It’s always exciting to see the photos from High Altitude Ballooning (HAB) outings. While it’s no surprise that the Raspi is a popular choice—low cost, convenient USB jacks, etc.—this is the first build we’ve seen that uses an OLED during the trip to show real-time data on-screen to be picked up by the on-board webcam. (Though you may have to squint to see it at the bottom middle of the above image).
[Fabrice’s] payload made it to 26,000m, and the screen he chose, an ILSOFT OLED, performed admirably despite the extreme conditions suffered (temperatures can reach -50C). The last time we saw a near-space Raspi payload was a couple of years ago, when [Dave Akerman] was closing in on UK balloon altitude records. [Dave] hasn’t stopped launching balloons, either, testing new trackers and radio modules, as well as his most recent build that sent a Superman action figure to the skies—all recorded in glorious HD.
Check out both [Dave] and [Fabrice’s] blogs for loads of pictures documenting the latest in High Altitude Ballooning, and stay with us after the jump for a quick video of [Fabrice’s] OLED in action.
not exactly the most efficient way to show information. I could only read it once in the entire video. maybe next time closer and with more contrast, or two cameras at angles to see this view and one closer to the display?
It’s not very nice to throw pis around. The wonder of all capital letter titles in the new design :)
Nice, took me fice seconds to get your comment.
I thought it said pies :(
Throwing pies isn’t very nice either…
You obviously haven’t seen the comedic effect of a pi in the face. :)
hahahah..
LOL! My wife asked me why they were throwing piss into the sky.
On the RSS feed it’s capitalized as “Pis” I had to read it 5 times before I realized that they didn’t mean that…
It may have been intentional.
Did they, by chance, take a Wii in the stratosphere too?
I read it as pigs, has a few seconds before my hopes were dashed :P
That’s because it should be spelled “Pi’s.” I thought he left off an s. Wondered why anyone would want to throw urine into the stratosphere.
That’s not what apostrophes are for.
^^ what miroslav said. As resident grammar Nazi, I cannot support possessive Pis in this instance.
But how are you suppose to differentiate between multiple boards and, well, urine.
It needs one more S 2 B P.
I’ve done a couple HABs with screens placed like this, the main problem was that it was being driven by an arduino, and as it got colder, the screen refresh rate got slower and slower
Is that because the arduino clock slows down as it gets colder?
Damn, the disadvantages of not being a native English speaker, thought piss was spelled pis. :/ Well well, joke is on me.
Should have added the altitude as an overlay on the webcam images?
Yes I agree, I planned to add the altitude elevation profile and current altitude just on top of the screen with overlay, but unfortunately I didn’t had time to do it before sharing the video:
I planned to use this as a base:
http://fab4space.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/flight_elevation_profile.jpg
I hate to be “that guy”, but wouldn’t an FPV OSD (First Person View On-Screen Display) be easier and more useful?
Ah, it’s a webcam. My bad.
Yeah that was my thoughts and is the way i intend to do it. Ive got all the components but the cam assembled and trying to find a good USED GoPro or may just go with a Mobius
An OSD using netPBM tools and mjpegtools would have been an option.
Then again I used to hate 35mm trip cameras that used 7 segment LED’s to put dates on photos.