Looking for Arduino Programmer for high altitude balloon

Post here about your Arduino projects, get help - for Adafruit customers!

Moderators: adafruit_support_bill, adafruit

Please be positive and constructive with your questions and comments.
Locked
Bryan7346
 
Posts: 4
Joined: Thu Jun 02, 2011 8:14 am

Looking for Arduino Programmer for high altitude balloon

Post by Bryan7346 »

Hello, I am looking for someone to program an Arduino Uno for me. I am sending a weather balloon with HD cameras up much like the students at MIT did a few years ago, but I would like to have a microcontroller in mine.
The problem is that I have no idea of how to program one. I have a Microsoft Pharos GPS-500 III GPS Receiver, 1 Boost Mobile cell phone (as a tracking device through cell towers), 2 Kodak Playsport HD Video cameras, 2 Wire Digital Temperature Sensors - DS18B20 and 1 climate control system. I would like to have the Arduino Uno control these components. I have wires attached to the Kodak Playsport Circuit board to turn the camera off or on when shorted together, I have also done this for the recording function, and I also have another set of wires with about 1 volt going through them when the camera is powered on, that I would like to have the Arduino monitor to ensure that the camera is always powered on, and if it is not powered on I would like the Arduino to turn it on by shorting the 2 wires together. I could not find anything on the circuit board of the cameras to let me know when it was recording or not so I am wondering if we can make a sensor to detect a blinking red LED on the front of the cameras to let the Arduino know if the cameras are not only powered on but also to ensure that they are recording. I have the same configuration on the cell phone with the wires. 4 wires total. 2 to turn it on and 2 to monitor the voltage so the Arduino knows if it is on. I also have a climate control system that is going to run on two 5 Volt usb batteries that I would like to engage when the temperature inside the basket gets to 50 degrees and to turn off when it gets to 70 degrees. The second thermometer I am going to place on the outside of the basket, just to record temperatures at 100,000 ft.

I have an Arduino Uno with a Xbee shield and a XBee Pro 900 XSC Wire, that I would like to send me the gps informatoin and temperature readings to the ground somehow, either my phone or laptop or another Arduino, I'm not to sure what is required here. I also have a Arduino Datalogger that I would like to have store all the information processed by the Arduinno.

If someone is interested I would like to hear some feedback and eventually talk over skype and maybe somehow create this thing together across the country, or even in another country depending on who responds, I am in Boston, Massachusetts. I do not have any money to pay you for this, I am hoping to find someone who might be interested in the project itself and enjoys working with microcontrollers. I have launched 2 other balloons before this, but never with microcontrollers. If you are interested please respond to this post or contact me at [email protected]. I am sure there is plenty of things I should have posted but I can't think of anything more right now, so feel free to ask plenty of questions.

User avatar
cstratton
 
Posts: 294
Joined: Wed Sep 29, 2010 3:52 pm

Re: Looking for Arduino Programmer for high altitude balloon

Post by cstratton »

Couple of things jump out:

1) Check into the BANNED of lofting a phone with its radio active on the network. If you aren't allowed to use one in general aviation over concerns of hogging a frequency/timeslot in too many cells at a few thousand feet, doing so at 100K feet is going to be even worse. And of course I assume you need a permit for the balloon itself. Since you have the gps, it's kind of a duplicate capability anyway.

2) Not sure if the XBEE module is going to work at that distance. You may want to talk to ham radio people, or get the license yourself (code test no longer required). Lots of ham balloon projects, and lots of options for telemetry and control (not to mention the fun of using it as an ideally, if temporarily, situated repeater). This also potentially gets you a network of people to casually, or even seriously participate in tracking and recovery, and a way to talk to them in real time while all in the field during the flight.

3) "shorted together" is an inconvenient type of switching to accomplish from a microcontroller. It's much better if you can figure out what the switch in the original actually does, for example "shorts this line that normally has a low voltage provided by a pullup resistor to ground" as that will let you use simpler switching technologies... such as an npn transistor to ground, or in some cases perhaps even an output pin directly.

4) Similarly, with some circuit tracing you can probably detect the LED electrically. Or with a photo-transistor stuck to it and the pair taped up.

5) You may want a more capable controller than the arduino. Particularly if you go the ham radio route, being able to do voice telemetry would be nice, so that anyone with say a 2m handheld can receive it. You could do this with an arduino by stringing together recordings of terms and digits, but put in too many things and you will quickly run out of resources. Also, the shields to do various things are going to add weight.

6) If you launch this from Boston, it's probably gone, out to sea. Presumably you already know that, and either have the budget not to care, or the means to transport it sufficiently far west for launch as to hope to recover it. I suspect there are a number of college students in Boston who could get interested in a project like this, but lack the means to transport it west for launch. Maybe you can interest them by providing an opportunity it would be harder to organize on their own.

User avatar
bcook65
 
Posts: 109
Joined: Sat Apr 03, 2010 1:25 pm

Re: Looking for Arduino Programmer for high altitude balloon

Post by bcook65 »

I too am looking at sending a High Altitude Balloon up in the next year or so.. to take pics/vids, to take some temp measurements etc and transmitting via Packet and APRS (Automatic Position reporting System) which can be tracked on the internet or APRS radios.

Here are a couple of links that may be helpful..
http://code.google.com/p/trackuino/ An arduino shield primarily built for tracking High altitude balloons etc. I think you order the PCB already etched and drilled and you buy the components and assemble per downloadable instructions

http://kaymontballoons.com/Home_Page.php a source for HAB balloons

http://hab-ham.org/ Ham High Altitude Ballooning Forum

http://www.radiometrix.com/ Source for transceiver modules etc like the type used in the trackuino

http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/archive/ ... /index.php Amsat (Amateur Satellite) organization which also has a section on high altitude ballooning.

http://www.parallax.com/tabid/567/Default.aspx Parallax website (Basic stamp, propeller, etc) has some good articles.. This link should take you to a near space article which gives a load of info on building techniques etc.. and also a FAr 101 section which is the rules and regulations and procedures in regards to near space balloning, amateur satellites etc..

Would be AweSome if Adafruit or Make could carry the Trackuino shield in the link above.. :D

Hope this is helpful 73's
Bill KF5JDE

Locked
Please be positive and constructive with your questions and comments.

Return to “Arduino”