[McHUG] Tech Session Followup - These things actually work!

[Rich Mitchell]

We were able to launch a balloon at the hamfest - actually 2 balloons - the first was a party balloon with Pat's business card attached.

Saturday night I had tried to build up new PICetSat Lite modules with 2 thermisters, for inside and outside temperature.  Through the night I built 3 of them.  They worked perfectly on the breadboard, but when they were transferred to the Radio Shack (now The Shack, I guess) I couldn't get the PICAXE to work.  (I'll try debugging when I've had a bit more sleep under my belt).  So we ended up launching the original model.  This is the one that originally flew over Jim Cross's table at a West Friendship hamfest several years ago when SimSAT 3 was about to happen.  Some interesting points about the flight.

We were using Party Balloon helium - readily available.
Power source was 2 3v watch batteries using a paper clamp to hold in place and connect
The packaging was 2 styrafoam coffee cups taped together

And yet the thing flew for at least 2 hours at which point we could no longer decipher its signal above the noise.  So PICetSat Lites will provide a good vehicle for experiments, like testing various types of packaging using inside and outside temperatures.  

Steve has posted the data on the K3PZN reflector and more comment about the flight.  The actual module is the one pictured on my website - home.att.net/~geobra/  (hasn't been updated since I moved and went from DSL back to dial-up). 

Rich N3III

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McHUG - Physical Computing ;) 
MicroController Ham User Group