PowerFLARM choking on too many targets?

On Thursday, July 23, 2015 at 7:49:39 AM UTC-7, Dave Nadler wrote:
On Thursday, July 23, 2015 at 8:42:18 AM UTC-4, Sean Fidler wrote:
Yes, I have been getting this behavior often (understatement).
It happens all the time actually...
I never had this problem on my flarm portable FWIW.
I am brick-SN10-flarmView-Oudie with the associated Goddard cables.

Sean, can you also confirm you have never had a problem
with either the SN10 or Oudie WRT received PowerFLARM data?
Thanks!

PS: I've never had the problem with the Butterfly display.

Dave, I have the PowerFLARM core + SN10b + Oudie 2 + Butterfly 57mm display and have never had a reboot in any of the devices.

On Thursday, July 23, 2015 at 10:49:39 AM UTC-4, Dave Nadler wrote:
On Thursday, July 23, 2015 at 8:42:18 AM UTC-4, Sean Fidler wrote:
Yes, I have been getting this behavior often (understatement).
It happens all the time actually...
I never had this problem on my flarm portable FWIW.
I am brick-SN10-flarmView-Oudie with the associated Goddard cables.

Sean, can you also confirm you have never had a problem
with either the SN10 or Oudie WRT received PowerFLARM data?
Thanks!

PS: I've never had the problem with the Butterfly display.

Yes, confirmed. It seems that only the FlarmView is resetting/rebooting. The SN10 and the Oudie are not.

I have had the same problem with FlarmView. Noticeable when many targets are around. e.g. in the start cylinder and then once out on course with fewer targets, it returns to normal behavior. Frustrating as it essentially becomes useless as a display while it is exhibiting this rapid cycling between the splash page and the default start page. My setup is PowerFlarm core- S80 (DB9) and FlarmView (RJ45)- Avier XCSoar (through the S80). No problem with the GPS signal from the core.

On Thursday, July 23, 2015 at 11:18:42 AM UTC-7, wrote:
I have had the same problem with FlarmView. Noticeable when many targets are around. e.g. in the start cylinder and then once out on course with fewer targets, it returns to normal behavior. Frustrating as it essentially becomes useless as a display while it is exhibiting this rapid cycling between the splash page and the default start page. My setup is PowerFlarm core- S80 (DB9) and FlarmView (RJ45)- Avier XCSoar (through the S80). No problem with the GPS signal from the core.

Do people with this problem have PCAS alarms on or off? I had a similar problem last year and it seemed to be related to gliders with Flarm and Transponder operating.

BTW, there needs to be a way on Flarmview to tone down the PCAS warnings in thermals. If I'm flying with gliders with operating transponders I have to turn the PCAS off entirely or I spend 100% of my thermalling time turning off the alarms. I've tried different FlarmView settings to no avail so I've been reduced to setting the config on the PowerFLARM to turn PCAS off.

9B

On Thursday, July 23, 2015 at 5:58:55 PM UTC-4, Andy Blackburn wrote:
On Thursday, July 23, 2015 at 11:18:42 AM UTC-7, wrote:
I have had the same problem with FlarmView. Noticeable when many targets are around. e.g. in the start cylinder and then once out on course with fewer targets, it returns to normal behavior. Frustrating as it essentially becomes useless as a display while it is exhibiting this rapid cycling between the splash page and the default start page. My setup is PowerFlarm core- S80 (DB9) and FlarmView (RJ45)- Avier XCSoar (through the S80). No problem with the GPS signal from the core.

Do people with this problem have PCAS alarms on or off? I had a similar problem last year and it seemed to be related to gliders with Flarm and Transponder operating.

BTW, there needs to be a way on Flarmview to tone down the PCAS warnings in thermals. If I'm flying with gliders with operating transponders I have to turn the PCAS off entirely or I spend 100% of my thermalling time turning off the alarms. I've tried different FlarmView settings to no avail so I've been reduced to setting the config on the PowerFLARM to turn PCAS off.

9B

This is a symptom of improper mode setting (aircraft type) in the FLARMs of the gliders which "alarmed" you - if they are not set as glider in flarmcfg.txt, the warning parameters are much wider (and greatly affects warnings in thermals). We saw a few of these at the Pan-American contest and it took a few days to get everyone configured correctly (just a few days after PF 6.0 firmware came out). Some portables seemed to reset themselves, but that might have been finger trouble.

Dan
2D

Check the aircraft type is "1" in flarmcfg.txt.

On Thursday, July 23, 2015 at 3:16:45 PM UTC-7, Dan Daly wrote:
On Thursday, July 23, 2015 at 5:58:55 PM UTC-4, Andy Blackburn wrote:
On Thursday, July 23, 2015 at 11:18:42 AM UTC-7, wrote:
I have had the same problem with FlarmView. Noticeable when many targets are around. e.g. in the start cylinder and then once out on course with fewer targets, it returns to normal behavior. Frustrating as it essentially becomes useless as a display while it is exhibiting this rapid cycling between the splash page and the default start page. My setup is PowerFlarm core- S80 (DB9) and FlarmView (RJ45)- Avier XCSoar (through the S80). No problem with the GPS signal from the core.

Do people with this problem have PCAS alarms on or off? I had a similar problem last year and it seemed to be related to gliders with Flarm and Transponder operating.

BTW, there needs to be a way on Flarmview to tone down the PCAS warnings in thermals. If I'm flying with gliders with operating transponders I have to turn the PCAS off entirely or I spend 100% of my thermalling time turning off the alarms. I've tried different FlarmView settings to no avail so I've been reduced to setting the config on the PowerFLARM to turn PCAS off..

9B

This is a symptom of improper mode setting (aircraft type) in the FLARMs of the gliders which "alarmed" you - if they are not set as glider in flarmcfg.txt, the warning parameters are much wider (and greatly affects warnings in thermals). We saw a few of these at the Pan-American contest and it took a few days to get everyone configured correctly (just a few days after PF 6.0 firmware came out). Some portables seemed to reset themselves, but that might have been finger trouble.

Dan
2D

Check the aircraft type is "1" in flarmcfg.txt.

Thanks. I'm pretty sure that's not the case here since I helped set up the other Flarm config myself. It's a bit of a laborious trial and error process of course, so it's hard to be sure.

I remember thinking it ought to be straightforward to suppress Mode-S PCAS warnings for gliders also carrying Flarm, based on ICAO address, but I vaguely remember there is a reason why this can't work...something about Mode-S transponders also replying to other types of interrogations. (Yet another reason why the FAA would probably have done us all a favor if they'd mandated Mode S as part of a transition to ADS-B 1090 ES Out (like Europe) rather than the whole UAT debacle).

9B

On Thursday, July 23, 2015 at 2:58:55 PM UTC-7, Andy Blackburn wrote:
On Thursday, July 23, 2015 at 11:18:42 AM UTC-7, wrote:
I have had the same problem with FlarmView. Noticeable when many targets are around. e.g. in the start cylinder and then once out on course with fewer targets, it returns to normal behavior. Frustrating as it essentially becomes useless as a display while it is exhibiting this rapid cycling between the splash page and the default start page. My setup is PowerFlarm core- S80 (DB9) and FlarmView (RJ45)- Avier XCSoar (through the S80). No problem with the GPS signal from the core.

Do people with this problem have PCAS alarms on or off? I had a similar problem last year and it seemed to be related to gliders with Flarm and Transponder operating.

BTW, there needs to be a way on Flarmview to tone down the PCAS warnings in thermals. If I'm flying with gliders with operating transponders I have to turn the PCAS off entirely or I spend 100% of my thermalling time turning off the alarms. I've tried different FlarmView settings to no avail so I've been reduced to setting the config on the PowerFLARM to turn PCAS off.

9B

No such problems with the Butterfly display. Never needed to turn off PCAS or turn the volume down. only an occasional beep. So far it sounds like the butterfly display is a better option than FlarmView.

Ramy

Walt Rogers, WX, can also confirm that I have never seen this problem with the Butterfly display and PF (lastest version of both) including all flights at the Club Class national this summer.


No such problems with the Butterfly display. Never needed to turn off PCAS or turn the volume down. only an occasional beep. So far it sounds like the butterfly display is a better option than FlarmView.

Ramy

On Monday, July 20, 2015 at 7:52:41 PM UTC-7, Matt Herron Jr. wrote:
Today I flew the first day of the Truckee FAI contest. We had about 14 planes in the launch area at once. All pilots had Flarm (and transponders) which was great.

My setup is a PowerFlarm Brick (V6.02) with a FlarmVIew display (latest firmware, and powered by the brick). V7 and Oudie are also connected to the brick, but powered separately.

When there were more than about 5 targets being tracked by the PowerFLARM, the FlarmView display started to reboot repeatedly and rapidly every few seconds as if it were being power cycled. It behaved normally during the task when there were just a few targets at most to display. On landing there were again many targets in close proximity and the FlarmVIew display started to reboot again.

Has anyone experienced this? I don't know how to tell if it is the Powerflarm's fault, recycling the power to the FlarmVIew display or the FlarmView Display itself getting overwhelmed by so many targets.

Thoughts?

Also, the PowerFlarm brick experienced MANY GPS failures during the last two flights. The Oudie kept switching to secondary GPS (internal). TO be fair, the Colibri II also showed some GPS dropouts on the same flight, but not nearly as many.

Additional thoughts?

Thanks,

Matt Herron

I have a beta update for the FlarmView that may solve the problem. Email me and I will forward the FlarmView beta.

Thanks,

Richard
www.craggyaero.com

I tried the Beta 2.21 flarmview software today and it solved the problem! No more splash screen spasms, even with 5-10 active flarm targets, scale at .3miles, and lots of transponders. No other obvious side effects to this beta...

Thanks Richard