Currently browsing tag

Rocket Scientist

Starlink. Elon Musks global coverage satellites.

Elon is launching 12,000 satellites to provide global internet access. What could possibly go wrong? https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/05/elon-musk-starlink-internet-satellites-trouble-for-astronomy-light-pollution/ And no-ones even considered what you could do with with 12,000 satellites with phased grid antennas working together.  Like an array of radio-astronomy telescopes only as a targeted downlink signal.  Am I paranoid?  Time will tell. "Who knows which way the wind blows"

Smoking

Most rockets leave a nice smoke trail to follow. A Hybrid running on Nitrous Oxide and a polypropylene fuel grain is almost smokeless. This makes it difficult to track visually. Does anyone have thoughts on tracking smoke for a hybrid rocket motor?  At the launch at Thunad down Under to 26,220 AGL it disappeared pretty quickly once launched from the pad.

Karls Launch update

On the weekend of 1st/ 2nd June 2013 the ashes of Karl McManus were launched at Williams Wildfire in Western Australia.  The launch was a Tripoli WA launch.   All scheduled events occured at the correct time.  Flight was to 12000 ft and all of the rocket was safely landed about 700m away.

So long Karl.

 

Home

Hello and welcome to RocketScientist.com.au

This site was primarily about my journey to launch the ashes of my good friend Karl McManus who died of Lyme disease.  You start out on a journey like this without realising the full implications, not least of which was to get Level3 certification for high powered rocketry.  I chose to go the hybrid route as it seemed less expensive.  It is less expensive, but throws up a number of other factors one of which is the complexity involved.

It has evolved into a site about hybrid rocketry and to prove that Hybrids are better than solid motor propellants.

This is NSW Rocketrys' Mullaley High Power launch site.

Pretty close to perfect.

[caption id="attachment_206" align="aligncenter" width="640"]Mullaley Launch Site Mullaley Launch Site[/caption]

 

Here's a video of my launch there

 

[embed]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sluGB9Tn_k[/embed]

Privacy Policy

This site does not send spam. Email will only be sent to you if you explicitly request it.

Any data you supply is used only for the purpose you provided it for.

The website uses cookies. These are for the purpose of providing data on where traffic is coming from which will allow effort to be better used in the future by targeting the direction the traffic comes from. The anti spam still applies.

HD Wing Camera II – Full HD 1920x1080P 30FPS

I bought this as a reasonable bare bones camera with a good resolution.  The weight is kept down to a minimum by having everything wrapped in heatshrink.  It gives really good results but the manual from hobbyking was written in Chinglish so I wrote my own. here is a link to the camera if you think it might be useful for your project. HDwing camera II here is the manual I wrote Hobbyking HDII wing camera I bought one of these from Hobbyking. The spec looked quite good and it's about a 1/3 of the price of a comparable GoPro. The manual on the website under "files" was from the manufacturer in China, was written in Chinglish and covered a lot of functions that weren't available on the cut down version being sold on the HobbyKing site. So I read their manual as best I could and then wrote my own version of it in real English it's now under the files tab for the product Hobbyking HDII wing camera and is called "HDII simple manual in english" It should be the only manual you need to get you working. When I've had a flight with it on my rocket I'll post some more. Here is the manual wot I wrote I'm Norm and fly the occasional rocket. This is my guide to the Hobbyking HDII wing Camera. It is not complete. I have covered as much as I have time to. If you have some time and want to update it in english send me a copy by posting in a comment at rocketscientist.com.au First Make sure you have all the bits Camera *****USB to mini USB lead Mark this with a label as it is SPECIFIC to this camera. ******* Mini usb to Video out(yellow phono connector) and Audio out(white phono connector) HDMI lead Now you need to buy a memory card TF type whatever size you are going to require for your flights and the resolution you are recording at 2Gb is 20 mins at full resolution HD 30 frames/sec roughly. Make sure the memory card is the right way around( gently test fit it to the slot, it only goes one way) Insert it in the memory slot on the camera and push all the way home and release there will be a slight click as it locks. Attach the usb cable connect the other end to a computer with a live port. The yellow charging light should come on and will go out when charging has finished(3hrs from flat) The correct way up for the camera is with the board on top and the battery on the bottom. This is unlike the hobbyking photo in the manual which is of it upside down. HD II correct way up Correct way up There are 3 buttons one close to the lens, one in the middle and one closest to the power connectors/usb cable. The buttons serve different functions depending on what mode the camera is in. There are 3 main modes connected to the TV flying connected to your PC I've put them in that order because when you start it's the order you will work with. TV Mode All setup is done while connected to the TV. When you get your camera it will output video in NTSC. Most modern TVs will be able to deal with this. Connect your video usb lead to the camera and TV with tv on. On the HDII camera press the power button (usb end) led next to it goes purple then solid blue. long press the middle button (if you short press it will go into video record mode) You are now in the menu section. Make your settings. Use end buttons as up and down and middle to select. You may need to set the date and time and change to PAL. The main one is to format the memory. So go to FORMAT and select it(mid) use up down(ends) to select YES. Mid “all files will be deleted” use up down to select YES and select(mid) The manufacturers manual warns that formatting on your pc can cause file write problems so just use this method . As it is also the ONLY way to set up recording rates you are going to need to get familiar with it. A long press of the middle button will EXIT the setup menu. If you left display info on you'll see on the TV at the top recording time available and the recording resolution. At the bottom you'll see date(LHS) and time on the RHS make sure these are ok. While we're still connected to the TV and the blue light is solid, short press the middle button. We are now in flying mode. And recording video. If you wanted a live feed back to the ground you'd use this mode with a video transmitter receiver setup. If you were connecting the video feed to an OSD generator you might not be able to use the camera video on screen information if the overlay of information clashed. Short press the mid button again to stop. If you look at the screen you will see the available amount of recording time has gone down. As you were recording the recorded time on the screen was increasing. To change to photo mode short press the power end button. Led goes solid red. Short press the mid button to take a photo. There doesn't seem to be any way to take photos automatically and the speed isn't great anyway. Personally I won't bother but you may want to use a servo to press the mid button occasionally or solder an rc switch across the button but if you wait longer than the power down time you've set it's going to be off. The maximum power off time is 5 mins(3mins when you get the camera by default) The third mode while connected to the tv is playback. Short press the power end button again and you can see on the TV a list of the camera contents . The light goes purple( purple is actually the red and blue led on at the same time) Use the up/down buttons to select the photo or movie you want to see and the middle button to select and start or end playback. If you are looking at photos and press the select button twice it goes into a photoshow mode you'll see the play arrow at the top left of your screen. If you press the up or down buttons it starts the show. Long press the middle button to exit to the camera contents. OK so we've found the bits, set them up and recorded a test video and taken a few pictures. Lets get them off the camera and onto your computer. Get your clearly identified usb lead(see beginning) and connect to camera and pc. The yellow charge light should come on again as you've used a bit of power setting up. Long press the power end button. The blue light is now on solid and the yellow too. Your computer should see it as a removable storage device. Navigate to the file you want in the DCIM folder on the camera memory and copy it to whichever folder you are going to use for your videos on your computer. Try playing it using your chosen video playing software. I found the files played on my windows 7 pc with VLC 2 but not on my eeepc with the same software. With media Player Classic on the laptop it played but out of sync (probably looking for 25 frames/sec and getting 30) Anyway there are clearly some issues with some computer/software combinations and now you are aware of it you can stop blaming the camera. I'm sure you will be able to find something that works for you. I didn't use the HDMI lead. You can contact me by posting in a comment at rocketscientist.com.au if you have any useful contributions or just want to say hi or thanks. The manual by the manufacturer says it has lights and lasers for framing of shots. The function buttons work for these modes but the lights and lasers are not present on this budget low weight model. Thats about it. Happy Flying and good luck. Norman McGeoch TRA12957    Back to Rocket Bits Back to WWW.RocketScientist.com.au

About this Rocket Scientist

I'm Norm, This page is about rocket science generally and specifically about amateur high power rocketry involving hybrid rocket motors. I got into this by accident when I agreed to launch my friend Karl's ashes in the event of his death and he agreed to launch mine.  Karl McManus died on 14th July 2010 and his ashes were lofted to 12000ft in June 2013. In order to launch to that height Tripoli Level 3 certification in High Power Rocketry will be required.  I had a couple of attempts in 2011 to get along the certification process and found that I wasn't as much of a rocket scientist as I thought.  The rocket I built while well-constructed was overweight and underpowered.  There were many details I hadn't taken care of or was just unaware I needed to take care of. As Karl would have said "The devil is in the detail".   I got my L1 and L2 certification in May2012.  I previously had a backup plan to go to Williams in Western Australia in June and attempt my L1 and or L2 certification if there were any problems in May.  I was now in the situation of just going to Williams for fun. So I decided to attempt my level 3 certification. The magnitude of work involved in attempting L3 certification is massive.  While previously I had to pay attention to every detail, I now had to document every detail and have it scrutinised by 2 very experienced rocketeers called TAP's.   They had to accept my design, construction materials, methods, the type of batteries I used and assembly and preparation procedures.  At the same time they were preparing their rockets for the WA launch and Dave was preparing the event itself too. I shipped as much as I could to Western Australia 2 weeks before the event, but even then there was still a possibility I could have been asked to make changes to the final design by the TAP's so some large rocket bits had to be flown with me to Perth.  The TAP's had a few final questions and then the paperwork was done. (I was up till 1am 3 times, and 2am on The Williams launch was a 2 day event.  The first day was foggy till about 11am.  My rocket now named K3 was assembled and ready to launch by about 1pm.  The conditions were perfect.  There was a glitch with the Nitrous fill system and Paul (PK) made the decision to go back to Perth and get some bits to make a new fill hose.  Thanks Paul. I launched the next day in the mid afternoon.  And the TAP's signed the paperwork to send to Tripoli USA.  My L1 and L2 certification arrived a couple of days before I got my L3 through. I launched at Thunda down Under in March 2015 with a RattWorks M900 motor in a minimum diamater configuration rocket.  7:1 Von Karman nosecone.  Apart from a small paperwork glitch the flight was flawless.  Flew to 26,220ft and recovered 5 miles away 45 minutes later.  I didn't get an on board camera fitted for the launch.   Had I known there was no standing Hybrid record for an M class motor, I would have put the application in and have it.  Hey ho...  Next time. [caption id="attachment_229" align="aligncenter" width="480"]RATTWorks M900 min dia to 26,220 feet Above Ground Level landed safely. RATTWorks M900 min dia to 26,220 feet Above Ground Level landed safely.[/caption] [embed]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sluGB9Tn_k[/embed] [easy_sign_up title="If you'd like full size copies of any photo.  Send me your details below." phone="1" fnln="1" esu_label="Photo Request" esu_class="your-class-here"]