psas/lv3.0-airframe

Nose Cone Hardware

Joedang opened this issue · 2 comments

Joedang commented

Some aluminum pieces of the nose cone need to be machined. Things which affect the go/no-go are in bold.

Remaining tasks:

  • Technical drawings
    • nose tip
    • nose plug
      • needs to be revised/reviewed to match the mold
    • dummy tip
  • Acquire the bar stock
  • CAM -- Actually, these all ended up being manually machined.
    • nose tip
    • nose plug
    • dummy tip
  • Machining/MFG
    • nose tip
    • nose plug
    • nose mold
    • nose body
    • dummy tip
    • integration

These are both axially symmetric parts to be turned on a lathe. Their profiles include curves, so they will need to be done on a CNC lathe.

The CAD for these parts can be found here.
tip drawing

Joedang commented

Current Status

@alexkazam made the CAD + drawing for the tip and preliminary CAD for the plug. He did CAM and started machining but then got distracted by a capstone or something (geez, what a slacker). The in-progress part is... somewhere, lol.

@jschalk is now handling the machining. The fastener/thread size is not specified in the part or the drawing, so someone (most likely @Joedang or @alexkazam) will need to figure out what that was. It would also be worth figuring out if they make Helicoils that size. Maybe you can look that up and we'll just use that, @jschalk.

Joedang commented

Update:

@SaturnVF1 machined two dees nuts (formerly "nose plugs") and a tip. Both turned out really well, so I'd say those don't need to be CNC'd on LV4 or other rockets.

The tip was machined in piece-wise sections and smoothed with a file (?) and sand paper. (Maybe @SaturnVF1 can comment on specifics.)

The dee nut was also done on a manual lathe. The inside was hollowed out using a custom-ground HSS cutter, and the outside was knurled for better adhesion into the nosecone.

Future issues (?):

It would be nice to have procedures in doc/mfg/ on how to make a nose tip and dee nut using a manual lathe, so people will be able to do it for LV4. @SaturnVF1, if you want to write that, that would be awesome.

Reason for closing

The nosecone is a thing at this point. It needs some sanding to look presentable, but it's flyable.