Skydive Altimeter for Wingsuit / Tracking

thingiverse

I often struggle to read my wrist-mounted altimeter whenever I do a tracking jump. It would be wonderful to have a chest-mounted altimeter that utilizes LEDs as a kind of progress bar to show me precisely where I am at the moment in the sky. Once you reach 1000', it will switch over and display your altitude for landing. Here's how an altimeter can be seen in action. Operating Procedure Turn on the altimeter while you're still on the ground. It will automatically set a zero altitude, and a brief white light will flash every five seconds to remind you that it's turned on. After that, everything else will work relative to that initial zero altitude. Above 1000', the lights will flash in cyan every two seconds. When you reach three-fourths of the distance between your breakoff altitude and your exit altitude, the lights will go through an activation sequence. Right after this, the altimeter is ready for jump time. While descending, the LEDs will function like a countdown progress bar, displaying your remaining altitude from breakoff: Between breakoff and pull altitude, they will flash in yellow. Between pull altitude and hard deck, they will flash red. Below hard deck, they will remain solid red. Once you hit 1000', the altimeter will shift gears and start working as a landing altimeter. It'll show you your remaining altitude from that point all the way down to zero. At 125' altitude, the LEDs will switch off automatically. Turn the switch off and on again if you want to re-zero for the next jump. Default Settings The default settings are already programmed in feet and they look like this: Exit Altitude: 13000' Breakoff Altitude: 5000' Pull Altitude: 4000' Hard Deck: 2500' Make sure these are set up properly for where you'll be jumping from and your skill level. These variable numbers can be changed near the top of the Arduino code if necessary. For Full Instructions Check out the full build guide in PDF format located under Thing Files. Parts Needed You will need: 5v Boost Converter Arduino Nano Clone BMP180 Breakout Board RadioShack 2 AAA Battery Holder 8 WS2812 LED Strip 2 Disc Magnets, 1/4" x 1/8" in size Slide Switch Wire Note: This project relies on two main libraries: the Sparkfun BMP180 Library and the Adafruit NeoPixel Library.