TLDR at the end.
So after an inability to find yet another (cheap, thankfully) rocket out here on my dad's property (so much brush... might have walked right past it!), I decided to dig into my electronics box and put together a little something. With OTS stuff, I've got a proof of concept working of a relatively small avionics package w/GPS and LoRa to get telemetry (and find!) a rocket from a phone. Range is about 2-5 km, depending on the final orientation of the landing and LoS... The 'base station' that plugs into my phone is a cheap ($20 on Amazon) Heltec LoRa board, and the current 'avionics package' is, at the moment, a TTGO T-Beam + a couple sensor boards for fun (accelerometer, temp/humidity/pressure sensor). It's frankly, way too big and way too heavy for what it is (but it gets the job done).
There's some commercial stuff like this that already exists, it seems, but it's way too big/heavy and way too pricey (A single Featherweight + ground station is $350?!?? get outta here). Meant more for the G+ folks. I think something for the B/C/D crowd needs to happen.
Since I have the skills and ability to do so, and I kinda need a project, I'm thinking about spinning some boards for the rocket-side to get them small/light enough, as all the OTS stuff is too wide/heavy. Probably around 15x40mm (thin enough to fit into a 3d-printed 18mm nose cone w/1.2mm walls) + a small 100mAh battery (good for about an hour of full-power use, though generally the board powers down the sensors/GPS until commanded to go-live for launch). The chip shortage is terrible right now but I've got the schematics laid out (whether I can actually GET everything I used in any kind of quantity is up in the air) and a BOM and I'm fairly sure I could sell the rocket-side part ("motherboard" with processor, empty SD-card slot, GPS, LoRa transmitter, accelerometer + a "sensor package" daughterboard to go further up in the nose (literally just a BME280 board you can find on Amazon, though I'd buy a pile from China so they'd be cheap) for around $40-$45, if I have 100 made.
The whole thing would be entirely open-source and open-design, all code and schematics available. This would be rocket-side board only, you'd need to purchase your own ground-side transceiver (The one I'm using, as I said... $20 on Amazon, and I intend to treat that as the "canonical" base station), as well as 3D-print your own nose-cone/container (though I will provide STLs for 18mm and 24mm, because I'd be using them myself!) If there's a LOT of interest in the board from folks who want boards but don't have access to 3D printers, I might consider having one of the designs bulk-printed by a house. I sincerely doubt there's enough interest to justify a proper injection mold.
TLDR: I'm trying to gauge whether or not an affordable/light telemetry/GPS package ($45-ish, fittable into an 18mm B/C rocket) is something worth pursuing as a project past my own interests. No Kickstarter/Indiegogo BS, won't take anybody's $ until I have boards to ship in my possession. But I'm very curious if there's enough interest to make it worthwhile to pursue.
So after an inability to find yet another (cheap, thankfully) rocket out here on my dad's property (so much brush... might have walked right past it!), I decided to dig into my electronics box and put together a little something. With OTS stuff, I've got a proof of concept working of a relatively small avionics package w/GPS and LoRa to get telemetry (and find!) a rocket from a phone. Range is about 2-5 km, depending on the final orientation of the landing and LoS... The 'base station' that plugs into my phone is a cheap ($20 on Amazon) Heltec LoRa board, and the current 'avionics package' is, at the moment, a TTGO T-Beam + a couple sensor boards for fun (accelerometer, temp/humidity/pressure sensor). It's frankly, way too big and way too heavy for what it is (but it gets the job done).
There's some commercial stuff like this that already exists, it seems, but it's way too big/heavy and way too pricey (A single Featherweight + ground station is $350?!?? get outta here). Meant more for the G+ folks. I think something for the B/C/D crowd needs to happen.
Since I have the skills and ability to do so, and I kinda need a project, I'm thinking about spinning some boards for the rocket-side to get them small/light enough, as all the OTS stuff is too wide/heavy. Probably around 15x40mm (thin enough to fit into a 3d-printed 18mm nose cone w/1.2mm walls) + a small 100mAh battery (good for about an hour of full-power use, though generally the board powers down the sensors/GPS until commanded to go-live for launch). The chip shortage is terrible right now but I've got the schematics laid out (whether I can actually GET everything I used in any kind of quantity is up in the air) and a BOM and I'm fairly sure I could sell the rocket-side part ("motherboard" with processor, empty SD-card slot, GPS, LoRa transmitter, accelerometer + a "sensor package" daughterboard to go further up in the nose (literally just a BME280 board you can find on Amazon, though I'd buy a pile from China so they'd be cheap) for around $40-$45, if I have 100 made.
The whole thing would be entirely open-source and open-design, all code and schematics available. This would be rocket-side board only, you'd need to purchase your own ground-side transceiver (The one I'm using, as I said... $20 on Amazon, and I intend to treat that as the "canonical" base station), as well as 3D-print your own nose-cone/container (though I will provide STLs for 18mm and 24mm, because I'd be using them myself!) If there's a LOT of interest in the board from folks who want boards but don't have access to 3D printers, I might consider having one of the designs bulk-printed by a house. I sincerely doubt there's enough interest to justify a proper injection mold.
TLDR: I'm trying to gauge whether or not an affordable/light telemetry/GPS package ($45-ish, fittable into an 18mm B/C rocket) is something worth pursuing as a project past my own interests. No Kickstarter/Indiegogo BS, won't take anybody's $ until I have boards to ship in my possession. But I'm very curious if there's enough interest to make it worthwhile to pursue.