How might I go about measuring the thrust of a small model rocket?

How might I go about measuring the thrust of a small model rocket?

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accelerometer or force sensor

probably illegal to put an accelerometer on any kind of rocket, for the same reason your phone's accelerometer turns of during high altitudes/speeds

take the engine place in fixture it against force sensor start engine

Where does one buy a force sensor?

Also, would putting it up against a scale be just as effective?

>probably illegal to put an accelerometer on any kind of rocket
Wrong.

>for the same reason your phone's accelerometer turns of during high altitudes/speeds
Wrong. You're thinking of the GPS reciever.

You can buy load cells off of Sparkfun. You'll need a DAQ and you'll also have to calibrate the cell.

>Also, would putting it up against a scale be just as effective?
No, the thrust varies over time and you need to look at the actual thrust curve.

The accelerometer (which is used to flip the screen) is also disabled with the GPS system is disabled. Just having a GPS system on a missile would be useless to try to guide it.

How would record and retrieve data from an accelerometer like pic related? I know this is more of /g/ question, but I'm a lazy cunt and don't feel like making another thread.

Do you mean like a force-sensitive resistor? I feel like that would take a shit ton of effort to configure.

digikey

get an Arduino and download matlab or some shit faggot, its a neat project, just do it faggot.

then buy a piece of $50 force sensing equipment and go throughout your entire life not knowing how to set up a basic fucking circuit that highschool kids can put together

you weigh it and then film it in flight to get the acceleration

Wait what? Why would measuring speed be illegal?

get rocks & a scale

What are the rocks for? Holding the rocket in place?

the heavier the load...

The gf couldn't agree more ;)))))))

This. I actually just did this today and the rocket, unfortunately, blew out its insides. Luckily I installed a nozzle that would slip out the bottom should the internal pressure become too high. The slip nozzle would pop out and thus lead to a decrease in pressure to avoid a possible wall rupture. I have a video of the failure.

Sorry, why would that be illegal?

He used the wrong words and he's also wrong, it's not illegal at all. What he meant was that GPS stops working after Mach 1 or 2 I believe I'm not sure the exact speed, but it stops working at high speeds to make sure it isn't an enemy missile or plane using GPS. It's an anti terrorism measure.
An accelerometer though is perfectly fine as it doesn't need GPS to work.

Ah that makes more sense. Thanks for clarifying.

This is OP, is there any particular method for measuring the burn rate of a solid propellant? This is also something I intend to do.

Cheaper to record it and use a motion tracking software (like tracker) to extract the acceleration. You can just torrent it.

what is the weight/parameters of the solid propellant

do you know the class of the model rocket? Total Impulse
(Metric Standard)
1/4A 0.313-0.625 N·s
1/2A 0.626-1.25 N·s
A 1.26-2.50 N·s
B 2.51-5.0 N·s
C 5.01-10 N·s
D 10.01-20 N·s
E 20.01-40 N·s
F 40.01-80 N·s
G 80.01-160 N·s

I'm just cooking up small batches of R-candy at a time (60g KNO3, 40g table sugar)

braeunig.us/space/

Read the rest if you want, its a similar version of ProjectRho but smaller but with more autism per text.

you can build a thrust pendulum (hang a box with two cords, and the angle it forms will depend on the thrust applied to it laterally) for a cheap aproximation, or tear down a scale and get the direct readings of the load cell into whatever data collection device you use

Cfd

Brotip: That's so they can be exported.