This is version 3 of the higher power Optical Beacon I have been using.
It consists of 24x 3W IR 850nm LED’s, The most power I have driven it with is 30W.
Basically I modulate them with a square wave tone at 50% duty cycle.
If I’m trying Ebnaut then the phase is also modulated by 0 or 180deg.
The LED part is separate to the controller part, just LED’s on a PCB in 4 blocks of 6 in parallel.
There’s a perspex cover on the front to keep it waterproof!
The driver setup consists of:
DC-DC buck converter with current limiting.
GPS Receiver – Generates the beacon frequency
Phase Modulator – for Ebnaut
Raspbery Pi Zero – Web interface/power/frequency control and Ebnaut sender.
FET Switch – modulation
