[AR] Re: CubeSat V2

  • From: David McMillan <skyefire@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Fri, 2 Aug 2019 09:20:13 -0500

On 8/2/2019 2:41 AM, Jordan Trewitt wrote:


I’m assuming you’d want a umbilical to top off batteries and do last minute software changes? Probably would want something like a zero separation force connector or would at least want to check that the separation force is low enough for the spring to overcome.

    Well, the ultimate in zero-force connectors would be wireless.  :)

    No joke, I've recently seen some /very/ nice industrial connectors that routed 24VDC power (at up to a few hundred mA) /and/ a 1-Mb ethernet connection through a non-physical connection, with a broad air-gap tolerance (something like 1-10mm, and up to 10deg or so off-axis).  The required hardware on each end was just a large-thumb-sized unit that could be wired directly to your power/comms without any additional support hardware.

    The use case I saw demonstrated was running power&comms through the shaft of a CNC spindle without needing slip rings. The particular device (and I wish I still had the pamphlet!) was spec'd to be immune to several thousand RPMs around the "long axis" shared by both sides of the connector.

    The prices were... well, pretty stiff by hobbyist standards, but pretty low by the industrial prices I'm accustomed to dealing with.

    I'm not sure how the price would compare to licensing a Macintosh MagSafe connector from Apple.  :P


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