PCB Design

Our PCB Design is now in its third and final version. After iterating on both Revision 1.0 and Revision 2.0, Revision 3.0 is the culmination of a year of work to perfect the main hub for all the avionics in our rocket. The board is now laid out in a much easier way to build and test with. More voltage levels have been added, and we can now use more actuators and sensors. This allows us the flexibility of performing any actuation or reading we will come across.

A main focus of this revision was to streamline the rest of the hardware development. If two related components were on opposite sides of the board, it would cause us to flip back and forth during testing since it is double-sided. In this revision, this problem is eliminated by placing all the components that need to be accessible on one side and all the components that we don’t need to access on the other.

Another difference between this revision and previous ones is the elimination of the voltage step-up. A higher-voltage power system was designed utilizing two 14V lithium-polymer batteries, eliminating the need to step down then step up multiple times to other voltages. The traces on the board were also increased in size to reduce unnecessary resistivity losses.

Overall, this new PCB design should help speed up development and handle anything we throw at it, whether that is temperature sensors, pressure sensors, triggering valves, or even lighting an e-match!

The final board revision was produced for us by our awesome sponsor, www.customcircuitboards.com!

Tanks!

One of the difficulties of building a rocket is constantly minimizing mass. Every design choice is evaluated to minimize the mass we have to add to the vehicle. The more mass we need to carry, the more fuel we need to lift it… but fuel also has mass… so you need fuel to lift that fuel… if this keeps going, we’ll be doing some unpleasant calculus.

Out rocket features three composite overwrap pressure vessels (COPVs) in two different flavors. Type 3 COPVs have an aluminum liner for extra strength and corrosion resistance. Type 5 COPVs are made of only carbon composite. The tanks that hold our helium and liquid oxygen are type 5, and the tank that holds our fuel, RP-1, is type 3.

Suffice it to say, it would be awesome if there were some sort of material with the strength of steel but the weight of fiberglass. That’s where composite tanks come in. Specifically, COPVs. These tanks are crazy light and sometimes many times stronger than comparable stainless steel or aluminum tanks.

The team just got our RP-1 tank in the mail from Steelhead Composites, and our He and LOX tanks are in the works at Infinite Composites Technologies.

Welcoming a New Manufacturing Partner!

The team is proud to announce our partnership with Custom Circuit Boards. Custom Circuit Boards is a high quality PCB fabricator located in Arizona with years of experience producing robust boards for all types of applications.

Custom Circuit Boards will be manufacturing our avionics, navigation, and ground control boards. Printed circuit boards will allow the team to maintain our high standards of quality and reliability in our avionics systems.