New Eggtimer Rocketry Tracking Hardware/Software

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I could not agree more! As an electronics enthusiast and retired engineer, I find that Eggtimer products are miles above hodgepodge...

... As an electronic engineer for 25 years (and senior technical officer before that) I see this Egg stuff as a very solid product. ...

Sounds like my story and I couldn’t agree more either.
 
I finished up on the GPS module last night and mounted on top of my black Aero case. My switches are off to the side so I have room on the top to put the module on. Mr. Simpleton used servo tape and it seems to be mounted securely.
I just need to lay a bead of J & B to secure the GPS antenna.

It seems to work and I can have GPS Rocket Locator running on my Nexus device or another live terminal app concurrently. One can have a live map with backup it they want. Kurt
 
Completed my LCD-GPS module today, and it works :clap: Huge thanks to Cris for a nice mod to the LCD....it's going to be sooooo nice to walk through the sage w/one hand free, now that I don't have to keep my smart-phone out.

Love that EggTimer stuff...
 
I finally used the new GPS module with my Eggfinder Rx LCD. It worked like a champ. The track update rate seems too slow (especially when I'm driving across the lakebed on the way to my rocket), but everything worked great with it. I even managed to get the coveted "*" number of satellites on my Eggfinder Mini.

IMG_4949.jpg IMG_4950.jpg
 
I finally used the new GPS module with my Eggfinder Rx LCD. It worked like a champ. The track update rate seems too slow (especially when I'm driving across the lakebed on the way to my rocket), but everything worked great with it. I even managed to get the coveted "*" number of satellites on my Eggfinder Mini.

View attachment 334596 View attachment 334597

The base station updates occur once every 10 seconds and are fixed in the firmware. That is what you might have been seeing. For a walking recovery it's not noticeable but if one is in or on a vehicle a little delay could be noticed. Kurt
 
The base station updates occur once every 10 seconds and are fixed in the firmware. That is what you might have been seeing. For a walking recovery it's not noticeable but if one is in or on a vehicle a little delay could be noticed.
Yup, I know. I think the time delay is too long for either walking or driving. It feels like an update about every 3 seconds would be much better - a weighted (perhaps Kalman) filtered ground track over the last 10 seconds should be plenty to get good headings in either movement case.
 
The base station updates occur once every 10 seconds and are fixed in the firmware. That is what you might have been seeing. For a walking recovery it's not noticeable but if one is in or on a vehicle a little delay could be noticed. Kurt

The first time couple of times I used my TRS with the base station the updates seemed that they were about every second. The last time I used it, they were much more infrequently. I will have to go back and see if they were 10 seconds apart (I had a video camera running).

Here is an excerpt from the LCD user manual that would indicate one second (or so) intervals would be normal:

"The final number on the top display is the number of elapsed seconds since the last fix. If
you’re getting constant data, this is going to be a zero, and you will hear a nice beep every
second or so. Once your rocket launches and you lose GPS lock under boost, the beeps will go
away, and you’ll see the counter start incrementing. Typically, in 5-20 seconds depending on
the speed of your rocket you’ll start hearing the beeps again, and the position will update.
When that happens, the timer will reset to zero again."
 
The signal sent from the rocket (TRS or TX) is sent once a second. The GPS attached to the LCD is only processed once every 10 seconds. And you need to have moved 30' from the previous reading for it to have a bearing for you and the direction to the rocket. The distance value (D:, lower-left corner) is supposed to be updated every 10 seconds regardless of motion. So assuming that the LCD is moving and not the rocket you'll only get position/direction/distance updates every 10 seconds, and if you don't move enough only the distance is updated. If the LCD had lost contact with the rocket as you get closer and it re-acquires the rocket then you might obviously get another jump, though I suspect the LCD might only re-calculate the rocket direction/distance whenever it gets an update from the on-board GPS, not the once-a-second updates from the rocket.
 
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