the pressure fitting. Drilled 1/16" holes in the pressure tap bolt head. 2. Applied the ablative coating on the mid BH CSD. 3. Fabricated and tested the pyrogen unit for the forward chamber. 4. Drilled and tapped the center hole in the forward BH for the igniter leads. 5. Drilled and potted e-match lead in 1/4-20 bolt for forward chamber pyrogen. *A regular Avionics telecon was held this past weekend. Attendees were Chris King, Hans Olaf Toft, Daniel Hastings and Richard Nakka. Chris reported that he had completed fabrication of the battery cans. This basically involved potting of the AA battery pile inside a metal can. Potting material was a mixture of glass microballoons and paraffin, to a 2.5:1 volume ratio. This ratio was chosen based on the investigation conducted earlier by Craig Peterson. Chris reported that the mixture poured easily and that the final product turned out well. In other developments, Daniel accepted a task of constructing a ‘break-out box’ to facilitate testing of the UFC-4 flight computer. *Randy Dormans has completed the task of drilling the precision-located holes in the DSS TM-3 motor casing. The holes are for mounting of the nozzle and bulkhead, with additional holes for attachment of the casing to an airframe. The casing is an aluminum alloy tube, 7” (178mm) OD with an overall length of 7 ft. (2.1metres). *Vicente Alvero Zambrano is working together with Richard to design and build a prototype “Pyro Separation Device” (PSD) that could be used on the DSS DART-II rocket. The new design is an improvement over the original PSD that was used for the MiniSShot rocket vehicle. The purpose of the PSD is to separate the booster from the payload section followed by release of the parachutes. *Craig Peterson has begun trial machining of the delrin rods in an attempt to make suitable tapered mandrels for casting the DSS propellant grains. Craig has been experimenting with different cutting bit angles in order to get the required smooth finish.
Posted on: Sun, 09 Jun 2013 03:19:53 +0000
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