Elipse E-Bay Redesign
Since my ARTS2 got destroyed in a lawn-dart accident in May, I purchased a Raven2 from Featherweight Aerospace. No two altimeters have the same mounting points, so I’ve been modifying the sled to accept the new altimeter. In the process, I’m re-wiring the bay for quicker setup and altimeter swapping. I got several 2-pin Molex connectors from Radio Shack / Fry’s and have been soldering together a wiring harness.
The Raven altimeter has a minimum of connectors, so instead of providing paired connections for apogee and main, it provides a single connection for each and expects the user’s wiring to provide the power connection for each channel. This is a little obnoxious without some form of wiring harness, but simple with connectors.
My current dilemma is an on-off switch. Ideally, I’ll use the Featherweight Magnetic Switch. They’re supposed to be extremely handy - just wave a magnet by the rocket on the rail and it’s ready to go. However, I’ve run into both budget and technical constraints. $25 per switch isn’t bad, unless I need one of these for every single rocket. That adds up too quickly. Making it part of the wiring harness might work, but it adds another piece that must be mounted for safety. My current harness design is relatively modular - perhaps I’ll keep it attached as part of the battery module.
I’m also not sure yet how to connect the harness and a battery. I’d like to switch to small LiPo cells instead of single-use 9V batteries for both cost and size considerations. However, most batteries I’ve found use some sort of miniature connector. I don’t want to remove that - it’s useful for charging. I’ll need to find the mate to that connector, preferably in a solderable size.