How is everyone doing........doing.....doing :-)

[MisterQED]

Boy everyone seems to have dropped off posting for a while. I've been off finishing my glove patent and prepping for the the Astronaut Glove Challenge which they say will be in November, but they are a little light on details. I'll be back with a vengeance once I get the $200k check, but till then, I'll be getting very little sleep. The reemergence of the Glove Challenge put my balloon building plans on hold, but how is everyone else doing? I read Charles' posts over at Arocket, but I haven't even seen anything from anyone else since Peter's last update which was some time ago.

Hope all is well,
MisterQED
Richard Hauser
Team Daedalus

[SANEAlex]

Good luck with the glove entry.

The Potent Voyager team despite being quiet on the public forums has been moving on slowly with the project we hope to make some announcements soon for a a given value of soon. At our most optimistic we had hoped to launch a 10th scale model of our vehicle today to try out some of the principles but tho we now have enough Mylar for a 10th scale model the work on our engine design and construction is way behind schedule only another 740 days to go so good luck guys i would like us to win but i think cheap space is what humanity needs so will cheer any team that beats us.

[Peter (Nebula)]

Yes, definitely good luck with the glove entry!

I have one problem right now - It's a bit of an admission to make but I've found that my welding isn't up to the standard required for high pressure hot gas and I've had a number of failures due to voids in welds that should be continuous. I'm guessing that there are instantanous pressures present that are above the current low design pressure but I can't verify that without adding more electronic pressure sensors and they're expensive! There are two solutions: either get someone else to do it, or keep plugging on hoping that practice makes 'acceptable'. I've had a little more success with avoiding blowouts by brazing a silver alloy onto the surface of each machined weld, but this isn't really the answer. I have a couple of photos if you'd like to see them, but I really didn't want to post until I've had a successful test.

In any case, I'm going to try and get a few static pictures of the engine test rig this weekend and I'll post them - that should hold until I figure a way around the QA issue.

Best

Pete

[MisterQED]

Peter, what kind of welding are you doing: Gas, stick, MIG or TIG?
Maybe you just need some pointers or a work around.
On stick welding I found stainless rod goes in really smooth and easy.

MisterQED
Team Daedalus

[Peter (Nebula)]

Well, I tried stick welding a while ago as a cheap option, but there was too much splatter and the results were ugly and non-uniform (more so!).

So I bought a current-adjustable MIG welder that I'm using with 0.6mm wire and a CO2/Argon Mix. The first thing to get binned was the standard eye protection as I just couldn't see what I was doing, in favour of an automatically darkening helmet visor (purchased from your own fine country).

Since then, things have been improving slowly but the real problem comes not from seam welds as you might expect, but in the build-up of weld that I am using to create bosses which are then drilled and tapped and used to attach sensors and tap-offs on high pressure pipework. I just can't get rid of voids in the welds - these are very evident when the welds are machined down and have proven to be very significant weak points.

Any help you (or anyone) can provide on how to avoid these would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers

Pete

[MisterQED]

Give me as many details as you feel comfortable with...
Your MIG welding aluminum, stainless, titanium?
What alloy?
Etc.
I have some experts I can contact, but they will want some details to be of use.

Auto-darkening helmets are ridiculously useful. Got any sunburn yet? I have gotten bad "sun" burn from welding.

MisterQED
Team Daedalus

[Iain]

Have you tried giving TIG ago?
Its all I use for what ever material I'm welding up, I just find it easier, I taught myself over acouple of weekends and then got into it with no problems, practicing on SS is good, after abit of practice you need only dab your wire in a little bit to create a fill as you can see the two materials melting/fusing together, thats what I like. I found it was one of those things where after a few frustrating goes it just came to ya!
I welded up my SS Lox tank and hydro'ed perfect, one pin hole leak but just a matter of putting the torch back on and melting over the area of the hole, fixed in 5min.
Still yet to try welding Aluminium though with it.....

If you keep having hassles with the mig, I'd go the TIG way...


Iain

[wagster]

Let's hope the lack of posts is due to everyone spending all their time working on their designs.

[pauldear]

Yeeeehar!! Welcome back Peter, QED, Iain!!!!

It's been quiet here of late and I was getting worried - nice to see things picking up again. Wish I could offer some advice on the welding issues. All I can say is that I replaced both rear quarterpanels on a 77 Toyota Corolla Liftback with no major problems. I suspect that filler would be an issue, though.

While you're on here.... I'm still waiting to get back to the guy from Wired. Any photos (of any quality - as a first shot) very much appreciated.

740 days....Hmmm.

Cheers,
Paul

[Monroe]

A Comment about TIG welding. You can make a pretty good DC TIG welder from a 120amp car alternator and from my experience they work pretty darn good on steel or stainless. No good for alum. though. Neat cheap way to get started. You need atleast a 300 amp square wave AC welderwith HVstart (scratch start is no good for alum) anything elce will drive you crazy (wont work) water cooled for long beads.

Monroe

When Building up the mig welds you have to grind the first pass down and wire brush it real good it helps if you do it fast while the metal is still pretty warm too, hot metal just welds better. The bosses are thicher uasually thicker than what you are welding too, sometimes I heat the boss with a rosebud to help things along. The ridges hold impuritys and the carbon content can change slightly esp if the metal is thin (or cheap) and you cant get enough heat into it and it cools to fast it flakes and gets brittle