"Mad Scientist" at it again

This link came from my Design News email newsletter. The series is called the Gadget Freak and features all kinds of odd applications.
This one happens to be rocket related so I thought I would share it with you.(edit: terrible spelling)

Rocket sequencer article

There is also an altimeter article:
https://www.designnews.com/article/CA481185.html?nid=2337&rid=1072538502

If I understand this, once you push the button the timer will launch rockets up to tens of seconds later. This is not safe, lots of things could happen during those tens of seconds.

Originally posted by rstaff3
There is also an altimeter article:
https://www.designnews.com/article/CA481185.html?nid=2337&rid=1072538502

Click to expand...

From what I can tell, the altimeter is limited to 999 ft (from step 2 of the operation section of the documentation). I wonder if that is just a limitation from the firmware? Otherwise, this looks like it could be a neat project to build.

Originally posted by Jimn
If I understand this, once you push the button the timer will launch rockets up to tens of seconds later. This is not safe, lots of things could happen during those tens of seconds.

Click to expand...

Yeah, one of the comments on that site mentioned this. Another said that a momentary switch would solve the problem. Seems like you would want it to be a 'normally-open' switch, which you would have to manually maintain closed to enable the launch.

Originally posted by RimfireJim
From what I can tell, the altimeter is limited to 999 ft

Click to expand...

No. The LEDs blink out "A/D" units which have to be converted to determine
the altitude in feet. See step 8 on page 4 of the instructions


Some other interesting rocketry circuits from the author-

A locator beeper - https://www.jbgizmo.com/page6.html
An FM tracking locator - https://www.jbgizmo.com/page22.html

Originally posted by brianc
No. The LEDs blink out "A/D" units which have to be converted to determine
the altitude in feet. See step 8 on page 4 of the instructions

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Thanks. I read the instructions earlier, caught the 'three digit number' part in step 2 on page 4, but didn't read through the math part thoroughly. So now I see that it will go to roughly 32,000 feet, with a resolution of roughly 32 feet (1 A/D unit).
I wonder what it would take to alter it to a lower max altitude but with better resolution? Just a scaling of the transducer output, without having to go to a 12 or 16-bit A/D?
-Jim