[time-nuts] Arduinos in time and near space

[Chris Albertson]

On Sun, Jan 19, 2014 at 6:41 PM, Lizeth Norman <normanlizeth at gmail.com>wrote:

>
> Is it possible to write (assuming the poor little creature would do it) a
> piece of code, that given your lat/long, the time and a two line element
> set for an orbiting object, such as the ISS, that would give you the
> acquisition of signal time/loss of signal time and so forth?


The term "Arduino" now covers a very wis range of computers at are all
programmed using the same easy to learn system.  You can use the "uno" whig
is the standard 16Mhz AVR CPU or now you can swap in a "due" with is a much
faster processor.

But I doubt you would need a lot of CPU power as you are not re-computing
this at a fast rate.  The "Slow" AVR chip executes 16 million instructions
per second.  More than enough for what you want.

But I think yout would be more concerned with power.  There are far better
chips that are just as easy to use.   I'd look at TI's MSP430.   It is
failly powerful and can power down to run in just micro amps (yes uA, not
mA)  TI sells them on a development board just like the Arduino for $10
shipped.  That is 1/3rd the price of an official made in Italy Arduno.  The
MSP430 LauchPad from TI can be programmed with the sme software environment
as Arduino.     Another advantage is that in TI's board after you program
the prototype the chip is socketed and you can pull it out and run the bare
chip

See photo in link below.  There are some jumpers you cn pull then the chip
is electrically isolated from everything but power, you check it out that
way than pull the chip from the socket if yu like.
http://www.ti.com/ww/en/launchpad/launchpads-msp430-msp-exp430g2.html#tabs

Use this to program the above MSP430.  If you know the Arduino then there
is zero learning curve.
http://www.energia.nu

It will run a long time on AAA batteries.



-- 


Chris Albertson
Redondo Beach, California