Balloon Found!

We got called from a guy named Russ who said he found our 'science experiment' up near Streator Il. We drove up Saturday morning and got it off his porch where he left it for us. Naturally it was pouring down rain when we got it. We had to pur water out of the box! The parachute was missing but that makes sense since he said he had to pull it down from the tree - the lines tore through to box.

We immediatlly tried to watch the video, but even though there was a file on the SD card, it was unreadable. The temperature data appeared for the most part ok however.

It looks like the antenna surrived intact with no damage the buzz module has some corrision around in the power inputs which would imply that it got wet while powered. This would explain the loss of signal. The other electronics (beacon, temp monitoring) all have some small corrision, but I think they might be salvagable.

When I tried the video camera at home it briefly worked, but then the lcd quit. It still has visible water behind the lcd screen.

Attemps to restore the video eventually succedded! We don't have sound, but the video is good. It shows the balloon at first rising rapidly. But then it hits the low cloud cover and takes alot of rain. The lens fogs up and gets somewhat hard to see, but you can make out that it can never punch through the heavy rain/cloud cover. It slowly drifts down and west, it hits the ground right where we received the last gps position. The video then cuts out. The impact with the ground must have moved the water around and finally shorted out both the camera and the gps beacon. It must have then lost enough weight and combinded with the rain stopping, lifted off again and made it all the way to its burst altitude and fallen near Streator.

So after all of this we learned an important leasson: Don't launch in the rain!

It looks like the water is both what caused the balloon to not rise properly but also shorted out the electronics.

On the plus side we do have some temperature data: The lowest external reading was -53F on the external probe, the lowest inside the box was 20F. Also it kept recording until 4:30am the next morning!

Ready for some testing

I've gotten the buzz module antenna in. I also finished all the soldering/connections for it and programmed the beacon.

I'm ready to do some testing. Specifically I want to see the max range we receive on the ground with the the aprs signal and how long it lasts. I would also like to see how far away I can locate the beacon via the yagi directional antenna.

I should be getting a short sma pigtail cable in the mail shortly, this will allow more flexible placement of the antenna in the payload container - less likely it will get broken during landing.

Still waiting on the camera accessories - SD card and external battery pack.

Weight allowing - we might also place a small 'hand warmer' inside the box to help keep things warm.

Parts, Parts, Parts

So far we have the following in:

Buzz module
Beacon
Gps
Camera
Parachute

I've confirmed the firmware on the GPS is sufficient to report above 60k feet. Also I've programmed the 'buzz' and beacon with the appropriate info (call signs and such). I've soldered on the connector to buzz. I still need to solder on the DB9 connector to the gps.

We are still waiting on a external battery pack for the camera, antenna for the gps beacon, and a 16GB SD card for the camera.

We can rebuild it...

We have already began buying the compontents for balloon flight #4 (this time with less fail!).

We have already ordered and a new gps, aprs beacon, parachute, video camera, and directional beacon.

This time we are thinking of putting a boost mobile cell phone along with instamapper software that will track the phone via its gps and log it on the web. This will provide a backup method of finding it.

Failure WAS an option...

Its all bad...

First the weather was not as well as was expected, however since the chance of rain was only 10% we proceeded. Also we changed our launch site at the last moment to move our expected landing site into a better location.

We started filling the balloon right away (first mistake). Then we plugged everything in and went to test from the car - and got no packets. Eventually we thought the anteanna was too close to the ground and held it up while testing. We received packets.

Right about then it started to rain.


We hurriedly packaged everythign back up only to realize we left the beacon module outside the box after we just taped it shut. In a rush to launch we taped it to the top of the box.

We then released the balloon and hurried to pack everything back in the car. Meanwhile I relized that the computer was not tracking the balloon, because I forgot to turn a crucial piece of the software on. I started tracking it at about 4000 feet up.

We started moving north east to get ahead of the expected path. The balloon was still headed south west. It was expected to do that until it reached 10k feet or so then head north east. It turned north east as expected and was looking good, if raising somewhat slowly. Then it started going down.

Since it was going down slow we knew the balloon had not burst. Either we underfilled or the rain/weather was making it come down (probably a combination of both). It continued to come down and started heading west (towards Peoria) At around 1000 feet it started up again then down after a few thousand feet of gaining elevation. At this point we just wanted it on the ground.

Then just about the worse thing that could happen happened - it headed towards the airport. It went right next to the airport at only a few thousand feet and then continued west slowly falling. We lost aprs signal at only 75 or so feet off the ground. This was more or less expected as we assumed it was on the ground and we lost signal due to terrain.

We eventually arrived near the apparent landing site and started picking up a strong beacon signal (no aprs data however). This was a good sign as it indicated the balloon was reasonbly close by. We had no luck locating it however. We drove around the area and eventually started using the directional antenna on the handheld radio to try and get a direction to the beacon. It first indicated West. After driving around more the signal was becoming fainter. We started to try and get a better direction with the handheld and now it was pointing north east. We drove a few miles in that direction and took another reading. Always a very faint signal north east.

Eventually we ran into Peoria and no longer could pick up the signal. The only thing I can think happened is that the balloon came down and for whatever reason the gps stopped working. Then it took off again and got sufficent altitude to start heading north east.

We never found it.

Last min stuff

Picked up the helium tank today.

We were talking about possibly moving the launch site. We will check the projected flight plan in the morning and if it is going to land in an undesirable location (i.e. Chicago area) there is no reason we can't move our launch site so that it will land further south.

We also have an additional 'payload' we are going to attach - a Flat Stanley that belongs to a friends nephew. We can attach it to the bottom of the payload and take some pictures of it on the way up.

All ready to go

So far everything looks good weather-wise.

The only unknown that could be a problem is the projected trajectory of the flight, we won't have an updated version of that until the morning.

I'll update info via twitter: http://twitter.com/linuxv

Realtime tracking can be seen here: http://aprs.fi/?call=kc9pum-11

Hoping to reach in excess of 100,000 feet and have High Def video during the entire flight, we also have a temperature monitor on board that will record both the temperature inside and outside the capsule every 5 seconds.

More arduino/aprs goodness

Worked on sending out a message from the arduino, it was transmitting but I was just receiving silence on the other side. I eventually figured out I had the ptt and mic lines soldered in the wrong place. After re doing that and increasing the mic gain it worked! I was able to send a aprs message to my other radio.

Next step is to be running xastir on the laptop and see if I can read messages as they come in and then send out a message back to the arduino to have it turn on a light or something.

APRS on the Arduino

I was able to receive aprs packets via my arduino!

I built a connector from the new VX-3 radio to the arduino radio shield. Then through some trial and error I was able to receive aprs packets as plain text on the arduino. Took me a while to figure out the necessary settings on the radio (turn off power save, and set the volume to '15' basically). This will allow me to send short text messages to the handheld radio (which will be located in a future balloon). Once I have the aprs formatting down I can also send out messages from the arduino as well. This will allow me to have basic two way communication to the balloon over a long distance.

Radio Test

Did a couple of simple gps/radio tests today. I was able to track the gps module (buzz) successfully. Logged a kml & tnc.log file ok.

Also received my Yaesu VX-3R HT radio today. I still need an offset attenuator to make it an ideal for finding a beacon. However I plan on using it with my recently purchased arduino radio shield to see if I can send and receive ax.25 packets.

T minus 5 days

Helium tank is reserved for pickup on Friday.

So far the weather looks pretty good for Saturday, or Sunday if need be.

The early flight path predictions put it headed straight east and landing near the boarder of Indiana. Only downside to that flightpath is that it looks like its hitting a jet stream and it might be difficult to stay under it in the chase car.

Cool potential 2way communication with Balloon

I just found a cool radio shield for the arduio

I already ordered it, and it should be here next week. Too soon to incorporate into this launch but perhaps the next one.

This should allow me to easily have 2-way communication to the balloon while in flight via the AX.25 protocol. Basically 'emails' back and forth. This way the ballon can send down data, such as temperature and other goodies. While I could command it to do things - i.e. cut away ballon etc....

Very cool - I'm eager to get it in.

Testing...

I double checked the programming of the RDF beacon and charged its battery. Its all ready to go.

I also made sure xastir was working with my radio, could receive aprs signals and display on the laptop. Also made sure it would display the cars position on the map. Xastir is supposed to be able to read the current position from the link to the radio which has a gps plugged into it, however I could not get that working (just like last time). So I have to have an additional gps plugged directly into the computer. Its no big deal just a slight annoyance as there are two things plugged in as opposed to one.

Battery test complete

I ran the video camera and arduino temperature logger attached to a 8pack of alkalines until it drained them. Got about 5 hours of logging data on the arduino. The camera made two files. The first was two hours long and fine, the second was corrupted. I'm hoping this was just because the battery failed during a write to the card. The lithiums will last even longer and I don't expect it to be recording longer then 2 1/2 to 3 hours. So we should be good. I hope.

The only test left is to double check the gps module and make sure I can receive and track it from my laptop/car. After that we should be good to go, just need to pick a date and reserve the helium tank.

Balloon payload complete

Mark and I worked on finishing the balloon payload yesterday. We mounted the camera, covered the outside of the package with florescent paper (to increase visibility) and mounted everything inside. We came in right under a kilogram minus rigging & parachute. That is pretty close to ideal.

We also pre-filled a water jug with 1666grams which is what we worked out should be the weight (with the addition of the filling nozzle) to equal the appropriate total lift of the balloon when filling. i.e. when the balloon just is able to lift the weight, we have it filled to the proper amount.

The only thing left is some testing. I need to double check the tracking ability of the gps in my car by 'chasing' the gps module in another car.

I also need to make another battery test of the camera since the arduino temperature logger is pulling off of the same battery pack. I plan on plugging the power into an outlet first to double check that the camera will record past 1 2gig file. Then after I confirm the camera does that I'll run through a alkaline battery pack to make sure the recording time is sufficient.

It lives!

After some Frankenstein wiring, I've created the balloon-ready temperature logger. Its not quite as small as I would like, partially because of the SD shield which is designed to plug into a full size arduino, hence takes up some space. I don't think I could have gotten it smaller without stacking the components, which would have made the wiring even harder.

The 'external' temperature probe is located on the end of the wire in the picture. The 'internal' one is soldered onto the board (at the back of the picture)

Arduino nano is back left, Real Time Clock is back right, and the SD module is in the forefront.

Temperature Logging Working!

I've gotten the temperature logging fully functional! Basically all it does is write out the current timestamp with the two temperature readings. I also added two leds to show status, green when it writes to the SD card successfully, red otherwise.

An example written to the card is:

20100422221116 72 72

Its YYYYMMDDHHMMSS temp0 temp1

I'll use temp0 as the 'external' temperature (i.e. probe outside the container). temp1 will be inside the container.

Now I need to shrink this huge contraption into the arduino nano and solder it together into a semi-permanent contraption

Temperature Logging

I finally worked on the temperature logging system for the balloon last night. I was able to get it almost complete. Right now it is correctly recording the time and temperature (from two probes). I was able to write a test message to the SD card in the same arduino sketch as well. My next step is to write the data to the SD card instead of the serial out. Its a little tricky as I'm running into variable cast type issues. - my C programming kung-fu is not strong.

After I get the correct data writing to the SD card the next step is to switch to the ardino nano and solder everything into a small package. I also need to make a usb mini connector to leech power off of the camera's power connector.

I can haz data?

I finally managed to get my arduino to log data to a SD card. I've also previously read the value from a real time clock (RTC) module, and a temperature transistor. Now all I have to do is get all 3 working at the same time and I can log to a SD card the time and 2 temperature readings. The plan is to have a temperature reading in the capsule and outside it. I can take the time it was logged and match it up to the GPS data sent via aprs to tell what the temperature was at a specific altitude.

I also have a pressure sensor, but I have not yet tried to get that working with the arduino. Nobody has used this sensor with an arduino that I can find, so I'll have to figure out how to interface with it myself. If I can't get it working I'm fairly confident I can at least get temperature data.

My plan is to take the data from the SD card combined with the GPS data and edit the video to make said data appear like captions on the bottom of the video. That way as you watch the video it will display the GPS position, altitude, and 2 temperatures at the bottom of the screen.

Camera Ready to Go

Total weight of the camera with its battery pack and power regulator is 314g.

Mark is going to figure out a way to mount the odd shaped camera in the container, cut the container down to size and weigh everything else.

I need to test the aprs beacon with my laptop and new car gps to make sure everything is kosher. My car gps should be able to track the balloon while its moving and update the directions to it, which will be nice while driving.

I was also thinking of coming up with a check-list for launch so we don't miss any steps.

Camera Ready

Finally figured out the camera problems I was having. When the camera was first turned on to record, it created a spike which overload my anyvolt micro. This caused a momentary drop off in the voltage which caused the camera to stop recording. I replaced the any volt with the larger version and it mainted the load. I also had to use a 8AA battery pack and got over 3.5 hours of recording. That was with alkaline batteries, with lithium it should last even longer. The disadvantage is the weight. We are going to have 16 batteries on board now. 8 on the Camera, 8 for the aprs/gps beacon.

Camera battery test

Well turns out the camera did not last long enough in my test last night. I had a fully charged camera battery, plus an external 4 AA battery pack plugged into the USB port. It only lasted about 2hrs 10mins. I'm going to try and replace the battery directly with the 4AA battery pack and see what that does...

Finally a Balloon update....

Finally started moving on Balloon flight 3. Actually ordered Styrofoam containers to use as a payload box. I have four, so plenty of chances to mess up. They are taller then I really want, but I can just cut off the top and it will make a nice payload container.

After much soldering and messing up, I have an external battery pack of 4AA's that will power the 5v usb input of the 720p video camera. The whole camera and battery pack weights 427g.

I'll point the camera at a clock tonight and run it until the battery dies. That will tell me how long it will run, the max size of the mov file (it has a 16Gb card). It will also tell me how the camera handles the power dropping out while recording.