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.