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AttoPilot review, Part 1: The PCB board

Posted by Chris Anderson on April 2, 2009 at 11:39pm

I just got an AttoPilot in and plan to review it in several parts. Today's part: the PCB board. As you might expect from a former Intel engineer, Dean Goedde has done a great job of PCB design. Neat trace layouts, good noise protection and robust components. The board is based on a 5Mhx Parallax Propeller chip, with 8 cores. It has a differential pressure sensor for speed and a single pressure sensor for altitude. It also has 512k of on-board memory in addition to that in the Propeller chip. Click on the photo and you'll be taken to Flickr, where you can mouse over the components to find out what they are

And here's the bottom of the board. Click on this one, too, to find out what the components are:

attopilot

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Comments

Developer

Jordi Muñoz April 4, 2009 at 7:02pm

Ohh! Thanks for that!
Noth666 April 4, 2009 at 6:38am

@tom: its VTi's MCP1000 MEMS pressure sensor - extremely accurate but check the specs yourself depends on how u use it also.
The other is MPXV7002DP for airspeed - I have a bunch of them for prototyping, you can get them in different sensitivities and operating voltages but he is using 5V 2Kpa
Tom in NOVA April 4, 2009 at 6:14am

Thank you for the post, looking forward the other parts.

What is the make of the altimeter sensor? Do you know what resolution is it capable (in meters/centimeters)?
TESTPILOT April 3, 2009 at 9:27pm

AttoPilot says it comes with ground control softwear could you post pics of it working ? if you have it setup for it. also RangeVideo OSD would it work with attopilot ? anyone know?
im trying to cram all this gear in the 4-Channel Electric UAV RQ-1 Predator 63" with LWC25-3 - 2.4GHz -25 Mile Range 1Watt Airborne Video Downlink also anyone know how to get 25 miles out a JR radio ?
3D Robotics

Chris Anderson April 3, 2009 at 10:18am

@Condor

Yes, I'll be reviewing each component of the gear bit by bit. I may do software next.
T3

Rory Paul April 3, 2009 at 9:37am

@Chris

Would you also give a review of the associated software.
Developer

Jordi Muñoz April 3, 2009 at 9:26am

I don't know why he uses the MPXV7002 instead the MPXV5004G, both have the same resolution (1kPa/1Volt) and are differential, but the MPXV5004G has more range (is only positive). Parallax is 3.3volts? If so, 3.3volts pressure sensors are available now from freescale (MP3V5004G).
Matt Fisher April 3, 2009 at 8:27am

This should be a interesting set of reviews - Do you have a list of things your going to test Chris?
Jack Crossfire April 3, 2009 at 1:47am

That's long enough for part 1. Back to work!