Industrial engineering pupil Jim Heaney has developed a customized Arduino-compatible avionics package deal, dubbed the Ultralogger, for high-power mannequin rocketry — weighing in at simply 6.4g (0.23oz).
“The Ultralogger is sufficiently small to suit right into a 17mm tube, making it a viable choice for small Estes and comparable rockets. Nonetheless, the sensor package deal and reminiscence enable this board to fly as much as 100,000 toes above sea stage and attain accelerations as much as 200g whereas nonetheless recording knowledge,” Heaney writes of the challenge. “The board can log as much as 20Hz knowledge for 20 minutes, with a manually-configurable knowledge fee to maximise recordings on longer flights.”
The Ultralogger is a strong knowledge logger for high-powered mannequin rocket launches, as on Jim Heaney’s Lightwave L2 (primary article picture). (📷: Jim Heaney)
The board relies on a Microchip ATtiny1616 microcontroller, which is programmed via the Arduino IDE utilizing the group MegaTinyCore. Additionally on the board are a pair of sensors for monitoring the flight: a MEAS Switzerland MS5607 strain and temperature sensor, used to trace the rocket’s altitude; and an Analog Gadgets ADXL375 accelerometer to trace acceleration.
“I began out with the sensors and constructed up from there,” Heaney explains. “The accelerometer and altimeter I used on this board are ones that I wish to use on future, bigger, extra advanced avionics packages, however I wanted a solution to higher quantify their efficiency on the small-scale first to know in the event that they’d work for what I wished to do. Past that, my subsequent driver was bodily dimension. Smaller rockets are cheaper and simpler to launch, so if I might squeeze this right into a 17mm versus, say, a 25mm physique tube, I might launch possibly 50 per cent extra for a similar value/period of time.”
A significant a part of the Ultralogger’s design is flexibility: if a selected mannequin rocket lacks an avionics bay, the unit might be hooked up on to a parachute. There isn’t any detachable storage, to keep away from points with microSD playing cards or comparable shaking unfastened throughout flight, with three I2C EEPROM chips used as an alternative — and all settings, together with knowledge retrieval in CSV format, might be carried out over the board’s micro-USB interface through a typical serial connection.
The design is a successor to the bulkier Alt-Log 1, ditching the SD Card storage for EEPROMs to keep away from points with vibration. (📷: Jim Heaney)
“Weight with battery is available in at 6.4 grams [around 0.23oz],” Heaney says of the completed system. “Can log temperature (both F or C), altitude (both above sea stage or floor stage, in both toes or meters), acceleration (vertical, in gs), and battery voltage (in volts, to 2 decimal locations). The performance can be there to measure acceleration in X and Y, however that’s not too helpful in a rocket. It will possibly measure as much as 20 occasions per second, with the limiting issue being the EEPROM.”
Extra data on the challenge is accessible in Heaney’s Reddit thread; whereas a deliberate write-up had not appeared on his web site on the time of writing, different avionic board designs are detailed as a substitute for the curious.
