15,000 foot Electronic Altimeter
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Find Out How High Your Rocket Flies!
Electronic Payload That Records Your Rocket's Altitude Up To 15,000 Feet
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PerfectFlite Alt15K/WD Altimeter Specifications:
Dimensions: 3.10" X .548 wide " X .642" tall (78.7mm X 13.9mm X 16.3mm)
Altitude limit: 15,000 feet (4572m) MSL.
Alititude Report: Always beeps out last flight. It won't beep out previous flights if more than one is logged. You'll need to download those previous flights via the data transfer kit.
Accuracy: ±0.25% reading + 2 feet.
Launch Detect: 80 feet AGL (reconfigurable between 40 to 250 feet)
Operating Temperature: 0°C to 70°C
Memory: Stores 3 flights (over 3.84 minutes of data for each flight at 10 samples per second for later download to PC or Mac. Total Recording Time: 11.52 minutes)
Weight with Battery: 15.7 grams (.553 oz)
Battery (included): Minature A23 type 12V.
Battery life: 23 hours of continous operations
Operating Voltage: 12V nominal (6V - 16V)
Operating Current: 1.3 ma typical
Warranty: 3 years against manufacturing defects from PerfectFlight.
USB Data Connection optional:
See Data Transfer Kit Below.
15,000 Foot Electronic Altimeter
P/N: 09102
Price: $87.42
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Replacement Batteries: If you should need to replace the batteries, these are the standard sizes that fit: Duracell MN21/23, GP A23, Energizer A23, or Radio Shack 23-144.
Rocket Tip: Smaller rockets seem to be easier to lose. So if you fly this altimeter in a small rocket, make sure you have a large recovery area and lots of helpers to locate the rocket when it lands on the ground.
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Miniturized Space-Age Technology Is Used To Determine
How High Your Rocket Soars!
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Are you looking for an easy way to accurately determine how high your rocket flies? But you don't want to use complicated tracking scopes and difficult trigonometry?
Try this micro-sized electronic altimeter! It is simple to use, and it accurately measures the height of the rocket without any fussing around. Just drop it into the payload bay of your rocket, and launch it.
After you get the rocket back, it makes a series of audible chirps to let you know how high it flew. It is really simple to use, because you don't have to do anything except count the number of beeps! And it works to altitudes up to 15,000 feet above sea level (accurate to ±2 feet).
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The Biggest Part Is a Tiny Battery
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This is one small altimeter. It is small enough to fit into a 18mm diameter tube, so it can be used in almost any rocket you might have in your fleet. Its even smaller than the rocket motor that powers the rocket.
And it weighs only 14 grams (.5 oz), so that it barely affects the performance of your rocket.
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The miniturization is what makes this sophisticated payload very unique. It does more than just determine the peak altitude of the rocket. It also takes altitude readings throughout the flight (10 readings every second), and has data storage capacity for 5 minutes of flight after liftoff. This is plenty of of memory for flights that go as high as 15,000 feet (4572 meters).
The data that the altimeter records is stored in FLASH memory. That means that you can remove the battery after the flight, and the data is still retained in the unit. You don't need to worry about the battery going dead on you. This allows you to take it home to reconfirm the altitude, or you can download the flight data with the optional USB data transfer unit (shown below).
By the way, a fresh battery lasts about 23 hours, so you don't have to worry about the rocket sitting on the launch pad for a long time before you finally launch it. The unit doesn't start recording until it detects the actual launch. While it is sitting on the pad, it is just in the stand-by mode. All this controlled by software instructions that are already built into the payload. For your part, just turn it on, and drop it into the payload bay of your rocket.
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The altimeter measures the air pressure surrounding the rocket. Air pressure near the ground is greater than air pressure high in the air (remember, air pressure decreases with altitude, until you reach the vacuum of space, where there is no air pressure). What the unit does is to compare the pressure it senses, to the air pressure on the ground. Using a simple formula, it automatically computes the altitude difference that caused the change in pressure.
This simple way of computing altitude has been used for decades by airline pilots. It is accurate, and easy to determine. But this payload makes it even more simple. It performs all the calculations automatically, so the only thing you have to do is count the number of audible beeps it makes after the flight is over. That is how you can tell how high your rocket flew.
The only thing you need to do to your rocket is to make a small hole in the payload tube, so the pressure inside the rocket can equalize with the outside air.
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How does it detect a launch and start recording?
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While the unit is in stand-by mode, it is constantly monitoring the outside air pressure. As soon as the air pressure starts to drop, it figures something is happening. It starts recording information, but will discard it until it senses a pressure difference that equals 80 feet in altitude gain. If the pressure drops this amount, it considers a "true launch," so it stores all the information it has recorded.
The altimeter will continue to save the data, until it runs out of memory (about 5 minutes after launch), or until the air pressure returns to the previous ground level point; in which case it assumes the rocket has made a landing on the ground. At this point, the altimeter searches its memory for the highest altitude, and beeps it out for you to hear. That is how simple it is to find out how high your rocket has flown!
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Download the data for the entire flight.
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There is an optional USB data connection/transfer unit which allows you to retrieve all the flight data from the unit. Not only do you get the peak altitude for the rocket (data connection unit not required for this feature), but you get all the data from lift-off to landing.
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The data connection/transfer unit, shown to the right, simply plugs into the altimeter. This then connects to your PC or Macintosh computer through a USB port.
As mentioned above, the altimeter records the rockets altitude ten times per second during the flight. So you'll get data showing the altitude of the rocket at any time during the flight.
The software that comes with the data connection unit will automatically graph out the flight of the rocket. This looks like the image below.
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What is neat, is that you can also export the data to a spreadsheet program, and figure out the speed and acceleration of the rocket during the flight. Remember, speed is simply the change in altitude of the rocket, and acceleration is the change in speed. So with a simple spreadsheet program, you really have access to a lot of information about the rocket.
Imagine the educational aspects of this! For example, as an educational exercise, you can create a comparison of the rocket's peformance versus the predict values computed by the RockSim software.
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PC Requirements:
Windows 98, ME, 2000, or XP.
Macintosh Requirements:
OS 8.5 to 9.22. Or Mac OS X
Altimeter not included.
USB Data Transfer Kit
P/N: 09109
Price: $34.61
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Macintosh Users: You'll need to download a special USB driver software in order for your computer to talk with the altimeter. This can be downloaded free from: FDTI Chip.
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Apogee Components now carries the new REV2 edition of the Alt15K/WD altimeter (all units sold after May 1, 2007). These units now have these new features:
Expanded flight memory
- Data from the three (3) most recent flights are stored in the altimeter's memory. Up to 3.84 minutes of data is stored for each flight.
- This eliminates the need to download the flight curve after each flight; three flights can be made between downloads. All that flight data is preserved, even with power off. So you can pull out the battery, drive home and download the data at your convenience; even if it is a month later! Think of the time this will save you if you are running a science fair experiment on your rocket.
User selectable Launch Detect Threshold
- Launch detect can be set from 40 feet to 250 feet (Above Ground Level) using the optional data transfer kit software and interface. Launch detect tells the altimeter when the rocket has started moving upward and that it should start saving the altitude-vs-time data to the memory chip on the unit.
Lower altitude values allow data to be gathered from low altitude flights that may not reach even 80 feet (example: UFO type rocket designs that don't go very high). Higher Launch Detect values offers more resistance to false triggering due to wind gusts. The factory pre-set is 80 feet, which is adequate for most model rockets.
Improved 16 bit A/D conversion
- Reports peak altitude to nearest foot. One foot resolution in stored flight data provides smoother, more useful flight curves even with low altitude flights.
Power switch connector
- Use the supplied shunt as a simple ON/OFF switch, or you can attach an external switch (not included) with the optional cable. This reduces wear and stress on the battery holder by allowing the battery to be left in place between flights. An external switch can also simplify the rocket preparation process.
Brown Out protection
- The altimeter can survive a 2 second loss of power without affecting operation. If the battery or switch terminals break connection momentarily during hard acceleration or chute deployment shock, the altimeter will continue to operate properly.
Built-in battery voltmeter
- When you first turn it on, the altimeter reports the current battery voltage. No more guessing about whether the battery is good or bad and whether it needs to be replaced soon. You'll save money, because you won't be replacing a perfectly good battery.
Low battery alarm
- The altimeter sounds a continuous tone if battery voltage drops below 5.5 volts. At this point, the battery needs to be replaced immediately before flying the altimeter. You can test your batteries before you get out to the launch field.
Power loss detection
- The altimeter will sound a distinctive hi/low alarm tone sequence on powerup if power was lost during the last flight. This doesn't happen very often, but it could tell you that there was some anomaly during the last flight.
Mounting holes for increased mounting flexibility
- Want to fly multiple altimeters at the same time? Then it makes sense to attach them to a mounting plate inside the rocket. They'll then have all the same experiences and you can make an apples-to-apples comparison or get redundant back-up data. Note: Mounting hardware (screws) is included!
Even though the altimeter can be mounted firmly in the rocket, it is small enough and lightweight enough that it can also be slip it into a padded tube for quick installation into the rocket.
More accessible data connector
- The connector (where the optional data transfer kit is plugged in) has been moved to the edge of the circuit board for easier access.
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Frequently Asked Questions about the PerfectFlite Alt15K/WD Altimeter:
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Q. Can this altimeter be used to measure the height of Kites or Model Airplanes?
- A. Unfortunately, no. Why? It has to do with how this particular altimeter starts operation. It begins recording altitude information when it detects a very fast increase in altitude. It discards measurements unless it senses a change in altitude of 40 feet within one second. Kites and most model airplanes do not ascend this quickly for the altimeter to start recording.
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Try these rocket kits that have a payload bay that will accept this altimeter:
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"I had not heard of Apogee before this month and found it doing web searches for my wife. I was extremely impressed by both products and the quality of your web site. Many Thanks."
-- Ron Palin (Australia)
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Shipping and Handling Fees:
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To estimate the shipping charges, please see our shipping information page. This page also explains how items are shipped, as well as offering you additional shipping options.
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