Description

This board is a GPS receiver and radio transmitter designed for tracking high altitude balloon flights utilising a Raspberry Pi+. The board is designed for either the Raspberry Pi 2 A+ or B+ boards and is expandable with additional boards that can be stacked on top and give additional functionality such as APRS or LoRa(TM).

You will get :

Pi In The Sky+ Board
GPS Antenna with 0.5m cable.
Battery holder + clip
2 x 11mm Standoffs with screws to attach to the Pi+
Standard non stacking low profile header
RG174 Tail for making into an antenna see this article.

The board is supplied with a 434Mhz UHF radio transmitter which is license-free in Europe (for other areas check your local regulations). To track the location of flight you also need a suitable radio receiver, aerial and PC on the ground. Suitable radios include SDR dongles / Airspy - see http://ukhas.org.uk/guides:sdr_tracker for examples of suitable models and full instructions. This is not sold as a plug and go tracking solution please review this article http://www.raspberrypi.org/pi-in-the-sky-2

It features:

Efficient built-in power regulator providing run time of over 20 hours from 4 Energizer Lithium Ultimate AA cells
Highly sensitive UBlox GPS receiver suitable for altitudes up to 50km
Temperature compensated, frequency agile, Radiometrix 434MHz radio transmitter
Temperature sensor
Battery voltage monitoring
Sockets for external i2c devices, analog input, external temperature sensor
Allows use of Raspberry Pi camera
Mounting holes and spacers for a solid connection to the Pi
Onboard 2.5A buck/boost regulator to provide power from an input voltage range from 2.8V to 15V.

The open-source software provides these features:

Radio telemetry with GPS and sensor data using UKHAS standard
Radio image download using SSDV standard
Multi-threaded to maximize use of the radio bandwidth
Variable image size according to altitude
Stores full-definition images as well as smaller transmitted images
Automatically chooses better images for download
Configurable via text file in the Windows-visible partition of the SD card
Supplied as github repository with instruction
Optional APRS transmission with additional hardware.
Optional LoRa transmissions with additional hardware.

Optional Stackable Boards:

APRS : Where legally permitted (Not in the UK) you can stack the optional APRS board on the PITS board. The APRS boards are supplied with suitable extended header but not with an antenna (See related items for suitable antenna)

LORA : Provides additional LoRa(TM) transmissions from PITS for faster images. The LoRa boards are supplied with suitable extended header but not with an antenna (See related items for suitable antenna)

For latest news, code and documentation please visit :

http://www.pi-in-the-sky.com/

We recommend the A+ for flights due to the reduced power consumption. It is recommend you review Dave Akermans article on ballooning here http://www.daveakerman.com/?p=1732

Weight Breakdown:

Pi In The Sky Main Board - 19.2g
Header + Standoffs - 9.3g
GPS antenna - 55.0g
Battery Holder+Clip - 13.4g

Not supplied for information only:
Raspberry Pi A+ - 21.5g
Energizer L91 Lithium (AA) - 14.5g x 4

Please see associated items for a suitable Raspberry Pi Model A+ (this gives the longest battery run time)