EOS2 power supply and EOSEFF (EOS Electronics Form Factor)

The power supply board for EOS2 is now pretty much finished. This is the first PCB in the EOS2-project, and probably also the biggest. This means the dimensions of this PCB will define a standard to use for all future PCBs, so these can be easily stacked. The standard also includes an 8x2-pin header, so the stacked PCBs can be supplied with power and communicate through an I2C-bus.

Figure 1: Power supply PCB

The design is a hybrid of switch mode and linear regulators, and voltage and current can be read out through the I2C-interface in the header. You can read more about the design in the Wiki:

https://wiki.edgeofspace2.com/wiki/powersupplyBoard

Project Planning

In this blog we will talk about technical, as well as non-technical, issues in engineering work, since this project is part of a course called experts in teamwork. This course will teach us how best to work in teams where both technical and process issues will arise.

Today’s topic is project planning, and it’s an integral part of any ambitious project. In order to succeed we need to know when to perform the essential parts of the project; when to start certain tasks and knowing when to let them go. We have set ourselves a deadline for launching the EoS2 balloon. This will be on 25^th of April this year.

Since this is part of the course Experts in teamwork, we will also need to hand in two reports during the project period and all of the deadlines were first drawn down on a piece of paper with a timeline as shown on figure 1.

Figure 1: Hand drawn projectplan from EiT

This is not a clean and easy way to keep track of the project and we decided to make a Gantt chart of our tasks and deadlines. This was done in excel and is shown in this chart.

Figure 2: Gantt chart generated in excel

Now that we have outlined a project plan, we are ready to embark on the technical issues with this project knowing that we have added structure to the project.

Welcome to the Edge of Space 2 blog

Edge of Space 2 is an ambitious project being realized spring 2012 by five students from NTNU. The goal is to send an aircraft to altitudes in excess of 30 kilometers with the help of a sounding balloon, and fly back to the point of launch. On the journey, the aircraft will carry a complex payload with full-HD cameras, radio equipment and lots of sensors.

We will try to keep you updated on the progress, and hopefully we will post at least once every week.
If you haven't seen the main project page, please do so by visiting edgeofspace2.com.