This weekend I spent time making the deployment systems around the two new flight computers. These will be fitted to 90mm rockets. One of them will be fitted to J4II instead of the NOAA deployment system we have been using. The other will be a spare for one of the three rockets (Tachyon II, J4 II and Hyperon). The new flight computers are now using the CR123A lithium batteries.
I also spent time this weekend building and testing a circuit that is going to form the core of a data acquisition system for our rockets. It is again based on the PIC16F628A microcontroller we have been using for the flight computers, but this one will be dedicated for collecting in-flight data. The part of the circuit that I tested was the RS-232 communications between the PIC and my PC through RS232. This way we will able to download the collected data from the unit. Eventually this RS232 interface could also be connected to a telemetry stream back to a base station. Each of these data acquisition units will record one or two channels based on the sample frequency required. It is planned that any number of these small units will be able to be placed on the rocket to gather as many channels of data as required.
I am also hoping to use one of these acquisition modules in our static thrust measuring rig for when we test new rockets.
Hopefully on Sunday we will get to fly more rockets again.
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4 comments:
are you selling the couplings i really want to get my hands on some of thouse
Unfortunately the couplings currently are not for sale, although it is something we will look into in the future. The main reason they are not for sale is due to the amount of time it takes to machine them by hand and we currently use all the ones we have manufactured.
However, Robinson couplings similar to ours can be made quite easily from hollow threaded lamp rods. Try doing a google search for "Robinson coupling" for instructions how to make them.
thanks for the info you guys make great water rockets i only make singel stage rockets but they seam to work good
today i made a towstage rocket thanks to your advice with the lamp rods it works really good
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