Hey everyone, thought you may be interested in my latest project. I'm working on making the smallest lightest APRS weather balloon tracker I could manage and this is the result. Its 1.75" x .75" runs off 2 AAA batteries and weighs under 55 grams flight ready. It has an ATmega 328P running the arduino bootloader and a modified version of the Trackuino firmware, ublox MAX-M8Q GPS receiver, sparkfun gps chip antenna, radiometrix hx1 300mw 2 meter transmitter, sht21 humidity sensor, and bmp180 pressure sensor. Batteries last around 12 hours though with less reporting that could be extended a bit. For more information check out tracksoar.com
Wow, great timing with this project. I'm working with a team at the Dallas Makerspace on a High Altitude Balloon project, and we're looking for a light-weight stand-alone APRS tracker we can use as a redundant communication system along side our logging/communications payload of a 3DR Pixhawk and telemetry radio.
Have you successfully flown with your tracker yet?
We'd be interested in testing/using one of your boards. We have the skills to assemble the board up from your BOM/schematics(if available)
Nice work!
Hi Nick, I replied to you directly but to keep any other potentially interested forum goers up to date I'll reply here as well.
Very cool to hear you're doing a balloon launch, theyre a lot of fun. I have not yet flown my board but I am to change that this week. It is based on the very successful trackuino project so all the hardware has been tested successfully just not ye ton my board.
I am holding off releasing the source and schematic until the kickstarter go live (within the next week or two if all goes well), but it will be completely open sourced. Until then I am happy to send you a test board once I get the latest parts and boards in.
Michael, thank you for making this project available! We're very excited to put it to use in our upcoming launches.
--Nick McCarthy / KD5FTN
Hey everyone, Tracksoar is now up and available on Kickstarter, please take a look and back us here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1250163085/tracksoar-aprs