When it is time to fly your balloon mission, you will need a way to get the data from your xChips on the balloon to the Data Dashboard servers. How will we do it?

You will make a ground station that talks to the WeatherSat on your balloon over radio, and connects to the data servers over a WiFi internet connection.


Before you can use the radio modules, you will need to "flash" them with a program that tells them what frequency to use and how to communicate with the xChips.

XinaBox has made a special tool for flashing the radio modules that makes this an easy process.

1. Download the latest version of the xLoader.zip programming tool from the ThinSat Program Knowledge Base .

2. Download the file xLoader.zip

3. Unzip xLoader.zip. You will now have a folder called xLoader

When you follow the link above, you will notice that there are many files listed with names like CR03_BootCamp_Firmware_V1.200_20170813_913.0MHz.hex

These are the firmware files that let you select which frequency your CR03 Radio Module will use. If you are going to fly more than one balloon mission at once, you can flash each unique pair of CR03s with a different firmware file to make sure they can run at the same time without transmitting over each other.

1. Download all the firmware files for the different frequencies and put them in a folder you can find later.

To perform the setup you will need:

1. IP01 xChip- USB module
2. CW01 xChip- WiFi module and processor
3. 2 x CR03 xChip- Radio module (One for the balloon, one for the ground station)
4. 1 Connector piece

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Take one IP01 and one CR03 and click them together securely.

We will program both Radio Modules and later, when you build your WeatherSat, you will add one of these CR03 Radio Modules to the science payload.

Your IP01 switches need to be in a different position than the CW01 for programming. Set the switches to "A" and "DCE"

1. Unzip XLoader.zip and open the XLoader folder you extracted.

2. Run XLoader.exe

   A small application will open with a few fields.

3. Select the firmware file you downloaded earlier.

4. Select CR03 from the dropdown.

   CR01 may be selected by default. Use the dropdown to pick the CR03 Radio Module.

5. Ensure the correct COM port is selected

   If the CR03 and IP01 are plugged in when you launch the program, the COM port should be automatically populated. If not, plug the IP01 into one of your USB ports and then the COM port should become available in the dropdown.

6. Click "Upload"

   This may take over a minute or two to complete. The animation above has been edited for brevity. Once the upload completes, the status bar in the bottom left will switch from "Uploading..." to something like "27731 bytes uploaded."

7. Repeat these steps with your second CR03 module.

   Remember, you need a pair of CR03s that have been flashed with the same firmware file. When you have two CR03s ready, take a moment to mark or tag them so you can easily tell which radios work together. They're easy to get mixed up, so when it's launch day you'll be glad you can tell them apart!