I have seen a few telemetry modules made for rockets and I want to make my own. I am brand new (like I havnt purchased my first kit). I know nothing of coding or anything else but I’m a quick learner and extremely technilogically adept when it comes to building things.
I want to make an altimeter that can also trigger pyro events and log all data either wirelessly or to a memory card for recovery.
Any help would be great. I’m looking for recommendations on how to approach this project as well as parts to be considered.
Hey thanks. Didn’t get flooded with ideas and like 1000 different approaches. I was hoping for guidance on BEST approach. Remember I’m so new I havnt even bought anything yet. So when a guy like me googles “model rocket altimeter Arduino” I havnt the slightest clue which approach is better than others. Good to know there are trolls here too
As you are new , I’d suggest just buying a genuine UNO and having a play and learn a bit of coding - you’ll then be in a better position to spec out what and how you want to achieve your aim.
Not at first. Rockets can be flown at low altitude for easy and safe recovery and the project can be scaled up from there. I need recommendations on which platform maybe, or which components. I’m not looking to learn C++ from beginning to end nor am I looking to learn electrical engineering from start to finish. But I would like to learn a little. Google floods with projects and no clear way to proceed.
Start by narrowing it down. Such as by setting parameters like type, size, weight carrying ability and planned altitude, or by what parameters exactly you want to measure.
Figure out what data you want to log and how fast you want to log it - that determines the storage requirements.
WammyGoodIdea:
Not at first. Rockets can be flown at low altitude for easy and safe recovery and the project can be scaled up from there.
No. Altimetry at low altitude usually uses air pressure. Above 40,000ft the absolute air pressure goes below the lower limit of most cheap air pressure sensors. Above 80,000ft even the expensive ones aren't much use because the change in air pressure is very small.
So tell us how high you want to go and we can make some suggestions.
Also tell us how you evaluate "best." Do you want cheap or small or complex?
Versatile enough for 100 ft to 3000ft. There are tons of cheap altimeters for model rockets but I want to do more than just see a little dinky display and I want to make it myself. I am more or less interested in measuring anything really worth measuring. I want an expandable “proof of concept”. Start measuring low altitude flights then higher. Followed by dual deployment around 1000ft. Once I can consistently deploy I want to start adding weather measurements. Budget is tight but that’s why I want expandable. But tracking data from the jump is paramount. I have the time to invest. And to be honest the rocket part is easy the electronics bay is the payload I can design the rocket around the project. And I’m not designing a full SRB to make it to orbit. We are talking model rockets.
Start with a BME280 (air temp, pressure & humidity - so that's some weather & altitude) and an accelerometer. That'll get you lots of data. Add a micro SD card for storing the data and log away.
You got the I2C bus in action, lots of sensors will use that. Easy to expand.
wvmarle:
Start with a BME280 (air temp, pressure & humidity - so that's some weather & altitude) and an accelerometer. That'll get you lots of data. Add a micro SD card for storing the data and log away.
You got the I2C bus in action, lots of sensors will use that. Easy to expand.
I’d start by buying a Arduino uno kit with a bread board so you can start experimenting and learning. Build a battery powered desktop weather station that will log the data to an sd card
By doing this in the first place you will learn some of the stuff you need to and answer a lot of your own questions. You’ll get much better quality help on here if you do this
