Actuator Board

Altium · Mixed-signal · STAR avionics · Revisions: V2 (current) · V1

Overview

The actuator board is part of the STAR rocketry avionics stack — it sits between the flight computer and the propulsion-side hardware, switching high-side loads on command and reporting status back over the avionics bus. Designed in Altium as part of the larger Pyroboardv1 project. V1 has been hot-fired; V2 carries the lessons forward (improved layout, decoupling, and connector pinout).

V2 current

Drag to rotate · scroll to zoom · right-click to pan. Rendered from the Altium STEP export.

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Schematic

V2 schematic — revised pad spacing, decoupling, and analog return separation. Click to open the full PDF.

What changed from V1

Wider pad spacing on the harness connector for reliability.
Larger bulk decoupling on the high-side switching path; added a snubber for worst-case di/dt.
Separated analog return so status-feedback ground no longer picks up switching noise.

V1 retired

The first hot-fired revision — kept here for context.

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Schematic

Hotfire_1 schematic — actuator switching, connector pinout, status feedback. Click to open the full PDF.