• Use your ordinary model airplane R/C equipment for the radio link.
• RadioFire© simply plugs into your R/C receiver.
• No additional power supply is needed.
• Attach up to two electric matches to the convenient screw terminals.
• The two independent channels on the RadioFire© give you control of two events, such as main chute deployment, ignition of a tracking smoke device, or activation of a pyrotechnic release mechanism.

Introduction
Although modern altimeter recovery system deployment can be quite reliable, malfunctions do occur. It is prudent to design redundancy into every safety system in a complex rocket. Even if you are already using redundant altimeters for deployment, a manual override capability can give you the precise choice of deployment timing that may be needed in unexpected circumstances. A potentially catastrophic event, such as a staging failure, can be far less dangerous to your rocket and to the people nearby if you have the ability to deploy the main chute on demand.

There is a reason why NASA incorporates manual overrides into the design of their systems!
Within the high-power rocketry realm, specialized radio-deployment equipment is available for this task. Such gear tends to be of excellent quality and performance, and is a good choice for projects where the cost is not an issue.

RadioFire© is an alternative for the high-power rocketeer working on a more modest budget.

RadioFire© does not include a transmitter or receiver. Instead, you use ordinary model airplane R/C equipment for the radio link. RadioFire© plugs into your R/C receiver, and looks to the receiver just like an ordinary servo. No additional power supply is needed; the RadioFire© draws its operating power from the R/C receiver. You can attach up to two electric matches to the convenient screw terminals on the RadioFire© unit. Then, when you push the joystick on your transmitter all the way -UP- one of the electric matches will fire, and when you push the joystick all the way -DOWN- the other will fire.

The two independent channels on the RadioFire© allow you independent control of two events, such as main chute deployment, ignition of a tracking smoke device, or activation of a pyrotechnic release mechanism.
The RadioFire© unit incorporates signal-processing software running on an onboard microprocessor to decode the signal from the receiver, and to reject noise and spurious signals. It uses onboard capacitors and high performance MOSFET semiconductors to provide the current jolt necessary to fire the electric match, without placing excessive drain on your receiverís power supply.

Compatibility
The RadioFire© device was designed to work with most modern R/C equipment. It comes fitted with a universal servo connector, which will fit Futaba "J" style or Hitec / Airtronics "Z" style receivers. Because of the electronics on the RadioFire© board, it can only be used with R/C receivers that run on a 4.8-volt power supply.

The RadioFire© was designed to be used with low-current electric matches! Although we have successfully tested the unit with ìstandardî electric matches, we do not recommend that they be used, because the current delivered by the unit is at the lower end of what is required to fire standard electric matches. Because of this, the RadioFire© unit is recommended only for recovery system deployment and similar applications, not for staging or other motor-ignition tasks.

The operating range is, of course, limited to that of your R/C transmitter-receiver set. Check the instructions that came with your R/C gear, since the range may be only 5000 feet or so for some inexpensive radios. While this is generally sufficient for main chute deployment, many rockets will be out of the range of such radios at apogee, making drogue deployment impossible.