What are you looking at for a current price point?
And in the US, I dont think 868mhz is in our license free band
The module I want to use is 868 MHz AND 900 MHz... so it is usable in both areas. Needs just one parameter to change.
Hey stomper, there's been a few people in this thread who've made the point that I'm about to make already, so I won't harp too long.
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simple and effective devices. The Jolly Logic Chute Release is probably the greatest thing to happen in rocketry since sliced bread. I wish they'd get into proper high power stuff.
Don´t be concerned... It is more or less for myselfe. The most parts of the electronic I do need in another projekt. But befor starting this other project I need to learn a little bit about the components.
I am no daydreamer. I know that this will not become a very great selling product :-D As you wrote... I try to get some money back for the developement. The software will be open source, so everyone can change and re-engineer it.
The more choices for onboard electronics, the merrier. Please record and store all flight orientation data like roll, yaw, and pitch for flight dynamics analysis. Also, the quality and ease of use of data processing software will be important.
There will be a IMU with 9 DOF (Acc, Gyro, Magnet) to determine the exact orientation. And one additional High-G Acc up to 200 G to measure the acceleration during start.
Stomper,
As others have pointed out, your ideas are good for creating interest, but market capitalization may end up quite limited.
Just FYI, twenty years ago Dave Triano offered a custom CPU based timer called the XTime. It was highly ruggedized and configured with external dimensions of 5" long, 1" wide, and .5" deep to fit a 38mm tube.
The Xtime had only a small fraction of the capabilities you are proposing, and each unit was custom built to order. This was 20 years ago and much has changed since then. The cost at that time was $325 each.
So I would be interested to know what your cost target is going to be, and will your unit be a production item or another custom built to order approach.
The hardware is nearly ready to be produced (at least the first B sample). This is very expensive as there are a lot of options on it, witch is to test and to get to know everything for the later product.
The final board will be in the 300 USD Range... hopefully I get it down to 250 USD...without any Software.
The board itself is professionally manufactured and assembled in China from a partner Company of mine. Tested and engineered in Germany.
It has an SWD/JTAG connector and everyone may add software to it.
The Software I need for my own rocket and my other project, will be available for free - as mentioned: Open Source.
The underlying System will be FreeRTOS and the STCubeMX Library from ST Microelectronics.
I don´t know if I have the time to write a nice and smooth firmware for the board so everyone can use it without knowledge of programming.
I cannot guarantee that this will ever be available. At least not without any help from other people.
What I can imagine is an board to be an open platform for everyone to write code.
And building a website with all the information and code on it. Like Arduino and others do.
Maybe there will build up a software community around the hardware. :-D
If someone is interested to help me with that... feel free to contact me.
I can provide webspace and a domain for an online community.
I will be back with the first 3D renderings of the board, as soon as layout process has finished.
Best regards
Stomper