Zeus-cat
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So last year I was stupid and stuffed my Altimeter Two into a small rocket. Of course, this was the flight the shock cord had to break and my beloved Altimeter Two flew off and landed in the middle of a corn field never to be seen again. After a few months of data withdrawal I just had to get my fix again so I told my dealer to score me another one. He told me that Jolly Logic wasn't shipping at the moment as John had upgraded versions of the Altimeter Ones and Twos in development, but would ship soon. So a few weeks went by and I asked again, but they still hadn't shipped. A few more weeks went by and at last Sunday's launch I got my grubby little hands on one.
So I opened the package and ignored the instructions. I turned it on and the altimeter and the first thing you get is the power level as a percentage. Mine was at 89% when I first got it. The display then starts scrolling through the fake data that comes preloaded on the altimeter for Flight 0. The first thing I noticed is that the display is really nice! On the previous versions of the Altimeter Two the display would show the type of data it was about to display and then display it. For example, peak acceleration would be displayed as PAcc on the first screen and then the actual data on the next screen 12.5. Not anymore. Now the display has the word flight in a small font in the upper left corner and then the flight number below it in a larger font. In the upper right corner it states what the piece of data is, in this case Peak Accel in the same smaller font as the word Flight. Then below it in the larger font was 12.5Gs. The display looks to be about the same size so John has obviously reduced the fonts to get all this info onto the display. I had no problems reading any of it, but you might if you have really bad close-up vision. In summary, I really like the changes John made to the display.
The scroll speed is something else that needs to be mentioned. If you are just looking at the data it seems to scroll just a bit slow. However, if you are recording the data on a computer it seems just a bit fast. To be fair, I am in a poorly lit room holding the altimeter in one hand to see the display and typing the data into a spreadsheet with the other. Under better conditions the scroll speed would likely seem just right for recording info. And I should mention that in bright light outside the display was easy to read.
The booklet included with the altimeter explains how to access other features of the altimeter using the menu. The options are Launch, History, Units, Erase and Cancel. When you hold down the power button the display scrolls through the menu options. When you get to the one you want you just let go of the power button. The option flashes about 10 times and then goes to that option. For example, when launch is selected it flashes Launch about 10 times and then has the word Ready appear on the screen. It the cycles between Ready and the power level reading. This was logical and very easy to use.
John also changed the memory and this altimeter can store the data for the last 100 flights. When you use the History option it starts by displaying the data from the latest flight and keeps going back all the way to flight 0.
I really liked the original version of the Altimeter Two and the changes made to this latest version are all for the better in my opinion.
Here is the data I recorded Sunday on 2 flights of my original Luna rocket. The first flight was on a D12-3 and the second on an E9-4. Both flights were in fairly strong winds (10-15 mph).
So I opened the package and ignored the instructions. I turned it on and the altimeter and the first thing you get is the power level as a percentage. Mine was at 89% when I first got it. The display then starts scrolling through the fake data that comes preloaded on the altimeter for Flight 0. The first thing I noticed is that the display is really nice! On the previous versions of the Altimeter Two the display would show the type of data it was about to display and then display it. For example, peak acceleration would be displayed as PAcc on the first screen and then the actual data on the next screen 12.5. Not anymore. Now the display has the word flight in a small font in the upper left corner and then the flight number below it in a larger font. In the upper right corner it states what the piece of data is, in this case Peak Accel in the same smaller font as the word Flight. Then below it in the larger font was 12.5Gs. The display looks to be about the same size so John has obviously reduced the fonts to get all this info onto the display. I had no problems reading any of it, but you might if you have really bad close-up vision. In summary, I really like the changes John made to the display.
The scroll speed is something else that needs to be mentioned. If you are just looking at the data it seems to scroll just a bit slow. However, if you are recording the data on a computer it seems just a bit fast. To be fair, I am in a poorly lit room holding the altimeter in one hand to see the display and typing the data into a spreadsheet with the other. Under better conditions the scroll speed would likely seem just right for recording info. And I should mention that in bright light outside the display was easy to read.
The booklet included with the altimeter explains how to access other features of the altimeter using the menu. The options are Launch, History, Units, Erase and Cancel. When you hold down the power button the display scrolls through the menu options. When you get to the one you want you just let go of the power button. The option flashes about 10 times and then goes to that option. For example, when launch is selected it flashes Launch about 10 times and then has the word Ready appear on the screen. It the cycles between Ready and the power level reading. This was logical and very easy to use.
John also changed the memory and this altimeter can store the data for the last 100 flights. When you use the History option it starts by displaying the data from the latest flight and keeps going back all the way to flight 0.
I really liked the original version of the Altimeter Two and the changes made to this latest version are all for the better in my opinion.
Here is the data I recorded Sunday on 2 flights of my original Luna rocket. The first flight was on a D12-3 and the second on an E9-4. Both flights were in fairly strong winds (10-15 mph).
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