TeleNano

This is a tiny, baro-only recording altimeter for model rocketry with integrated telemetry link.

Motivation

We hope with TeleNano to deliver an interesting "introductory" product in a different price category than our flagship products like TeleMetrum. The combination of a baro altimeter and radio direction finding ability in a super-tiny package seems like it might be fun even for Estes sized rockets!

Features

User View

  • Recording altimeter for model rocketry
  • 70cm ham-band transceiver for telemetry downlink
  • Barometric pressure sensor good to 45k feet MSL
  • Designed to use a single LiPo rechargeable battery
  • 1.0 x 0.5 inch board designed to fit inside 18mm airframe coupler tube

Developer View

  • Hardware Features
    • TI CC1111F32 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
    • Freescale MP3H6115A pressure sensor
  • Software Features
    • Written mostly in C with some 8051 assembler
    • Runs from on-chip flash, uses on-chip RAM, stores flight data to upper blocks of on-chip flash
  • Tools Used
    • gEDA for schematic capture and PCB layout
    • SDCC compiler and source debugger
  • Licenses

Artifacts

The design files can be found on git.gag.com in the project hw/telenano.

Future Plans

Two generations of hardware prototypes were built and worked as desired, but we don't plan to make any more at this time. One problem is that the first version of TeleMini was basically TeleNano plus dual deployment, and the additional cost of the deployment parts was low enough to make TeleMini a more compelling product. Despite that, sales of TeleMini have been slow. We remain interested in a super-small tracking device, but now think we'd rather figure out how to make TeleGPS smaller than return to a as simple a tracking device as TeleNano.