Test Flying TeleMetrum v0.2

Bdale and I got a chance to test fly the new version (0.2) of our TeleMetrum flight computers. Bdale flew with the Albuquerque Rocket Society down in New Mexico while I flew near home with Oregon Rocketry during our February model launch.

I flew my Dynastar Grappler which I have modified to create a large payload bay out of a foot of the original body tube:

I cut a sled out of plywood and mounted the TeleMetrum on one side, and a small 110mAh battery on the back:

The field we use for model launches is surrounded by tall fir trees, so we tend to stick to reasonably small motors. This time, I loaded up an Aerotech 24mm E18 motor and trimmed the delay down to about 5 seconds as this rocket uses simple motor ejection. This flight didn't exercise the new ejection circuitry. In any case, the flight was perfect, telemetry worked all the way down to the ground using just a 1/4 wave whip antenna on the receiver.

Here's the data recorded in the on-board eeprom:

The maximum reported altitude was 186m, velocity was 49m/s and acceleration was 53m/s².

As expected, the GPS loses tracking during boost, but rapidly re-acquires near apogee and tracks the rocket all the way back to the ground. The flight track can be viewed in Google Earth.

Needless to say, both Bdale and I are extremely pleased with the performance of the new hardware.