Ozymandias
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- Oct 21, 2014
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Since I broke my Altacc 2C i've been brainstorming ideas for computers I would like to build. Let me know what you think.
Idea 1: (Somewhat expensive)
I just popped my last Altacc so I need to do something. I have wanted to design and build my own flight computer using a BASIC Stamp microcontroller for a while. My idea is to program the Stamp to sense launch and deploy the main and drogue parachutes via an interface board. I've come up with two ideas for user interface with my computer. I would like it to have an on-board LCD display with a detachable keypad. That would mean way more programming but I wouldn't have to take my expensive laptop out to the launch site. Parallax now makes a kit that allows you to use Bluetooth to wirelessly interface with the Stamp. That might be good for doing status checks once the rocket is sitting on the pad ready for launch. You could have the stamp check the continuity of the recovery pryos, battery voltage, etc. wirelessly from up to 300 feet away. My program would record and graph altitude, velocity, and acceleration. I could even make it compute Cd values!
Idea 2: (Very Expensive)
These micro ATX motherboards are getting so small these days. They are even small enough to fit in 6" body tube. This rig would only be suitable for very large birds but it would provide flight data aquisition, GPS location data, and real-time telemetry. I want to build a micro ATX computer with a 1.3ghz processor running Linux. I would connect the PC to an interface board to control recovery pryos, get GPS data from a reciever, etc. I could write a program to provide me with almost any data I could ever want (much easier said than done, of course). I could get telemetry data, status reports, and the like using an IEEE 802.11b network between my Powerbook G4 and the PC. Using remote login I could run processes on the PC over the network. I would have to use a flash card on the PC because the high G's would trash a conventional hard drive. After the flight, I could remove the drive and download the data for analysis.
What do you think? Any suggestions?
Idea 1: (Somewhat expensive)
I just popped my last Altacc so I need to do something. I have wanted to design and build my own flight computer using a BASIC Stamp microcontroller for a while. My idea is to program the Stamp to sense launch and deploy the main and drogue parachutes via an interface board. I've come up with two ideas for user interface with my computer. I would like it to have an on-board LCD display with a detachable keypad. That would mean way more programming but I wouldn't have to take my expensive laptop out to the launch site. Parallax now makes a kit that allows you to use Bluetooth to wirelessly interface with the Stamp. That might be good for doing status checks once the rocket is sitting on the pad ready for launch. You could have the stamp check the continuity of the recovery pryos, battery voltage, etc. wirelessly from up to 300 feet away. My program would record and graph altitude, velocity, and acceleration. I could even make it compute Cd values!
Idea 2: (Very Expensive)
These micro ATX motherboards are getting so small these days. They are even small enough to fit in 6" body tube. This rig would only be suitable for very large birds but it would provide flight data aquisition, GPS location data, and real-time telemetry. I want to build a micro ATX computer with a 1.3ghz processor running Linux. I would connect the PC to an interface board to control recovery pryos, get GPS data from a reciever, etc. I could write a program to provide me with almost any data I could ever want (much easier said than done, of course). I could get telemetry data, status reports, and the like using an IEEE 802.11b network between my Powerbook G4 and the PC. Using remote login I could run processes on the PC over the network. I would have to use a flash card on the PC because the high G's would trash a conventional hard drive. After the flight, I could remove the drive and download the data for analysis.
What do you think? Any suggestions?