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No, it's a guess at best unless you can provide a lot more detail.

andrewwski wrote:No, it's a guess at best unless you can provide a lot more detail.

oops sorry. the way my rocket's set up is theres one bottle used as a pressure chamber (of course) and a second half bottle on top of that. That's where I put the egg and parachute. the nosecone is taped to the half bottle. After the rocket starts to come down the half bottle and nosecone is supposed to fall off (which it does) and then gravity pulls the egg and chute out. That's the part that's not working. It dosen't come out until it's almost on the ground. It just dosen't want to fall out.

I've tried folding it several different ways and I've used silicone and I've baby powdered the heck out of it. I'm out of ideas. I'm sorry if something like this has been posted before but i'm short on time so I haven't been able to read the whole link. Any ideas are appreciated.

rocketchicka wrote:

andrewwski wrote:No, it's a guess at best unless you can provide a lot more detail.

oops sorry. the way my rocket's set up is theres one bottle used as a pressure chamber (of course) and a second half bottle on top of that. That's where I put the egg and parachute. the nosecone is taped to the half bottle. After the rocket starts to come down the half bottle and nosecone is supposed to fall off (which it does) and then gravity pulls the egg and chute out. That's the part that's not working. It dosen't come out until it's almost on the ground. It just dosen't want to fall out.

I've tried folding it several different ways and I've used silicone and I've baby powdered the heck out of it. I'm out of ideas. I'm sorry if something like this has been posted before but i'm short on time so I haven't been able to read the whole link. Any ideas are appreciated.

How big is your parachute? If it's over 1.5 feet in radius, I don't know for sure maybe rocketman or someone can help you with that, then you might want to make a smaller parachute to use as a drague to pull the main chute out all the way. If it's already fully extended when it comes out I don't know what the problem might be . Maybe fold it looser?

rocketchicka wrote:
oops sorry. the way my rocket's set up is theres one bottle used as a pressure chamber (of course) and a second half bottle on top of that. That's where I put the egg and parachute. the nosecone is taped to the half bottle. After the rocket starts to come down the half bottle and nosecone is supposed to fall off (which it does) and then gravity pulls the egg and chute out. That's the part that's not working. It dosen't come out until it's almost on the ground. It just dosen't want to fall out.

I've tried folding it several different ways and I've used silicone and I've baby powdered the heck out of it. I'm out of ideas. I'm sorry if something like this has been posted before but i'm short on time so I haven't been able to read the whole link. Any ideas are appreciated.

Half of another bottle + nosecone for the egg and parachute. I'm picturing either a very long nose cone or a very small parachute. Can you put a picture in the gallery? If you are getting good separation of the parts (as it sounds you are) then you can try a thread taped lightly to the pressure vessel at one end and the item that's having trouble getting out at the other. The thread has to be at least a few inches long or you risk not getting the bits to come apart (trust me, it's not funny). Too much tape isn't good either - one end has to pull off once the job is done.

That's actually a very good idea to help pull the chute out.

Are you ensuring that the parachute is packed tightly? You don't want any resistance with the side of the container when it's coming out.

I have a similar rocket with a half-bottle that contains the chute above the pressure chamber. I put a very small loop of regular weak scotch tape on the end of the pressure chamber that sticks a little to the chute and pulls it out when the parts separate. Baby powder also helps reduce some of the friction.

andrewwski wrote: Are you ensuring that the parachute is packed tightly? You don't want any resistance with the side of the container when it's coming out.

At the risk of flogging a dead horse...

Packing the 'chute tightly (and correctly) causes it to want to "spring" out and deploy, which would be great if it were not against the energy rule. Is this within the "spirit of the competition" and therefore OK? If so, I want my rubber band back (alright, I'm a whining baby, don't rub it in).

thanks for the ideas ...i'll try them out. anybody got any good ideas on how to fold the chute?

accordian style works best...but you could also try rolling it

Thanks for the ideas, they worked! Making the parchute smaller worked best. also rolling the chute up instead of folding it worked good. Thanks again for your help!