As a rocketeer, I’m all the time to see rocketry-related tasks hitting Tindie shops. One of many many attention-grabbing and complicated challenges with mannequin, mid-power or high-power rocketry is how one can seize flight information and how one can deploy a number of parachutes or different restoration techniques at particular factors within the flight.
The brand new Starlight Mini Flight Pc has an RP2040 on board which definitely offers greater than sufficient processing energy for a flight pc. It additionally encompasses a BMP388 strain and temperature sensor, that are the 2 fundamental bits of information you could calculate altitude. Additionally on board is a LIS3DHTR accelerometer rated at +- 16g which ought to cowl most rocket flights aside from essentially the most hooligan of minimal diameter builds! Having an accelerometer on board signifies that this gadget is able to launch detection so your rocket isn’t logging numerous extraneous information whereas sitting on the launch pad. Rounding out the {hardware} there may be 16MB of flash storage on board and a single pyro channel output.
For these unfamiliar, pyro channels are programmable outputs designed to fireplace an e-match to gentle small prices held contained in the rocket airframe. You may program the flight pc to fireplace this channel to hopefully break up a piece of the rocket and push out a restoration system at a selected altitude.
For these with some rocketry expertise, it’s price noting that the small dimension of the Starlight Mini Flight Pc means it might match inside a 24mm diameter airframe. This makes us assume that it may very well be attention-grabbing for prime altitude minimal diameter makes an attempt, presumably utilizing plugged motors, utilizing the pyro channel for apogee deployment. After all, it may be utilized in bigger twin deploy rockets together with the motor delay ejection methodology. Lastly, it may merely be used for easy logging of flight information.
The gadget is provided assembled and requires a single LiPo cell for energy. There are flight and programming modes and there’s a mission management Java utility which you’ll be able to work together with and alter settings on the gadget.