Camroc 808 Launch 9-5-19
 

Been awhile since anyone posted a Camroc thread, so I thought I would post about the launch of my 3-D printed Camroc earlier this month.

This Camroc is 3-D printed with a keychain camera in the nose. The model is available on Thingiverse, and pints really well. It was created by a modeler Jamie Clay, who has several camera nose cones available, including an awesome Cineroc model. If you are interested in the Camroc/Cineroc, be sure to take a look.

I used the cheapest keychain camera I could find, cost under $4 shipped. That turned out to be an iffy decision, more on that later.

The rocket itself used a 3-D printed fin can that is included with the model files on Thingiverse and a body tube wrap that was printed on sticker paper and applied to BT-50.

Two flights were made on B6-4 motors. On the first flight I didn't hold the record button long enough and ended up with a picture of some grass. The second flight video worked, but the frame rate was so low on the video it was basically unwatchable.

Disappointed, I starting going through the video frame by frame and had an idea. Some still frames of the video actually seemed usable, so I used the Picture tool in Windows 10 to save them as JPEG images, used Gimp to take a circular crop, and then applied a black and white filter. A few examples are attached.

I liked the results so much, I drew up proper launch vehicles for the Camroc in CorelDraw. These are body tube wraps on sticker paper with cardstock fins. I plan to fly these at the next Woosh club launch at the beginning of November.

That's pretty cool. Takes me back to around 1966 or so when I launched my Camroc aboard my two-stage Astron Delta. Perfect flight, and arced over at apogee to take a picture of the fairgrounds. Sadly, the annual fair was on at the time, which was the reason I wanted to get the photo, but the rocket and payload came down well inside the fairgrounds (in fact, into an area inside the racetrack that contained mature trees). I searched long and hard for that rocket, right through the fall and into winter, to no avail. I finally concluded that some kid at the fair saw it coming down and ended up with a nice trophy to take home from the fair.


Joe

Joe,

Sorry to hear about your Camroc. I've never actually seen a real one (it was out of production before I was born), but I can imagine how awesome it would have been to get a picture from a rocket long before you you jump on the internet and look up a satellite image from anywhere in the world.

I still fly an Astrocam every so often, and should have enough shots to justify developing the roll of film soon. I hope Estes releases another camera/video rocket someday - the concept is a lot of fun and with today's small, cheap cameras I would think it wouldn't be too hard to do.

Link to Jamie Claye's 808 Camroc file:

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3170637

I think I see myself in the last photo, standing behind my car!