The Icarus Project

The Icarus Project

High Altitude Ballooning

Useful Links

HAB Supplies and Prediction

Random Solutions
UK balloon supplier, plus lots of other cool stuff.

CUSF Flight Prediction
Flight prediction calculator. The is the best model for prediction as it has adjustable ascent and descent rates. It also has the common launch coordinates for the UK as a drop down list. The new hourly prediction page has the landing spots for every hour for the next seven days.

Wyoming Balloon Trajectory Forcaster
The original balloon trajectory predictor slow and dated now. You’re better of using the CUSF Predictor.

Component Suppliers

Spherachutes
Spherachutes offers high quality parachutes for Rocketry, uav’s, high altitude weather balloons and many other unmanned vehicles or payloads. Custom colors are available on any Spherachute at no extra charge.

SparkFun
United States based company. A bit pricey since the hike in the exchange rate, but good products in a friendly site. The staff very helpfull too.

Farnell
They have a massive base in Leeds, which happens to be local for me.  They have everything and more besides. A fantastic resource with friendly and helpful staff.

Diamond Point International
Good source for Lassen IQ GPS reasonable (best?) prices.

Jessops
Great for UV filters to go in front of the camera as a window to keep the internals of payload warm.

Location and recovery

Practical Radio Tracking
PDF document on radio tracking

ETC in schools
Useful link for the beginner in ITC

PCB Design, Components and Printing

Olimex
PCB printing at reasonable prices.

ATMega32 Development Board

Generating PWM signals using Timers in the ATMega chip
A very good article, with code examples, explaining how to control a servo using the ATMega chips.

AVR fuse calculator
A useful calculator for working out correct fuse settings.

Helium Suppliers

BOC
Flow-Tronic

Serial communications resources (UART, RS 232, ttyS0)

Serial Programming Guide for POSIX Operating Systems
This is an excellent document for understanding and setting up basic serial communications using POSIX compliant C under the Linux OS.

Serial HOWTO
This HOWTO covers basic info on the Serial Port and multiport serial cards. It contains much more information in it than most people need to know and most people are able to use the serial port without reading this HOWTO. But if you’re having problems or just want to understand how it works, this is one place to find out about it.

Serial Programming HOWTO
This is the Linux Serial Programming HOWTO. All about how to program communications with other devices / computers over a serial line under Linux. Different techniques are explained: Canonical I/O (only complete lines are transmitted/received), asyncronous I/O, and waiting for input from multiple sources.

Odds and Sods

Precision Technology Supplies
An excellent source of very small nuts and bolts.

Batteries
http://www.battery-force.co.uk/

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