Would be interesting if people reported the e-matches and batteries they used to see if we could understand what different combinations might cause the brownouts in the circuit.
On Wed, Sep 9, 2020 at 10:25 AM Bdale Garbee <[email protected]> wrote: > Jesse Frey <[email protected]> writes: > > > At the Alamosa launch last weekend, I had my TeleMetrum reset after > > the apogee charge was fired. I suspect this could be related to my AV > > bay coming apart. > > > What was troubling was that AltosDroid did not seem to give me a range > > to the rocket or directions on the "Recover" screen. > > If the power got interrupted as the apogee charge fired, and then > restores, the board will "reboot". If the rocket is no longer nose-up > at that point (they're usually nearly horizontal at apogee), the board > is going to power up in idle mode instead of pad mode, and thus won't be > transmitting. And if AltosDroid never sees packets during descent, it'll > have a hard time telling you where to look... > > > My question is why did tracking not work and could I have done > > anything to find it had I not been able to see it all the way down? > > If the board is powered up but in idle mode, it's possible that if you > get "near" it, you can use monitor idle to "ping" it and find out where > it thinks it is. However, UHF communication links can be challenging > when the airframe is flat on the ground, or in a ditch, or behind a > bunch of ground clutter. > > The other thing you can do is get the .telem file off your phone and > onto a laptop, and either look at the flight in the plotting code, or > export it and look at it either in a spreadsheet or in Google Earth. If > you can see the trajectory the rocket was following at apogee before the > power went out, and think a bit about the wind, you can often estimate > where it might have touched down and use that as the starting point for > a search grid. Keith and I have done that for our own projects a time > or two with success. > > The short answer, honestly, is "losing power at apogee is really bad, > try not to have that happen". This is also one of the reasons it's > never a bad idea to have redundant electronics in any project flying > high enough to go out of sight or potentially be challenging to recover. > > I hope that helps! Feel free to ask if you have more questions. > > Bdale > _______________________________________________ > altusmetrum mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.gag.com/mailman/listinfo/altusmetrum >
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