Day at FAR...

Thursday we had a delivery of new clean propellant. So we got up at 5am and drove to FAR.
We waited three hours for the delivery truck who thought the road was still to rough so we met him at the end of the pavement and took the delivery the rest of the way in our truck.

We then set up the test stand and fired the stainless DMLS motor. It was much better than last time, but we still have catalyst issues as we were not getting full decomposition. The beginning and end of the very long run were identical so we are no longer poisoning our cat packs.!!
I think I need to add some anti channel baffles.

The test stand worked flawlessly and set up to fire time was less than 45 minutes with just two of us.

After we finished that I went back and made another attempt on the generator:

I replaced ALL the banjo fitting seals and soft feed tubing. After doing that the prime pump was much more solid and priming was faster and seemed less random. The Motor still did not run.

Then I removed the side panel (Item D in the picture from two posts ago) and tried to figure out what moved when your moved the shutoff lever..... nothing moved.....

Then I removed the fittings and bolts holding block Item 9, from the top of the injection pump.
I discovered that the pump pistons have a little cam arm that comes out and engages a rod that should be moving. One of the injector pistons is stuck in the full up position and will not turn as it should. This jams the rod keeping all of the injector piston cams stuck in the shutoff position.
I freed that piston and reassembled everything.

Now when you move the shutoff lever you could see moment inside the area exposed by cover Item D. When the motor was turned over the outlets made little sequential squirts.!!!!

After fully reassembling everything the Generator started on the second attempt.
We then cleaned up the oily mess inside the generator enclosure from all the bleeding.
We buttoned up all the covers and ran it one more time. We now have a generator!!!!

Many thanks to Dave Weinshenker for the diesel help. He deduced what the problem was and provided me the information I needed to resolve the issue.


I should have data and possibly video of the rocket motor test in the next week some time.
I won't have much time this weekend as my Dad fell down and is in the hospital (Nothing major, he should be out Today) We also have a 99th birthday celebration for my Step Mom's mother this weekend.