DIY Flight-Computer

On Wednesday, February 11, 2015 at 12:34:47 PM UTC+13, Martin Gregorie wrote:
On Tue, 10 Feb 2015 12:46:30 -0800, Kilo-Bravo wrote:

Hi Graig,

glad you like it. I just try to organize a project-group to build a
bigger number of computers.
Hope it will work.

Is there any particular you decided to base the project round a Cubieboard
rather than, say, a Beagleboard Black or a RaspberryPi? The new Pi 2B
looks quite interesting and there are already smallish touch screens
available for it. As a Libelle pilot I prefer small.

I happen to have a Raspberry Pi 2 Model B in my hand, and I expect it would be well up to the job if it has sufficient of the right kinds of I/O. It's certainly faster than the A20 Cubieboard 2, though not the A80 Cubieboard 4.

As the Raspberry Pi 2 was announced only a week ago I think you can hardly blame the project for not using one! The old model was underpowered when it came out three years ago, and laughably so now.

Am Mittwoch, 11. Februar 2015 02:43:40 UTC+1 schrieb Bruce Hoult:
On Wednesday, February 11, 2015 at 12:34:47 PM UTC+13, Martin Gregorie wrote:
On Tue, 10 Feb 2015 12:46:30 -0800, Kilo-Bravo wrote:

Hi Graig,

glad you like it. I just try to organize a project-group to build a
bigger number of computers.
Hope it will work.

Is there any particular you decided to base the project round a Cubieboard
rather than, say, a Beagleboard Black or a RaspberryPi? The new Pi 2B
looks quite interesting and there are already smallish touch screens
available for it. As a Libelle pilot I prefer small.

I happen to have a Raspberry Pi 2 Model B in my hand, and I expect it would be well up to the job if it has sufficient of the right kinds of I/O. It's certainly faster than the A20 Cubieboard 2, though not the A80 Cubieboard 4.

As the Raspberry Pi 2 was announced only a week ago I think you can hardly blame the project for not using one! The old model was underpowered when it came out three years ago, and laughably so now.

Hi Martin,

sorry, but I have no idea about those boards at all. I just tried to spread the news about the project and I now try to organize a builders-group to get some of those flight-computers build.
Question like this, you better ask the people who have developed the computer, so best you use theire website to ask those questions.
But the answer to your question might be the reply from Bruce Hoult, who informed about the introduction of the mentioned board two weeks ago.
As the developer-team surely can not redesign the computer each time a new board joins the marked, I beliefe that we can live with the existing design.

Best regards from Germany

Klaus

On Wed, 11 Feb 2015 00:56:35 -0800, Kilo-Bravo wrote:

I beliefe that we can live with the existing design.

Fair enough: very often hardware gets picked simply because one of the
technical people has used it before - and nothing wrong with that!

Can you say if you're planning to support touch screens or if the plan is
to control the flight computer entirely from the control column? I can't
see any control switches in the photos of panels. My German is fairly
poor, so I wasn't able to tell from the description on the text.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |

Am Mittwoch, 11. Februar 2015 13:53:38 UTC+1 schrieb Martin Gregorie:
On Wed, 11 Feb 2015 00:56:35 -0800, Kilo-Bravo wrote:

I beliefe that we can live with the existing design.

Fair enough: very often hardware gets picked simply because one of the
technical people has used it before - and nothing wrong with that!

Can you say if you're planning to support touch screens or if the plan is
to control the flight computer entirely from the control column? I can't
see any control switches in the photos of panels. My German is fairly
poor, so I wasn't able to tell from the description on the text.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |



Am Mittwoch, 11. Februar 2015 13:53:38 UTC+1 schrieb Martin Gregorie:
On Wed, 11 Feb 2015 00:56:35 -0800, Kilo-Bravo wrote:

I beliefe that we can live with the existing design.

Fair enough: very often hardware gets picked simply because one of the
technical people has used it before - and nothing wrong with that!

Can you say if you're planning to support touch screens or if the plan is
to control the flight computer entirely from the control column? I can't
see any control switches in the photos of panels. My German is fairly
poor, so I wasn't able to tell from the description on the text.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |



Am Mittwoch, 11. Februar 2015 13:53:38 UTC+1 schrieb Martin Gregorie:
On Wed, 11 Feb 2015 00:56:35 -0800, Kilo-Bravo wrote:

I beliefe that we can live with the existing design.

Fair enough: very often hardware gets picked simply because one of the
technical people has used it before - and nothing wrong with that!

Can you say if you're planning to support touch screens or if the plan is
to control the flight computer entirely from the control column? I can't
see any control switches in the photos of panels. My German is fairly
poor, so I wasn't able to tell from the description on the text.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |

Hi Martin,

I must admit, that as the subject is quite new to me, I don´t know what I need and which size.
At a first look at things, I would prefer a 7" Touch-screen, which I think its big anough to let my fingers work on it during flight.
But surely thoughts can change, the more I get involved in the subject.
As you might have seen in my newest blog, I try to get a workshop organized at our place in Germany, so I hope to find a few guys joining me in order to help each other and at the end we come out of it with a few ready Flight-Computers. Would be phantastic.

Regards Klaus

On Wed, 11 Feb 2015 05:21:21 -0800, Kilo-Bravo wrote:

At a first look at things, I would prefer a 7" Touch-screen, which I
think its big enough to let my fingers work on it during flight.

I have a fairly full panel in my Libelle: 80mm ASI, altimeter and SDI C4
for starters followed up by 57mm B.40 vario, T&B and radio.

Currently me navigation system is LK8000 running on a Medion S3747, held
in front of the panel in a fleximount: as its just a 3.5" (88mm) screen,
it doesn't hide any instruments. I find its touch screen is useable in
flight, but then I don't have big fingers.

I was wondering about touch screens because some of the RaspberryPi shops
(Pimoroni and ModMyPi) are selling 3.5"/85mm touch screens for around GBP
35. These tend to use I2C bus connections though I did spot one with a
USB connector.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |

Am Donnerstag, 12. Februar 2015 00:25:52 UTC+1 schrieb Martin Gregorie:
On Wed, 11 Feb 2015 05:21:21 -0800, Kilo-Bravo wrote:

At a first look at things, I would prefer a 7" Touch-screen, which I
think its big enough to let my fingers work on it during flight.

I have a fairly full panel in my Libelle: 80mm ASI, altimeter and SDI C4
for starters followed up by 57mm B.40 vario, T&B and radio.

Currently me navigation system is LK8000 running on a Medion S3747, held
in front of the panel in a fleximount: as its just a 3.5" (88mm) screen,
it doesn't hide any instruments. I find its touch screen is useable in
flight, but then I don't have big fingers.

I was wondering about touch screens because some of the RaspberryPi shops
(Pimoroni and ModMyPi) are selling 3.5"/85mm touch screens for around GBP
35. These tend to use I2C bus connections though I did spot one with a
USB connector.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |

Hi Martin,

sorry for late reply.
Of course I know the panel-problems, not only with the Libelle.
As I am verry much restricted in panel-space in my Banjo, and do do not want to exchange all my 80mm instruments by expensive 57mm instruments, I do look for a smaller and less difficult version. let´s call it a OV-Light.
5" or even 4" touchscreen, without stick-remote, gyro, accellorator and other additional functions. Just a plane Glider-Navigation to replace my old IPAQ with SeeYou running at it.
At this moment, I try to get a Light-Specification together with the designer-group, hope this will work.
On the other hand, I am just a dumm Electronic-Neandertal (greenhorn), so I have to work out first how to get the PCB´s manufactured and whats the special secret by soldering the SMD´s onto the PCB´s.
In the next step, I like to build a Light-Version to get builders-experiance, in order to document those things at my website UL-Segelflug.de, to make the doeing easyer for other builders.
Stay tuned at UL-Segelflug.de and watch for progress.

Best regards from Germany

Klaus

Am Samstag, 14. Februar 2015 12:25:22 UTC+1 schrieb Kilo-Bravo:
Am Donnerstag, 12. Februar 2015 00:25:52 UTC+1 schrieb Martin Gregorie:
On Wed, 11 Feb 2015 05:21:21 -0800, Kilo-Bravo wrote:

At a first look at things, I would prefer a 7" Touch-screen, which I
think its big enough to let my fingers work on it during flight.

I have a fairly full panel in my Libelle: 80mm ASI, altimeter and SDI C4
for starters followed up by 57mm B.40 vario, T&B and radio.

Currently me navigation system is LK8000 running on a Medion S3747, held
in front of the panel in a fleximount: as its just a 3.5" (88mm) screen,
it doesn't hide any instruments. I find its touch screen is useable in
flight, but then I don't have big fingers.

I was wondering about touch screens because some of the RaspberryPi shops
(Pimoroni and ModMyPi) are selling 3.5"/85mm touch screens for around GBP
35. These tend to use I2C bus connections though I did spot one with a
USB connector.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |

Hi Martin,

sorry for late reply.
Of course I know the panel-problems, not only with the Libelle.
As I am verry much restricted in panel-space in my Banjo, and do do not want to exchange all my 80mm instruments by expensive 57mm instruments, I do look for a smaller and less difficult version. let´s call it a OV-Light.
5" or even 4" touchscreen, without stick-remote, gyro, accellorator and other additional functions. Just a plane Glider-Navigation to replace my old IPAQ with SeeYou running at it.
At this moment, I try to get a Light-Specification together with the designer-group, hope this will work.
On the other hand, I am just a dumm Electronic-Neandertal (greenhorn), so I have to work out first how to get the PCB´s manufactured and whats the special secret by soldering the SMD´s onto the PCB´s.
In the next step, I like to build a Light-Version to get builders-experiance, in order to document those things at my website UL-Segelflug.de, to make the doeing easyer for other builders.
Stay tuned at UL-Segelflug.de and watch for progress.

Best regards from Germany

Klaus

Hi Martin,

I have to revise my Info to you from yesterday, as meantime new findings came up.
I did a survey asking all present builders about their experiances and the state of the build at present.
All together, inclusive the people from the developing-crew convinced me, that a Light-Version, as I prefered it, would not make any sence.
1. building a full-version will cost somthing like 40-50 EURO more then the light-version.
2. additional time for the build is minor
3. building the full version would include an E-Vario in display as well, so I could take my Borgelt E-Vario out of the panel
Taking out the Borgelt will not only reduce weigt of 550 Gramms, but also gives lot of additional space to go for a 7" display.
I took out all instruments from my panel, covered it with blank paper and glued shapes of remaining instruments and the 7" screen in original messurements to it.
The result: everything fits and the 7" screen looks encouraging.
Today I do a new Panel in fibre, so I will proceed the project as explained obove.
New panel-layout you can see at UL-Segelflug.de/Blog, where I also described the new findings.
I´m sure you could try a similar way, just try it.
Touch-screen has also been obandoned, now I ended up with a stick-remote as well.
Could be, that I design a small side-panel mounted at the canopy-frame, instead stick-remote.

Regards from Germany

Klaus

I can't
see any control switches in the photos of panels. My German is fairly
poor, so I wasn't able to tell from the description on the text.


Here you'll find informations about OpenVario in english language:

http://www.openvario.org/doku.php

and here about remote control:

http://www.openvario.org/doku.php?id...:remote_00:top


Waldemar

On Wed, 11 Feb 2015 16:51:38 +0200, GolDek wrote:

http://www.openvario.org/doku.php?id...:remote_00:top

Brilliant! that covers exactly what I wanted to know.
Many thanks.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |

Fair enough: very often hardware gets picked simply because one of the
technical people has used it before - and nothing wrong with that!

The main reason for choosing the Cubieboard was the LVDS interface that can drive the Pixel Qi LCD without additional hardware. It has good community support, lots of interfaces (four accessible UARTS vs. one on the BBB, touch screen controller, etc.) and a suitable connector layout. This makes the adapterboard easier which is basically just power supply, RS232 level converters and a way of matching LCD and touch screen connectors.

Can you say if you're planning to support touch screens or if the plan is
to control the flight computer entirely from the control column? I can't
see any control switches in the photos of panels.

There are no control switches on the flight computer to keep size to a minimum. They could be easily implemented with a slightly bigger housing, but I really prefer the stick remote for in-flight use. For setup on the ground the touchscreen or a trackball is fine.

Michael