The Payload Arrangement

Having all the devices tested and prepared, it was the time to put it all together. I started with carving out a hole in the side of the box and creating a polystyrene frame for the camera. The camera should be tightly pinned to the hole, so as little cold air as possible can get inside the box. Coincidentally, I managed to find a flat plastic circle that exactly matched the dimensions of the camera's objective. I stuck it around the hole in the box, thus when placing the camera in position it would stick close to the camera's body allowing only the lens out. And once again I used a lot of the masking tape to cover the crumbling polystyrene.

 

Another device that needed to peek out of the box was the thermometer. The external probe is attached to the end of a fairly long cable, so I drilled another hole, this time, in the opposite wall of the box.

After that, everything was ready to be inserted in. The camera went to its frame, plus I prepared another polystyrene segment to separate it from the rest of the box. To the opposite wall, I placed the thermometer with its probe sticking out of the box. To secure it in its place, I used pieces of foam cut to fit the free space. The last device was my phone. The HTC HD2 is fairly thin, so I placed it inbetween a vertical piece of foam and the polystyrene wall separating the camera.

And all of this was covered by the two top pieces of polystyrene described in The Box article.

Here are all the parts together. The only things missing are the balloon and my HTC which is being used to take the picture.

Now that I had everything that would be hung below the balloon, I could measure its total weight. The empty box with the straps measured 250g, the parachute with the cords 180g, the Canon A2200 135g, the HTC HD2 157g, the S0122 datalogger 120g and some weight was added on by all the polystyrene and foam fillings. All in all, the total weight was 900g to be lifted by the balloon to the desired 30 kilometers.