14. Handling Precautions

All Altus Metrum products are sophisticated electronic devices. When handled gently and properly installed in an air-frame, they will deliver impressive results. However, as with all electronic devices, there are some precautions you must take.

Warning

The Lithium Polymer rechargeable batteries have an extraordinary power density. This is great because we can fly with much less battery mass than if we used alkaline batteries or previous generation rechargeable batteries… but if they are punctured or their leads are allowed to short, they can and will release their energy very rapidly! Thus we recommend that you take some care when handling our batteries and consider giving them some extra protection in your air-frame. We often wrap them in suitable scraps of closed-cell packing foam before strapping them down, for example.

The barometric sensors used on all of our flight computers are sensitive to sunlight. In normal mounting situations, the baro sensor and all of the other surface mount components are “down” towards whatever the underlying mounting surface is, so this is not normally a problem. Please consider this when designing an installation in an air-frame with a see-through plastic payload bay. It is particularly important to consider this with TeleMini v1.0, both because the baro sensor is on the “top” of the board, and because many model rockets with payload bays use clear plastic for the payload bay! Replacing these with an opaque cardboard tube, painting them, or wrapping them with a layer of masking tape are all reasonable approaches to keep the sensor out of direct sunlight.

The barometric sensor sampling port must be able to “breathe”, both by not being covered by foam or tape or other materials that might directly block the hole on the top of the sensor, and also by having a suitable static vent to outside air.

As with all other rocketry electronics, Altus Metrum altimeters must be protected from exposure to corrosive motor exhaust and ejection charge gasses.