Matt,
I’m considering the E100 for use with GnuRadio/UHD
aboard a small spacecraft, and I have a few of questions:
-
What’s the power drain? Watt-hours are always at a
premium aboard a small spacecraft.
-
Are there any vacuum-sensitive components? For example,
electrolytic capacitors are no good (they dry out or rupture)
but tantalum’s are ok.
-
Is cooling an issue? Air-cooled heatsinks don’t work in
vacuum, and have to be replaced with conduction cooling.
-
Any Lithium batteries? They are considered hazardous for
space and require special provisions or removal.
-
Without writing any FPGA or DSP code, what’s the ballpark
sample rate that the ARM can keep up with?
TIA for any answers you can give.
@(^.^)@ Ed
On 01/19/2011 07:56 AM, Ed Criscuolo wrote:
Matt,
I’m considering the E100 for use with GnuRadio/UHD
aboard a small spacecraft, and I have a few of questions:
We definitely did not design with space applications in mind.
- What’s the power drain? Watt-hours are always at a
premium aboard a small spacecraft.
The E100 itself draws about 6-9 Watts. The daughterboard will also draw
power, up to as much as an additional 6 or 7 watts depending on the
board.
- Are there any vacuum-sensitive components? For example,
electrolytic capacitors are no good (they dry out or rupture)
but tantalum’s are ok.
No electrolytics on there. There are 4 crystal oscillators which may or
may not have vacuum issues.
- Is cooling an issue? Air-cooled heatsinks don’t work in
vacuum, and have to be replaced with conduction cooling.
We have done no testing of cooling in a vacuum, so you are really on
your own here.
- Any Lithium batteries? They are considered hazardous for
space and require special provisions or removal.
There is a coin cell battery backup for the real time clock, but that
can be removed.
- Without writing any FPGA or DSP code, what’s the ballpark
sample rate that the ARM can keep up with?
It largely depends on what you want to do with those samples, but you
should figure on 4-5 MS/s.
Matt