Best setup for high altitue balloon project
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Hey!
I'm playing with the idea of trying high altitude balloons, and am thinking about potential setups. It seems normally such a weather balloon is equipped with camera for pictures, data logger with sensors (temp, pressure, altitute etc.), and GPS plus some sender (GSM, LoRa, etc.) to get coordinates home for retrieval after landing.
On a quick glance all of this would be easily provided my m5stack, but I'm wondering what the best option is.With the Core I can capture everything (gps unit, lora module, env unit, sd card for logging) but I'm not clear on how to best connect camera (as the cam is it's own esp32). But this gets heavy, and I don't need the built-in batteries, which won't make it through the temperature in the stratosphere.
For weight I'd prefer the atom series but I can't see a lora unit there (which I'd prefer over gsm), and not sure if I can get all the peripheral attached (sd card, env sensor, gps) at the same time (without soldering and rewiring things at least).
Theoretically I could also build from timercam, but again would need to attach quite a few sensors and sd card on top (and again, no lora unit available).
Any ideas, or anyone who has done this before? Any general concerns of using m5stack in a high altitude environment (temperature concerns etc.)?
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@freefaller said in Best setup for high altitue balloon project:
done
Hello, as you mentioned you might need LoRa / 4G or another communication module together with GPS, once the balloon blew up and fall down, you'll need to find your setup so you'll need GPS. the Core device has many sensors which are very useful pre-built such as gyro and accelerometer which you might find very useful (also SD card to log the data) I would suggest going with Core / Core2 device and one of the COM.X modules.
Regarding the batteries, you are right. those are LiPo batteries and they don't do well in cold temperatures, you might need to find another solution for them to replace them with. in general, I think Core will be perfect for you due to the communication module but if you'd like to tincker a bit and connect things more manually, you could go with Stick-C or ATOM device as you mentioned.
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Cool, thanks for your feedback, and this is confirming what I thought as well - thanks!
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I experienced problems with ATOM when temperature is lower than 9º, time to time ATOMS blocks,
