Desktop Satellite Antenna

Desktop Satellite Antenna

The Pinshape community voted and this model won the award for Top Integrated Electronics Design of 2016!

This model won 3rd place in the Design for Electronics Contest!

A wide variety of interesting components were used to create this 3D printed satellite antenna model. With a WiFi enabled microcontroller, GPS receiver, magnetometer (compass), and two stepper motors, this unit is capable of tracking celestial objects in real-time.

The main body of the satellite antenna is completely self contained and can be lifted from the base without needing to detach wires or clips. The base section uses an inductive charging set to wirelessly transfer power to the main body components. This enables continuous rotation on the horizontal azimuth track, but also introduces a challenge faced by many space robots: The inductive charging set will not deliver enough power to continuously run the motors and other modules, so we’ll need to selectively power off modules and charge a battery until we have enough energy to perform a particular operation.

Video of the Desktop Satellite Antenna

Arduino library code is available here

The complete component list and build guide can be found here

NEW: Expansion Base with a Pi Zero mount:

https://pinshape.com/items/30758-3d-printed-expansion-base-pi-zero-for-the-desktop-satellite-antenna

Update 10/27/16:

Added support for SRC022A-6 slip rings and a mounting adapter for attaching NeoPixels to the dish. 

The new base and main_mount files ending with _SRC022A-6.stl are compatible with both the inductive charging set and the SRC022A-6 slip ring.

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