# TeleMetrum
This is a recording dual-deploy altimeter for high power model rocketry
-with integrated telemetry link.
+with integrated GPS and telemetry link.
-<a href="loadedpair.jpg"> <img src="loadedpair-thumb.jpg"></a>
-<a href="rawfront.jpg"> <img src="rawfront-thumb.jpg"></a>
-<a href="rawback.jpg"> <img src="rawback-thumb.jpg"></a>
+Production units are available from the
+[Garbee and Garbee](http://auric.gag.com) web
+store. TeleMetrum starter kits are also now available from
+[Apogee Components](http://www.apogeerockets.com/Altus_Metrum_GPS.asp).
+
+For the latest TeleMetrum firmware and related ground station software, please
+visit the [AltOS](../AltOS) page on this site.
+
+These are photos of our current production version, which includes an
+integrated GPS receiver with active patch antenna:
+
+<a href="v1.0/cimg5972-crop.jpg"> <img src="v1.0/cimg5972-thumb.jpg"></a>
+<a href="v1.0/cimg5974-crop.jpg"> <img src="v1.0/cimg5974-thumb.jpg"></a>
## Motivation ##
One weekend while attending a conference together, we got to wondering if
we couldn't adapt one to use as a downlink for the
-[AltusMetrum](../AltusMetrum/) altimeter board in addition to direction
+[OpenAlt](../OpenAlt/) altimeter board in addition to direction
finding after flight. That caused us to start thinking about other things
in the design we might want to tweak, and before long we were working on the
design of a new tracker board derived from the BeeLine design.
using a different part in the same TI series, that integrated a transceiver
and CPU on the same chip.
It didn't take us long to realize that with such a part we could combine and
-simplify things by building a new altimeter with integrated RF link!
+simplify things by building a new altimeter with integrated RF link! And
+after gaining some experience in 2009 with a first version, we realized we
+always want GPS on board, which lead to our current second generation boards.
## Features ##
* Supports dual deployment (can fire 2 ejection charges)
* 70cm ham-band transceiver for telemetry downlink
* Barometric pressure sensor good to 45k feet MSL
-* Temperature sensor
* 1-axis high-g accelerometer for motor characterization
+* On-board, integrated GPS receiver
* On-board non-volatile memory for flight data storage
-* Serial port for attachment of GPS module
* USB for power, configuration, and data recovery
* Integrated support for LiPo rechargeable batteries
-* 2.5 x 1 inch board designed to fit inside 29mm airframe coupler tube
+* Uses LiPo to fire e-matches, optional support for separate pyro battery
+* 2.75 x 1 inch board designed to fit inside 29mm airframe coupler tube
### Developer View ###
-* [TI CC1111F32](http://focus.ti.com/docs/prod/folders/print/cc1111f32.html) Low Power RF System-on-Chip
- * Sub-1Ghz transceiver
- * 8051 MCU
- * 32k Flash
- * 4k RAM
- * USB 2.0
- * 6 12-bit analog inputs (11 bits with single-ended sensors)
- * 2 channels of serial I/O
- * digital I/O
-* [Microchip 25LC1024](http://www.microchip.com/wwwproducts/Devices.aspx?dDocName=en520389) CMOS serial EEPROM
- * 128k x 8
- * SPI interface
-* Various Sensors
+* Hardware Features
+ * [TI CC1111F32](http://focus.ti.com/docs/prod/folders/print/cc1111f32.html) Low Power RF System-on-Chip
+ * Sub-1Ghz transceiver
+ * 8051 MCU
+ * 32k Flash
+ * 4k RAM
+ * USB 2.0
+ * 6 12-bit analog inputs (11 bits with single-ended sensors)
+ * 2 channels of serial I/O
+ * digital I/O
+ * [Atmel AT45DB081D](http://www.atmel.com/dyn/products/product_card.asp?part_id=3819) DataFlash memory
+ * 1M x 8
+ * 256 byte page size
+ * SPI interface
+ * other parts in this Atmel DataFlash series can optionally be used
+ * [SkyTraq](http://www.skytraq.com.tw/) Venus634FLPx GPS receiver
+ * on-board [Taoglas AP.17A.01](http://www.taoglas.com/antennas/GPS_Antennas/Internal_GPS_-_Active_Patch_Modules/)
+ single-stage active patch antenna
+ * U.FL connector with 3.3V DC can be re-purposed for optional external amplified antennas
+ * async serial interface
* [Freescale MP3H6115A](http://www.freescale.com/webapp/search.partparamdetail.framework?PART_NUMBER=MP3H6115A6U) pressure sensor
* [Freescale MMA2202EG](http://www.freescale.com/webapp/search.partparamdetail.framework?PART_NUMBER=MMA2202EG) 50g accelerometer. Can use 40-200g variants!
- * [Microchip MCP9700A](http://www.microchip.com/wwwproducts/Devices.aspx?dDocName=en027103) temperature sensor
-* Software Features (planned)
+* Software Features
* Written mostly in C with some 8051 assembler
* Runs from on-chip flash, uses on-chip RAM, stores flight data to
- serial EEPROM chip
+ serial DataFlash chip
* USB serial emulation for "console" interface
* Tools Used
* [gEDA](http://www.gpleda.org/) for schematic capture and PCB layout
* The hardware is licensed under the [TAPR](http://www.tapr.org) [Open Hardware License](http://www.tapr.org/ohl.html)
* The software is licensed [GPL version 2](http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html)
-## [Production History](production) ##
+## [Production History](../production) ##
## [Flight Logs](flightlogs) ##
+## Artifacts ##
+
+There is a single manual for TeleMetrum and all other Altus Metrum products,
+which is available in [html](../AltOS/doc/altusmetrum.html) and
+[pdf](../AltOS/doc/altusmetrum.pdf) formats.
+
+The hardware design current gEDA files are available from
+[git.gag.com](http://git.gag.com) in the project
+[hw/telemetrum](http://git.gag.com/?p=hw/telemetrum;a=summary).
+
+Work on the next version proceeds on the master branch, with occasional
+temporary branches created when Bdale is making some major / speculative
+change. The 'v0.2' and 'v0.1' branches document what we're actually flying
+right now on the two respective PCB revisions. The 'ground' branch has a
+cut-down schematic used to generate the BOM for partially loading v0.1 boards
+to used on the ground. We call the on-the-ground
+version '[TeleDongle](../TeleDongle)', and newer versions have their own PCB
+design.
+
+For those who don't have ready access to the gEDA suite, here are pdf snapshots
+of the files for Production PCB version 1.0 in more easily readable form.
+
+* [schematic](v1.0/telemetrum.pdf)
+* [pcb artwork](v1.0/telemetrum.pcb.pdf)
+* [bill of materials](v1.0/partslist.csv)
+
+We consider our [AltOS](../AltOS) firmware completely reliable, and routinely
+fly TeleMetrum with no backup. Rockets with TeleMetrum boards
+have exceeded 50g acceleration, been well above Mach 1, and reached altitudes
+greater than 25k feet AGL with great results. Keith's second generation
+ground station program called altosui works on Windows, Mac, and Linux systems
+and logs telemetry to disk, displays current and max values for key parameters
+during flight, and even includes voice synthesis during the flight so that
+our eyes can stay on the rockets! After flight, altosui can extract the
+complete flight log from TeleMetrum, can display plots of the data from either
+the telemetry received by radio or the onboard flight log, can output a kml
+file for use with [Google Earth](http://earth.google.com), and can also
+output all the flight data as a csv file for easy import to spreadsheet
+programs or other analysis tools allowing you to perform whatever
+custom analysis you can envision! More details on the software,
+including full source code and pre-built packages
+can be found on the [AltOS](../AltOS) page on this site.
+
+## Future Plans ##
+
+TeleMetrum v1.0 meets all of our expectations. We anticipate another
+production run of boards soon, which will include minor design tweeks mostly
+to work around component availability issues.
+
## Problems ##
* The CC1111F32 is a 36-pin QFN package, which necessitates reflow
place parts! Without an inspection microscope, loading and testing these
boards might be impossible.
-* The v0.1 artwork has the USB connector footprint placed wrong, so that the
- connector hangs out over the edge of the board instead of being flush with
- the edge.
-
-* The v0.1 artwork has two issues that require cuts and jumps. The first is
- that we need chip select on the SPI memory. To fix that, we give up the
- ability to put the accelerometer into self-test mode and use that GPIO line
- to pull chip select on the memory. The second is that the igniter sense
- circuits each need a second resistor to complete the voltage divider so our
- 3.3V CPU ADC can read the 5V ejection voltage. This is fixed by changing
- two resistor values, and tacking two additional resistors onto the board
- with jumpers to ground.
+* The addition of on-board GPS in v0.2 means that the total power consumption
+ can exceed the rate at which we draw power from the USB interface,
+ particularly when the GPS is in cold start mode. This means a battery must
+ be attached during operation, and also that the battery will only charge
+ effectively from USB when the board is turned off.
-## Artifacts ##
+## History ##
-The hardware design current gEDA files are available from
-[git.gag.com](http://git.gag.com) in the project
-[hw/telemetrum](http://git.gag.com/?p=hw/telemetrum;a=summary). The 'fab'
-tag on the master branch reflects
-the artwork as sent out for PCB fab. The 'loaded' tag on the master branch
-indicates the parts Bdale loads for a functional board, but the schematic
-does not reflect the cuts and jumps or added resistors. The 'nextcut' branch
-is work towards our next PCB revision. The 'ground' branch has a cut-down
-schematic used to generate the BOM for partially loading boards to use in
-the matching [TeleTerra](../TeleTerra) ground station design.
+### v0.2 ###
-For those who don't have ready access to the gEDA suite, here are pdf snapshots
-of files in more easily readable form. The schematic and BOM are from the
-'nextcut' branch as of 20 April 2009, the artwork is of the v0.1 boards:
+These are photos of our second version, which included the integrated Venus
+GPS receiver, but with a passive patch antenna that turned out to have
+disappointing performance due to our many PCB geometry constraints. It also
+used a voltage regulator with less capacity which we felt was marginal for
+supporting the companion boards we have planned:
-* [schematic](telemetrum.pdf)
-* [pcb artwork](telemetrum.pcb.pdf)
-* [bill of materials](telemetrum.bom)
+<a href="v0.2/cimg5164-cropped.jpg"> <img src="v0.2/cimg5164-thumb.jpg"></a>
+<a href="v0.2/cimg5171-cropped.jpg"> <img src="v0.2/cimg5171-thumb.jpg"></a>
+Other than cleaning up the silkscreen, the differences between v0.2 and our
+current v1.0 boards were really quite small:
-Keith has working firmware that has now been flown once and successfully
-collected flight data to apogee. The source is also available from
-[git.gag.com](http://git.gag.com) in the project
-[fw/altos](http://git.gag.com/?p=fw/altos;a=summary). This repository includes
-sources for the firmware, ground station program, and related utilities. Note
-that actually building these sources requires a modifified version of sdcc,
-for which we have not published diffs since they are in the process of being
-accepted upstream. Watch this space for more details.
+* 100ma LDO regulator instead of the current 150ma part
+* no C38 footprint
+* different value for C36 reset capacitor
-## Future Plans ##
+The schematics and PCB artwork for this version are on the v0.2 branch in
+our git repository, here are pdf copies for easy reference:
+
+ * [schematic](v0.2/telemetrum.pdf)
+ * [pcb artwork](v0.2/telemetrum.pcb.pdf)
+ * [bill of materials](v0.2/partslist.csv)
+
+### v0.1 ###
+
+And this is a photo of our original board with serial port for off-board GPS,
+without the big off-board 1000uF cap from the original ejection circuit:
+
+<a href="v0.1/loadedpair.jpg"> <img src="v0.1/loadedpair-thumb.jpg"></a>
+
+The differences between v0.1 and later boards were substantial:
+
+* 2.5 x 1 inch board with all parts mounted on one side
+* 4-pin PicoBlade serial port connector for attachment of external GPS module
+* USB connector projected approximately 3mm over the edge of the board
+* Debug connector used 4 IC socket pins on 100 mil centers
+* no companion board interface
+* 50ma LDO regulator on early boards, later boards used a 100ma part
+* [Microchip 25LC1024](http://www.microchip.com/wwwproducts/Devices.aspx?dDocName=en520389) CMOS serial EEPROM instead of DataFlash
+ * 128k x 8
+ * SPI interface
+* [Microchip MCP9700A](http://www.microchip.com/wwwproducts/Devices.aspx?dDocName=en027103) discrete temperature sensor
+* used 1000uF electrolytic capacitor charged to 5V for pyro supply
+* two LEDs instead of one attached to CPU
+
+The elimination of the discrete temperature sensor and second LED were
+necessary to support the companion board interface added in v0.2.
+
+The v0.1 artwork had three issues, two of which required physical rework
+on each board. All of these issues were fixed in v0.2.
+
+* The USB connector footprint was placed wrong, so that the
+ connector hung out over the edge of the board instead of being
+ flush.
+* We needed chip select on the SPI memory. To fix that, we gave up the
+ ability to put the accelerometer into self-test mode and used that
+ GPIO line to pull chip select on the memory, which required two
+ cuts and two jumpers.
+* The igniter sense circuits each needed a second resistor to
+ complete the voltage divider so our 3.3V CPU ADC could read the
+ 5V ejection voltage. This was fixed by changing two resistor
+ values, and tacking two additional resistors onto the board
+ with jumpers to ground.
+
+The schematics and PCB artwork for this version as of the working-v0.1 tag
+are available here are pdf copies for easy reference:
-Work is underway on a second revision of TeleMetrum with the following changes:
-
-* stretch board length by 0.25 inches
-* adjust USB connector position to be flush with edge of board
-* eliminate beeper
-* eliminate temperature sensor, since baro sensor is already compensated
-* eliminate serial port connector
-* integrate MN5010HS GPS receiver and chip antenna on-board
-* change debug connector to 4 pin 1.25mm connector as was used for serial port
-* add 7 pin 1.25mm connector for companion board interface
-* use v_lipo as pyro power, eliminating the huge 1000uF capacitor and instead
- adding ballast capacitors on the 3.3V rail to prevent brownouts
-* add a rectangle of silk screen material for improved serial number labeling
-
-We hope to build and fly prototypes of this version in late 2009. If it works
-out as well as we hope, this version may be made available in assembled and
-tested form to others in the rocketry hobby who have expressed interest.
+ * [schematic](v0.1/telemetrum.pdf)
+ * [pcb artwork](v0.1/telemetrum.pcb.pdf)
+ * [bill of materials](v0.1/telemetrum.bom)
projects / web / altusmetrum / blobdiff