MINIALT WD data recovery

[stefanoP]

topic perhaps already covered.
i have a perfectflite minialtwd.
launched with RATT I80 hybrid engine in March.
lost rocket.
found in June. in fair condition.
altimeter with broken beeper.
I would like to try to recover the flight data.
I have both usb and serial connector. but i only have pc with win10 and usb.
how should I proceed? the sw does not see the com port. do i have to power the minialt with battery? do i need to install drivers to use the USB connector?

 

[Voyager1]

Have you read the manual for the MiniAltWD? You will find the connection procedure on P18. You will need to install the USB driver.

http://www.perfectflite.com/Downloads/MAWDManual.pdf
http://perfectflite.com/Download.html

 

[CoyoteNumber2]

Disclaimer: the last time I used a minialt was 2013 so what I'm about to tell you could be outdated.

I think the minialt only had a serial transfer cable. (DT3U?) I think the USB cable was introduced with the Stratologger; I don't know if it was backwards compatible with the minialt.

The altimeter has to be powered by the battery. When it's making the boot-up tone, that's when you connect in the transfer software.

I don't think I ever got the minialt software to work in Windows 7, but that may have just been an issue with my USB serial port. I vaguely remember running it in a Windows XP virtual machine.

At a minimum, you can use a terminal emulator like puTTY to dump the flight data. The minialt manual will show which command to issue to do so. I think the output is just a long list of numbers, which is altitude in 1/20th-second increments (manual will say for certain).

Good luck!

 

[stefanoP]

Have you read the manual for the MiniAltWD? You will find the connection procedure on P18. You will need to install the USB driver.

http://www.perfectflite.com/Downloads/MAWDManual.pdf
http://perfectflite.com/Download.html

download usb driwer error 404

 

[Voyager1]

download usb driwer error 404

That’s a pain! You might be able to use your device manager to find a suitable driver online.

If that doesn’t work it’s possible that you could use a standard 5V USB-serial dongle by connecting the Tx, Rx and GND leads to the Rx, Tx and GND on the MAWD‘s com connector. I haven’t done this with a MAWD, but it can work with other similar devices. No guarantees in this instance.

Hopefully, someone will have a solution for you. Good luck.