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Old 11-08-2011, 10:23 PM
luke strawwalker's Avatar
luke strawwalker luke strawwalker is offline
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Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Needville and Shiner, TX
Posts: 6,134
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I never had the "HD" 12 volt controller that Estes used to sell... I got a couple starter sets back in 86-87 when I was in rocketry before and have kept the controllers all this time. Even back in 88-89 I didn't like the standard "AA" battery power and reworked the controllers.

First, the dinky car speaker wire had to go. I replaced it with a couple rolls of 120 volt twin lead lamp cord I bought for a buck a roll at the dollar store. Second, I ditched the stupid "AA" batteries and wired it up with lamp cord and battery charger clips to run off the car/truck battery. Next, I hated the stupid flashlight bulbs-- sometimes I'd clean the clips two or three times just to find out the stupid bulb had 'jimmied' a bit in the socket and lost contact and was showing no continuity when there actually was. So, I gutted an old worn out VCR and grabbed all the LED's I could find in the thing, and some of the resistors, and soldered them together to make LED indicators and installed them in the launch controller. My favorite controller was actually the old "Pola-Pulse" flat battery controller that I got in a "Stealth" starter kit. I wired it first and replaced the bulb with twin LED's... one burning constantly any time it was hooked up to the car battery (indicating a good connection there) and the other one glowing with the ignitor hooked up with a good connection (continuity). I pretty much retired the old Solar controller since I didn't get around to putting LED's in it and the other one worked SO well.

When I became a BAR, I reworked the old Solar controller, this time with a pair of LED indicators from Radio Shack-- an amber one indicates battery power to the controller, the red one indicates continuity. I had leadouts to the clips and car battery, which I subsequently cut and added 120 volt male/female electrical plugs, to use a standard extension cord for ignition leads. The clips simply plug in the opposite end of the extension cord. This makes a VERY nice and easy to store controller. The large guage multistrand lamp cord and HD connections (120 volt connections) make excellent low-impedence high-current delivery possible even with a long extension cord. When my grandmother passed away, we found a car jumper battery pack in her closet someone gave her. I took it home, plugged it in, and it works like a champ! I use it for a VERY neat portable power supply for launching rockets, as well as boosting off tractors and trucks around the farm when the batteries are a bit low... handiest thing since sliced bread!

It's really not hard to do.
Later! OL JR

PS... I highly recommend that you ditch the steel safety keys... they tend to rust, they don't get good contact, and steel isn't anywhere near as good a conductor as copper. You can make your own safety keys for Estes controllers very easily from regular copper Romex 120 volt house wire. You can probably get some free scraps at your local lumberyard or big box store, or simply buy a foot of 14 guage Romex off the bulk spool. That'll be enough to make probably 5 keys! Romex is single-lead conductor, a little smaller than a pencil lead (depending on the guage). The bare ground wire is easiest to use, but sometimes it's undersize. If it is, skip it and use the black or white main conductor wires. Pull a piece out, cut it off about two inches long. Strip off all the insulation (wire stripper or carefully with a knife). Insert the bare conductor wire into the keyhole of the launch controller to ensure that it's going to fit and not be too tight or too loose. #14 SHOULD be a perfect fit (IIRC-- maybe it's #12). Anyway, form a loop in one end for the 'handle' of the key-- you can make is square by simply bending the wire with pliers like the Estes keys, or round by curling the wire around back on itself with pliers, and then bending the loop over a bit the other way to "center" the handle over the key 'shaft'. I used a soldering iron and bit of rosin core solder to solder the end of the loop back to the shaft of the key, just to ensure that the soft copper doesn't 'bend open' with use, and so it can be tied to a string or whatever if desired.

The new key will get contact MUCH easier and MUCH better than the old steel keys! You can see the copper keys in the controllers below!
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