altusmetrum June 2014

altusmetrum@lists.gag.com

15 participants
11 discussions

group project for Thunda in 2015?

by Bdale Garbee

Keith and I both hope to be able to attend "Thunda Down Under"[1] in 2015, and I've sent the organizers email requesting information on what it takes to be treated as an on-site vendor. Of course, it's always more fun to be at a launch when you have something interesting to fly! Thus, while Keith and I might each show up with a modest "travel rocket" of some sort... I've started pondering possible larger "Altus Metrum" group projects. Since transporting a large airframe to Australia would be a hassle, I wonder if a group project to build an airframe in-country makes more sense? To that end, I'd be pleased to know if any of our friends and customers in Australia want to sign up to help with such a project? My thoughts would be to engage in some group-think about project scope and goals, then hope friends in-country would take on the sourcing and preparation of suitable airframe materials. Depending on who wants to participate and how tasks get taken up, we might plan to arrive a bit early to help with any final assembly or other preparations, installation of suitably fresh Altus Metrum electronics, etc. So, to all our Aussie friends... does this sound like fun? If so, please chime in with a reply. I don't expect the email associated with such a project to be too heavy a load for this list to carry, but we can always spawn a dedicated lists.gag.com list if I'm wrong. Regards, Bdale [1] http://thunda.com.au/

5 years, 10 months

Altus

by William J. Wagner lll

Bdale Garbee, I have one of your older Altus, which I have not been able to get it to work with my laptop which has Windows Vista on it. Do I need to uninstall it to update it? Bill Wagner

8 years, 6 months

[AD] Altus Metrum announces AltOS 1.4.1

by keithp＠keithp.com

Altus Metrum announces AltOS 1.4.1 This is a minor release containing: Windows Install Fixes * Provide signed Windows driver files. This should avoid any need to disable driver signature checking on Windows 7 or 8. * Fix Java version detection and download. Previously, the installer would only look for Java 6 or 7 and insist on downloading its own Java bits if there was something else installed. Furthermore, the 64-bit Java link provided didn't work for anyone other than Keith, making it impossible to install AltOS on any machine with Java SE 8 installed. Other Fixes * Include 1.4 firmware for TeleMetrum V2.0. None of the installers shipped this file. Now it's included in the AltOS packages for Linux, Mac and Windows. * Include Google Application Key for map downloading. The 1.4 release didn't have this key in the released version of the software, making map downloading fail for most people. You can read more about this release on the AltOS web page: http://altusmetrum.org/AltOS/ Altus Metrum products are available from our distributors Apogee Components, Bay Area Rocketry, and Chris' Rocket Supplies in the US; Australian Rocketry; Rebel Space in the Netherlands; Sierra Fox Hobbies in Italy; and Aerospace Education in New Zealand. Or you can order directly from Bdale's web store at: http://shop.gag.com All Altus Metrum products are completely open hardware and open source. The hardware design details and all source code are openly available for download, and advanced users are invited to join our developer community and help to enhance and extend the system. You can learn more about Altus Metrum products at http://altusmetrum.org. Thank you all for your continuing support of Altus Metrum, and we hope to see you on the flight line! Bdale and Keith

8 years, 8 months

TeleGPS first flash

by Douglas Bertelsen

I am in the process of attempting to flash an empty (except for the preloaded ROM) LPC11U14 in the TeleGPS I soldered together several days ago (the saw filter was about as fun as the 0402 components). I'm using openocd built from the git.gag.com repository but come up against a brick wall at that point. using ao-flash-lpc results in an error of "program" not being a valid command and 'lpc200' driver usage field missing. Trying to dig deeper, I have been mucking about in the openocd telnet client with limited success. Even when I get the target halted, the flash never takes, complaining about jtag errors. Openocd seems a lot less scary than it did on Wednesday, but I'm still far from picking everything up. Keith, you mentioned some tcl scripts for the LPC11U14 in a blog post, are those now used in the ao-flash-lpc script or posted elsewhere? I've searched around and looked at a lot of source code and cfg files, but don't seem to be finding what I'm looking for. I do have a stlink-v2 dongle (currently used with openocd) and ftdi ft232rl breakout board if needed. Any insight would be appreciated. Thank you, Doug

8 years, 9 months

Test Windows 8 driver for all Altus Metrum devices

by Keith Packard

I've gotten a "real" windows driver signing key and have made a tiny package that has a signed driver in it which should install without any need to reboot your machine or play funny games. However, I don't personally own any Windows 8 machines, and my Windows 7 machine has never complained about anything that we do. So, I'm looking for volunteers to give this little driver package a try to see if it works for you. http://keithp.com/~keithp/altos-1.4/Altos-Driver-1-4-0-1.exe When you run the installer, I think it will pop up a dialog asking if it's OK to install something from Altus Metrum, LLC. I'd like to know if it does or doesn't do that, and whether the output in the cute little green-on-black window includes something like this: Microsoft PnP Utility Processing inf : altusmetrum.inf Driver package added successfully. Published name : oem110.inf Total attempted: 1 Number successfully imported: 1 If this works for a few people, I'll update the released version of 1.4 with this new key for everyone else to use. -keith

8 years, 9 months

Notes on older software - write data

by Douglas Bertelsen

I was calibrating a TeleBT last night and using cu as directed in the instructions. Firmware was the most recent version and I got a "Syntax Error" when issuing the "c w" command to the unit. I ended up just flashing the entire unit firmware with the new value found by following the remaining calibration instructions. The "c w" command was not documented in the on-board help menus, either. Am I missing some small trick here? Working with your designs has been a pleasure and a learning experience. I appreciate the openness of your systems! Thank you, Doug

8 years, 9 months

Dual Deployment Feature

by Steven Saner

I've been thinking about a possible feature to add to a dual deployment altimeter for some time. I'm wondering if it has ever been considered (at least by you guys) or if there are some technical difficulties that I'm not thinking of. The problem that this feature would be attempting to solve is as follows. In a dual deployment setup there is a possibility that the apogee separation could fail. This could be due to the charge not firing. Not a strong enough charge to cause the separation. Or maybe it separates, but the drogue chute gets tangled up or fails in some way. If this happens, the rocket is likely going to begin a ballistic trajectory, or at least start descending at a higher than ideal rate. Now the main ejection and separation may happen when it has been configured to happen, but at this point the rocket is going to be going so fast that you are probably going to have extensive damage. Despite the damage, maybe things hang together well enough to slow the rocket down to a relatively safe landing, or maybe not. It would, therefore, be cool if the altimeter could in some way detect the apogee failure and trigger the main ejection early. Obviously, this defeats the intention of the dual deployment, but I would much rather have to hike after the rocket than for it to be destroyed and/or come in hot and unsafe. The way I would envision this being implemented is for the user to optionally be able to specify a maximum decent rate. After apogee the altimeter would continuously calculate the decent rate, which I believe it is doing anyway, and if that rate goes above the set threshold, the main ejection is triggered, regardless of the current altitude. Setting this parameter would require a bit of calculation and/or simulation by the user to determine what the expected decent rate under drogue would be and then you would want to leave some buffer. Some experimentation would perhaps be necessary to provide some good guidelines. Do any altimeters on the market do this kind of thing that anyone knows about? I haven't seen it, but I haven't studied every one extensively either. Do others think this would be a useful feature, or am I alone on that? Are there some implementation issues that I'm not thinking about? Anyway, I am offering this up for consideration and comment. Steve -- -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Steven Saner <steve(a)saner.net> KD0IJP Andover, Kansas USA -- -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Steven Saner <steve(a)saner.net> KD0IJP Andover, Kansas USA

8 years, 9 months

Dual Deployment Feature

by Steven Saner

8 years, 9 months

[ad] Altus Metrum introduces TeleGPS

by Bdale Garbee

Keith and I are pleased to introduce TeleGPS, a new GPS tracking-only product in the Altus Metrum product family. More details at <http://gag.com/bdale/blog/posts/TeleGPS_v1.0.html> Bdale

8 years, 9 months

[AD] Altus Metrum announces AltOS 1.4 with TeleGPS support

by keithp＠keithp.com

Altus Metrum announces AltOS 1.4 with TeleGPS support We've updated our flight firmware and ground station software to add support for TeleGPS, new features for TeleMega and to fix some bugs. TeleGPS is a compact GPS logging tracker. Using the same uBlox Max 7Q GPS chip as TeleMetrum V2 and TeleMega, it offers excellent GPS reception and tracking performance. It incorporates a 16mW transmitter that sends digital telemetry, APRS and radio direction finding signals. Read more about TeleGPS here: http://altusmetrum.org/TeleGPS New features in the AltOS firmware: * Report battery voltage at startup, rather than emitting three beeps. * Configurable beeper tone. This lets you tell two Altus Metrum flight computers apart when mounted in the same ebay. * Configurable pyro firing time for the extra pyro channels on TeleMega New features in AltOS 1.4 for Linux, MacOSX and Windows: * TeleGPS application. AltOS now includes a custom TeleGPS ground station for Linux, Mac OSX and Windows. While the regular AltosUI application works great with TeleGPS, the new application offers a streamlined and more general interface for tracking. * Improved maps. To support telemetry applications with broader range on the ground, the AltOS mapping system has been updated to support wider range panning and zoom levels, as well as incorporating multiple map styles. It's also faster and uses less memory, which should make it work better on all systems. * Added telemetry monitoring for TeleMega additional pyro channels. A new tab appears when receiving TeleMega telemetry to show the state of all four extra channels. You can read more about this release on the AltOS web page: http://altusmetrum.org/AltOS/ Altus Metrum products are available from our distributors Apogee Components, Bay Area Rocketry, and Chris' Rocket Supplies in the US; Australian Rocketry; Rebel Space in the Netherlands; and Aerospace Education in New Zealand. Or you can order directly from Bdale's web store at: http://shop.gag.com All Altus Metrum products are completely open hardware and open source. The hardware design details and all source code are openly available for download, and advanced users are invited to join our developer community and help to enhance and extend the system. You can learn more about Altus Metrum products at http://altusmetrum.org. Thank you all for your continuing support of Altus Metrum, and we hope to see you on the flight line! Bdale and Keith

8 years, 9 months

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altusmetrum June 2014