Winging it

Following on from the last post  which was about the process and building, this is just an overview of the latest design. The kicad project files along with the schematic , layout , and BOM can all be found on github . The future Firstly, and I think I've expressed these comments before - but I'm still absolutely dumbfounded that the software and facilities are available for a basic hobbyist to be able to design and create something like this now. Yes it wasn't simple and took a while, but still, a few years ago this would have been impossible/unthinkable. New new design This is the new design. I spent some more time tidying up and redesigned the charger module again since the original one was too basic/primitive. The new new There are quite a few changes and improvements on this new design.  USB connection I changed to a USB-C connector, and the USB connection can be switched between the NRF and BG96 chips, most of the time the NRF will be useful but if you need/want to d...

 After the success of " Tracker Two " I decided, as I mentioned at the end of that previous write up, that it was time to see if I could build my own custom hardware. How hard could it be? 🤷 Evolution Version 0 For version zero of the tracker I tried using off the shelf 'personal tracking' devices, this proved that it was possible to build my own tracking site. Initially I thought I really didn't want to spend any time trying to build my own device, but inevitably concluded that was the solution. Version 1 The first incarnation of the custom tracker was the klutzy A9G based system  - well it wasn't klutzy at first, but after several iterations and enhancements it ended up that way. The A9G was incredibly cheap and worked reasonably well, but the module has some major design flaws and it can't do bluetooth (hence the klutzing). Version 2 The second version switched to using the RAK5010 based board , again it started elegant and ended up with multiple impr...

...(i.e. Tracking water for sport, obv.) With the data reporting I was getting with my latest tracker , I had a new idea in the week before my last race... What if it was possible to also monitor, track and report fluids drunk?  I like to run with a water bladder rather than soft bottles, but it's always awkward knowing exactly how much you've had or got left. You can get a reasonable idea from the weight, or patting your bag but obviously it's not as simple as having an empty bottle in your hand. In the past I had tried to use the little Camelbak fluid display gadget... but it was pretty useless on the whole , and impossible to read the tiny display, outside, running, with bifocals on. So I had about a week... and an idea... and already had the framework with the tracker how hard could it be. I ordered a load of random stuff.... and started tinkering. Standard random internet orders, nothing to see here... I picked an  ESP32 board  for this, my idea is to use it to broad...

done (for now)... live GPS tracking, with heath and environment metrics. Tracking heart rate, core body temperature, blood sugar, air temperature and humidity. A CoreTemp sensor is providing the body temperature, a GlucoRx Aidex sensor for the blood sugar, and based on a RAK 5010 for the main board. (See the previous post for the blood sugar project). So finally have the reworked GPS tracker up and running, after way too many weeks of coding, tweaking and debugging. Whilst the nRF52 has been really impressive to work with and the SDK is comprehensive with loads of features that are easy to enable, there have been many heffalump traps along the way.... A Core sensor, with some of the blood sensors tried "on the bench" But why Firstly a quick mention for the "why" which has been asked several times along with "but I can do X" on my phone... this is to monitor health during long endurance events *for the benefit of the crew* so they can see what's go...