1. Featherweight electronics repair:
Since I started Featherweight Altimeters, I have been repairing products by request, and I find I'm not very good at it. I can fix the boards, but only when I remember to do it and where I put them. When I do make time to do repairs, it takes effort and focus that I need to be spending on finishing existing projects. By far the most common need for repair is when someone reverses polarity on a device, which can usually be repaired by just replacing a SOT23-5 regulator, using a hot air rework tool and some magnification. Sometimes there are broken antenna connectors that are repairable. If someone is interested in taking these on, I would just refer people who ask me about repairs to this person, and they would charge what would make it worthwhile to them.
2. Porting Matlab plotting scripts to Python:
While the Featherweight UI app for the Blue Raven and the tracker both have graphing within the app, it would be nice to be able to plot data on a larger computer screen and have better mouse-driven controls for zooming, etc. I have a nice set of plotting capability that runs on Matlab that I would like to make more widely available. One option for me is to get a Matlab package that would let me export this capability into executables that anyone can run without buying Matlab. But this package would cost several thousand dollars per year. I think there are Python plotting packages available that could do the same thing without any ongoing fees, and if I had the time and inclination, I would do this myself. I'm thinking about posting a project on UpWork to convert my Matlab plotting tools to Python-based executables that would run on Windows and Macs. I would pay $50/hour for someone who is qualified. It could be a good summer project for an engineering student who is into rocketry. Access to Matlab and fluency in Python would be required.
Since I started Featherweight Altimeters, I have been repairing products by request, and I find I'm not very good at it. I can fix the boards, but only when I remember to do it and where I put them. When I do make time to do repairs, it takes effort and focus that I need to be spending on finishing existing projects. By far the most common need for repair is when someone reverses polarity on a device, which can usually be repaired by just replacing a SOT23-5 regulator, using a hot air rework tool and some magnification. Sometimes there are broken antenna connectors that are repairable. If someone is interested in taking these on, I would just refer people who ask me about repairs to this person, and they would charge what would make it worthwhile to them.
2. Porting Matlab plotting scripts to Python:
While the Featherweight UI app for the Blue Raven and the tracker both have graphing within the app, it would be nice to be able to plot data on a larger computer screen and have better mouse-driven controls for zooming, etc. I have a nice set of plotting capability that runs on Matlab that I would like to make more widely available. One option for me is to get a Matlab package that would let me export this capability into executables that anyone can run without buying Matlab. But this package would cost several thousand dollars per year. I think there are Python plotting packages available that could do the same thing without any ongoing fees, and if I had the time and inclination, I would do this myself. I'm thinking about posting a project on UpWork to convert my Matlab plotting tools to Python-based executables that would run on Windows and Macs. I would pay $50/hour for someone who is qualified. It could be a good summer project for an engineering student who is into rocketry. Access to Matlab and fluency in Python would be required.
Last edited:
