We've been making progress recently, mostly in infrastructure which is what we need to get POGO and Spike going.
We are now sparging HTP, though at a lower rate than desired. About 4 gallons are now ready for freezing. Dave W.'s 'teacart' refrigeration project is coming along nicely, unfortunately I can't keep up with where he's at in the project. The POGO engines have arrived and Dan is making up the rest of the engine assembly. I am currently playing around with the POGO airframe design, mostly just visualizing and trying different configurations to optimize strength and mass. I am also A new test-stand computer is coming along nicely. The software is ready (though new features continue to be added). The 'Flight Control & Telemetry Protocol' (FCTP) is working very well for the test stand software. The hardware is a fanless mini-ITX board, signal conditioners and mounting board, battery, and charger mounted in a small case. Last Sunday we started making connectors and mounting plates. We made block models of the various components in CAD to check possible layouts. <http://www.piratelabs.org/teststandcomp.jpg> The red block is the battery, black block is the charger, the blue-green block is the bounding block of the mini-itx board, the blue, orange, green, and silver are the more detailed 5B signal conditioner boards. Not shown are the various connectors and wiring harnesses. It turns out our first idea for the layout didn't work at all. After rotating the 5B boards around we got everything to fit with room to spare. We are still waiting for various components to arrive. (Stupid little things like the box itself, a PCI riser card, and a PCI A/D board.) We still have a lot to do yet. As Randall gently reminded some of us recently - T minus 156 days and counting. Dave -- David Masten <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> _______________________________________________ ERPS-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.erps.org/mailman/listinfo/erps-list
