Model Forum / General / Rockets / June 2007

Enough of this political/religious crap and lets talk rockets.

I have been out of the loop for a while being in Taiwan and no access to
anything remotely related to rocketry (except bottle rockets that are
disposable), I have not considered batteries for the purpose of lighting a
tough igniter such as crapperheads or other conductive primer based igniters
(such as igniterman). These things usually require a LOT of current to light
and requires a battery with low internal resistence. Traditionally we use
NiCd battery because of their low internal resistence, assuming that a car
battery wasn't available. Now there is this battery developed by Sanyo
called "eneloop" which is basically a NiMh battery that can hold its charge
for a long time when it's not used, unlike traditional NiMh or NiCd battery.
One website that tested these battery reported that they have a very low
internal resistence of about .097 ohm per cell (according to
http://www.stefanv.com/electronics/sanyo_eneloop.html).

It seems since these batteries have low internal resistence and it does hold
greater capacity compared to NiCd (and no dreaded memory effect to boot) has
anyone attempted to light a crapperhead with 8 of these batteries in series?
I think I am going to go buy some because I am sick of my digital camera
crapping out because I forgot to charge the battery... I don't have an
igniterman or a crapperhead (and I doubt it will go through customs either,
DO NOT try and send me one!) to test so maybe some of you guys can test it?