CHEAPO R3 boards

The new CHEAPO boards are here! I have soldered one up and all seems to be working perfectly! Here is a quick write up on the results.

IMAG1165

New board compared to old, looks much neater!

IMAG1193

Main components of CHEAPO3

IMAG1195 IMAG1197

Weight of CHEAPO3 with and without batteries

IMAG1201

Micro SD card installed (2GB seems like overkill for text logging!)

IMAG1202

Current consumption of board whilst acquiring GPS fix, writing to SD card and transmitting = 110.9mA. This will drop when the tracker gets a GPS fix and if the SD card is removed for long duration flights. I think I will have a go at optimizing the code and look into the power saving modes of the uBlox NEO-6

I am very happy with these boards and look forward to testing one in the air. Currently planning a possible pico launch on the 14/06/2013 (PM)

One thought on “CHEAPO R3 boards

  1. Hi Chris
    Cheapo – one of the better projects.
    Is the CD card records GPS positions (.txt)?
    It works well?
    You can publish the firmware to register for Micro SD (soft RFM and ATMega)
    I’ll be watching start 14/06/2013 google map.
    Good luck!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *