Although the thrill of launching rockets is usually found in their safe decent back to Earth, eventually you’re going to want some data from your flight. Everything from barometric pressure, GPS logging, and acceleration data is a useful thing to have, especially if you’re trying to perfect your craft. [zortness] over on reddit created a data logging board created especially for amateur rocketry, a fabulous piece of work that stands up to the rigors of going very fast and very high.
The design of the board is a shield for the Arduino Mega and Due, and comes with enough sensors for over-analyzing any rocket flight. The GPS logs location and altitude at 66Hz, two accelerometers measure up to 55 G. Barometric, temperature, and compass sensors tell the ground station all the data they would need to know over a ZigBee 900MHz radio link.
Because this is an Arduino, setting up flight events such as deploying the main and drogue chutes are as easy as uploading a bit of code. [zortness] built this for a 4″ diameter rocket, but he says it might fit in a 3″ rocket. We just can’t wait to see some videos of it in action.
i have made somthing similar on a standalone platform … its not easy to get right and to take the G forces!
good job!
I thought GPS modules lock out at high altitudes and speeds because the US military doesn’t want them to be used on diy cruise missiles?
if you buy cheap chinese ones they dont lock you out!
can you recommend us a good chinese GPS modules ? \
Different manufacturers apply the COCOM limits differently. Some lock you out when going faster than 1000 knots OR get higher than 60000 feet; others lock out when going faster than 1000 knots AND higher than 60000 feet; also others don’t apply them at all.
That would be fairly expensive to figure it out.
Not really, they can be easily tested with a high altitude balloon. The ublox modules are known to work well if they’ve been configured correctly.
The GPS is 10Hz, 66 channel, not 66Hz. It is a pa6h. A SkyTraq (sparkfun.com has the breakout) can do 20Hz. I’ve not found any faster
i THINK you CAN get more than 20hz if you limit satellites to 12 but its not in the datasheet
A very nice idea, but there’s a simpler approach. Just put an Android phone in the rocket – you’ve got accelerometers and assorted other sensors. With a IOIO board you can control external triggers.
And as a bonus the rocket can take images, transmit data via 3G or 4G, and even tweet its progress.
Not exactly very robust or longterm.
I can imagine a phone would do ok, it has be designed and tested to take a fair bit of banging around and the occasional drop
same here. Most of the time even automotive grade components will fail. I’d love to see a scientific arduino on a ceramic PCB, with ceramic packages / hybrid construction and RF shielding.
55Gs? I wonder if that sd-card will stay put, take that beating :)
Put it with socket facing up so it would be no problem (can’t see a rocket going down with the same acceleration as up :D).
Actually, when you deploy your parachute (especially at the wrong moment), the shock can be substantial and even bigger than acceleration during exhaust.
First PCB? Well done!