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== Getting Started
The first thing to do after you open the box is to hook up a
battery and charge it if necessary.
=== Batteries
ifdef::telemetrum,telemega,easymega[]
For TeleMetrum, TeleMega and EasyMega, the battery can be charged by plugging it into the
corresponding socket of the device and then using the USB
cable to plug the flight computer into your computer's USB socket. The
on-board circuitry will charge the battery whenever it is plugged
in, because the on-off switch does NOT control the
charging circuitry.
endif::telemetrum,telemega,easymega[]
The Lithium Polymer
ifdef::telemini[TeleMini and]
EasyMini battery can be charged by disconnecting it
from the board and plugging it into a standalone
battery charger such as link:http://altusmetrum.org/LipoCharger[LipoCharger], and
connecting that via a USB cable to a laptop or other
USB power source.
You can also choose to use another battery with
EasyMini, anything supplying between 4 and 12 volts should
work fine (like a standard 9V battery), but if you are planning
to fire pyro charges, ground testing is required to verify that
the battery supplies enough current to fire your chosen e-matches.
ifdef::telemetrum,telemega,easymega[]
[NOTE]
====
On TeleMetrum v1 boards, when the GPS chip is initially
searching for satellites, TeleMetrum will consume more current
than it pulls from the USB port, so the battery must be
attached in order to get satellite lock. Once GPS is locked,
the current consumption goes back down enough to enable charging
while running. So it's a good idea to fully charge the battery
as your first item of business so there is no issue getting and
maintaining satellite lock. The yellow charge indicator led
will go out when the battery is nearly full and the charger goes
to trickle charge. It can take several hours to fully recharge a
deeply discharged battery.
TeleMetrum v2.0, TeleMega and EasyMega use a higher power battery charger,
allowing them to charge the battery while running the board at
maximum power. When the battery is charging, or when the board
is consuming a lot of power, the red LED will be lit. When the
battery is fully charged, the green LED will be lit. When the
battery is damaged or missing, both LEDs will be lit, which
appears yellow.
====
endif::telemetrum,telemega,easymega[]
ifdef::radio[]
=== Ground Station Hardware
There are two ground stations available, the TeleDongle USB to
RF interface and the TeleBT Bluetooth/USB to RF interface. If
you plug either of these in to your Mac or Linux computer it should
“just work”, showing up as a serial port device. Windows systems need
driver information that is part of the AltOS download to know that the
existing USB modem driver will work. We therefore recommend installing
our software before plugging in TeleDongle if you are using a Windows
computer. If you are using an older version of Linux and are having
problems, try moving to a fresher kernel (2.6.33 or
newer).
endif::radio[]
=== Linux/Mac/Windows Ground Station Software
Next you should obtain and install the AltOS software.
The AltOS distribution includes the AltosUI ground
station program, current firmware images for all of
the hardware, and a number of standalone utilities
that are rarely needed. Pre-built binary packages are
available for Linux, Microsoft Windows, Mac OSX. Full
source code and build instructions are also
available. The latest version may always be downloaded
from http://altusmetrum.org/AltOS
ifdef::radio[]
=== Android Ground Station Software
TeleBT can also connect to an Android device over
BlueTooth or USB. The
link:https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.altusmetrum.AltosDroid[AltosDroid
Android application] is available from the
link:https://play.google.com[Google Play system].
You don't need a data plan to use AltosDroid, but
without network access, you'll want to download
offline map data before wandering away from the
network.
endif::radio[]
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