7/18/2013 8:45 Am MDT

Launch from Route 66 Casino near Albuquerque.

Almost took my tongue with it !

Highest altitude was 65000 ft.

Maximum speed 45 Mph

PX4IO with 430 Mhz telemetry worked GREAT. Used 20 element 440 beam on ground and 3 element on balloon. Saw telemetry all the way.

APM 2.0 worked good also. Only the top camera didn't work. GoPro was fantastic. Cheep

down pointing gumstick camera recorded all the way up/down. Both APRS units worked good.

Recovered on Indian reservation 40 miles from launch.

Only got to 65000 ft because my knot at the balloon slipped! I told the crew I shouldn't tie the knot!

Video to be uploaded soon.....

Earl

On Thursday July 18,2013 we are going to launch another balloon (2nd this year).

This time we are going to fly a PX4FPU and PX4IO board.

Along with our other stuff.

430 Mhz 3DR telemetry

900 Mhz 3DR telemetry

2 Byonics APRS tracking units. 10 watt output. See live track on APRS.FI and search for KE5VSH

Voltage, inside and outside temp sensors, output on APRS.FI

Live 1.5 watt video on 1.2 Ghz. Side outside view.

2 Muvie recording cameras. One pointed up the other down.

1 GoPro Hero 2 pointed to the side.

1 120 db sonaleart for location on recovery.

6 various size lipo batteries. 1000mwh to 6400 mwh

Fiberglass package made by our crew. Inside insulated with 1/2" foam.

BTW....can you believe I get PAID to do this ? (Student intern)

Package weighs about 9 lbs.

Balloon is 1500 gram. Filled with 2 big tanks of helium.

Here are some pics:

7/3/2013 balloon launch equipment

Some of the NEW 7/18/2013 launch equipment. Includes PX4IO and PX

More pics of 7/18/2013 launch equipment:

I hope you enjoy the pics.

We will see if the PX4 holds up as well as the APM's that have flown before. Temps range from 90 F to 33 F inside and 90 F to -70 F outside. The balloon speed gets as high 107 mph on the last flight in the jetstream at ~ 35,000 ft. We have recovered all flight packages (11) so far. Hope to on this also.

Report after launch...and look on APRS.FI on 7/18/13.

Earl

Here is my APM2.5 at my apartment in Albuquerque NM. See the 3 waypoints and home position?

Thanks a bunch Kevin! http://www.diydrones.com/xn/detail/705844%3ATopic%3A1094076

My android tablet is a Pipo S2 at $122 from Banggood.com What a deal! There are some things you have to do to get it to work on the S2 (new firmware) but it is east.

Earl

It flew ! For 50 feet off ground. Premature rope cut ! Dang....getting closer

Moment of ground release.

Next Friday...8-10-12...same time ...same place...another launch !

Earl

You always have that ONE flight where nothing goes right. 7-27-12

The balloon slipped off the filling neck and got away. We had a backup balloon ! The second helium tank was EMPTY.

Dang..what luck.

Soooo... I will show pictures of the X8 wing we will try to launch Friday 8-3-12.

The Big Wheel antenna on the front is for the 5 WATT ATV TX on 434 mhz. (Yes I am a ham N8TV)

Antenna on wing is the 10 watt APRS antenna on 144 mhz.

Notice the annoyance deterrent ?

5 watt ATV Tx, APRS (under card) and battery.

Nichrome cut down system activated by time or a command from the Mission Planner and APM 2.5

It is released by a command from the Mission Planner at a LOW altitude. (joke)

I hope the Friday 8-3-12 launch goes well.

Earl

RECOVERED !!!

The balloon is in the air as we type. @ 40,000 = ft.

Check out call sign ke5vsh-1 on aprs.fi website. You can track the progress in real time from 15:30 GMT 9:30 AM MST

Earl

7-13-12

UPDATE .... 7/2/12 ...

Another successful flight to over 100,000 feet with the same APM2 and 3DR radios on board. This picture is the balloon exploding at over 100,000 feet. Total flight was 101 mins this time. The APRS tracker failed this flight but the package was recovered in a 1/2 hr by a citizen calling the phone number on the package !

In about 2 weeks we are preparing to launch the balloon glider combo and fly the glider back by a joystick on APM2 via mavlink.

Earl

3rd time for this APM2 and 3DR radio combo ! The temps ranged from 100 F on ground to -51 F at one point in flight.

We did have a failure on the 3DR radio at -51 F. Radio died and won't come back.

We used the APRS.FI tracking as well and it showed great.

As you can see, there is NO insulation in our fiberglass box. Cameras on outside have no insulation.

All electronics worked for 3 flights now and still work (except the 3DR)

Sparkfun datalogger worked this time. I need to DL the APM2 data yet.

Earl

Can you spot a piece of the burst balloon against the total blackness of space at 100,000 ft. ?

You can also see how thin our atmosphere is !

See the curvature of the earth.

The wire with silicone at the end is part of the 2M APRS antenna. The white things are parts of the burst balloon.

Did anyone see the balloon track on APRS.FI on the internet on Tuesday 5/29/2012 at 9 pm ? Callsign is ke5vsh-1 if you want to see the track.

The 3D radios on 433mhz worked well all the way sending APM2 data down. I will try to post some of the data. The temp inside our package was from 86 to -15 degrees from launch to touchdown.

I will give links to the Top,Side,and Bottom cameras when the files get uploaded.

Another great flight ! Now going to launch the 7 ft. 8x glider with APM2 in it for a RTL and maybe an autonomous landing in about 2 weeks. The test flight is only to 30,000 ft. to test everything out. If all goes well we will launch the glider every 2 weeks with scientific packages on board.

I sure hope the RTL will work because we spent 5 hours in the hot desert retrieving this last shot ! My director says the APM2 RTL would be sooo much better. I will keep you posted.

All this work is by Cosmiac LLC funded by NASA and the University of New Mexico.

Earl

On 4/14/12 we flew an APM2 ardupilot in a balloon to over 100000 feet for 7 1/2 hour 300 mile + flight !

The flight originated near Albuquerque NM and landed near Trinchera ,CO. The flight was over 300 miles and lasted far longer than we planned. The flight was so long the 5 on board cameras ran out of memory and battery before the flight ended.

The chase crew went 225 miles before giving up because there was no data from the Digi M10 Satellite modem. The crew was almost back into Albuquerque when all of the sudden three phones got e-mails from the Digie modem at the same time.

ET CALLED HOME !!!

It gave us the Lat, long, and altitude of where it was. Several emails later we realized the package landed. We quickly put the coordinates into google maps and could not believe where it was ! It was in Colorado! And it landed 7 1/2 hours after launch !

I will download the data from the APM2 SD card and see the flight.

Here are some pictures.

Could have landed here in Colorado

But it landed 10 miles further 50 feet from the edge of a farm road !

Some of the equipment flown...

I will post more pics and some videos later when I get back to Albuquerque. My car motor seized up out in the boonies right after retrieving the package. Got to get rental car and find way to get new motor in 2006 Saturn Vue.

Earl

The er9x transmitter now will display MavLink data on the LCD.

Gerard Valade a DIYdrones member wrote the software and myself who was the principal debugger.

Works at 19200 and 38400 baud. Still have a problem with 57600 baud. Some kind of timing issue yet.

Here is a pic of the arduplane 2.30 MavLink display on the er9x.

There is an Xbee inside the er9x to receive the MaveLink data from the APN2.0 purple board.

We will post the er9x firmware soon.

Earl

How about this new Raspberry-pi Linux computer for $25 or $35 coupled with a sensor board ?

Has a header on board, video 256k memory hdi video or composit usc sdcard.......

see here for all specs..  http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Raspberry_Pi

Earl

I have a spare Mega 1280 where the serial input line is bad.

So how to program it with no FTDI serial0 input ?

Notice the ISP pins in lower left ?? Thats how !

I use a program called eepc that is used to reprogram the er9x R/C TX. It does it via a $14 usbtiny ISP device from Sparkfun. Google for the er9x firmware update.

The Arduino program compiles a hex file you can use with the eepc program.(hold down the shift key and do compile in arduino. See where the hex file ends up and use it for ISP.)

Use the -F override in eepc to program the m1280 chip with m64 setting.

So if your program doesn't need serial0 input, here is the way to program and get arround the blown input pin.