TelePyro
This is an 8-channel pyro expansion board for TeleMetrum.
Motivation
It would be nice to support more than the 2 channels of igniter control included in the stock TeleMetrum design, so that we can fly more complex projects involving staging, air starts, and backup ejection charges.
Features
User View
- Small circuit board mounted near TeleMetrum
- Requires TeleMetrum v0.2 or later, as v0.1 does not have the required companion board interface
- Connections for 8 distinct igniter firing channels provided
- Supports use of separate battery for ejection charges
Developer View
- Hardware Features
- Atmel ATmega32U4 Microcontroller
- 32k Flash
- 2.5k + 832 bytes SRAM
- 1k EEPROM
- 12-channel 10-bit ADC
- SPI target interface
- USB interface which can be used for programming
- In-system programming interface
- Honeywell HMC5843 3-axis magnetic flux sensor
- Atmel ATmega32U4 Microcontroller
- Software Features (planned)
- programmed in C using gcc-avr
- Runs from on-chip flash, uses on-chip RAM
- Tools Used
- gEDA for schematic capture and PCB layout
- Licenses
- The hardware is licensed under the TAPR Open Hardware License
- The software is licensed GPL version 2
Artifacts
A schematic and PC board design exist on git.gag.com in the project hw/telepyro, but no prototypes have been built yet.
Future Plans
In late September 2011, v0.1 prototype boards were loaded and lightly tested. They were never flown. The prototypes of TelePyro were lost in the Black Forest Fire, and have not been replaced.
If we ever get back to this project, the first thing we'll want to do is toss out the current design and start over, using an ARM Cortex SOC and our "new pyro circuit" that completely prevents processor brown-out.