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- Nov 29, 2020
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I recently picked up an Eggtimer Telemetry Unit and am interested in using the RX USB Dongle with my laptop for a ground station in lieu of using the Eggfinder LCD Receiver. As I understand it, this will work but you have to create your own GUI that can parse the ASCII data stream. I have heard through the grapevine that someone may be in the process of developing a GUI for this application, but because I'm impatient and perhaps looking for a challenge (and/or a headache), I figured I might try and give it a whirl myself.
Interestingly enough as I was researching how to write applications using Python or a platform like Processing, I found that Excel actually has a cool little plugin called Data Streamer. It is literally set up to read sensor data via a micro-controller. I've tested it using some downloaded flight data and it works pretty well.
The one thing I'm not clear on is whether it will be able to read the data that comes from the Eggtimer products. The Excel Data Streamer is set up with Arduino type sensors and microcontrollers in mind and reads CSV files. I've looked over the sample telemetry data format guide that Cris has on the Eggtimer website. It's described as "human readable ASCII" but the formatting is not a type that I'm accustomed to (I'm used to comma or tab separated formatting typical in CSV files which, interestingly enough, is the format that you get when you download flight data from an ET Quantum).
I'm decidedly NOT a programmer. While learning a coding language and attempting to build my GUI might be a noble pursuit, I am WAY better versed in Excel and would love to use this if it works.
Short of purchasing the RX USB Dongle, assembling it, and just seeing if it works (which may just be the way this has to go), I'm curious if any here that are more knowledgeable about these things than me might have some thoughts or insights.
Interestingly enough as I was researching how to write applications using Python or a platform like Processing, I found that Excel actually has a cool little plugin called Data Streamer. It is literally set up to read sensor data via a micro-controller. I've tested it using some downloaded flight data and it works pretty well.
The one thing I'm not clear on is whether it will be able to read the data that comes from the Eggtimer products. The Excel Data Streamer is set up with Arduino type sensors and microcontrollers in mind and reads CSV files. I've looked over the sample telemetry data format guide that Cris has on the Eggtimer website. It's described as "human readable ASCII" but the formatting is not a type that I'm accustomed to (I'm used to comma or tab separated formatting typical in CSV files which, interestingly enough, is the format that you get when you download flight data from an ET Quantum).
I'm decidedly NOT a programmer. While learning a coding language and attempting to build my GUI might be a noble pursuit, I am WAY better versed in Excel and would love to use this if it works.
Short of purchasing the RX USB Dongle, assembling it, and just seeing if it works (which may just be the way this has to go), I'm curious if any here that are more knowledgeable about these things than me might have some thoughts or insights.