ClearVav vs. LXNav

On Tuesday, January 30, 2018 at 10:11:39 AM UTC-5, Gerry Simpson wrote:
New glider on the way. Would like objective opinions from pilots who have flown with both ClearNav and LXNav and spent enough time to make an honest, educated evaluation. Let me preface this with the information that I have flown with ClearNav since being an early adopter. Both appear to have advantages. Are there enough with LXVav (9000, 9070, 9050) to warrant going through the learning curve for a new system?

Regarding the ClearNav, there are a few issues which have not been addressed. If you are dealing with smaller panels, more consideration and planning are required with the ClearNav.

The ClearNav unit is an asymmetrical "box"; it's left border is wider than the right border. If you chose through panel, behind panel, or tunnel mount (which is most popular) and you want the screen on panel center-line there will be less room for instruments on the left side of the panel than the right side.

Unfortunately, ClearNav website does not provide "footprint" dimensional drawings so you can't determine just how close you can locate other instruments. Other instrument placement also differs between through panel/behind panel and tunnel mount.The tunnel mount helps alleviate horizontal closeness but you need to have all the stuff in hand so you can measure components to eliminate interference. Surely Williams could correct this with little effort. Note to Rex - hunt and peck doesn't cut it.

With the ClearNav tunnel mount, mounting is a "stack" affair. There is a 2" tunnel, 1.25" computer, a back plate, then the Nexus box. It's a clunky affair with multiple sets of screws and spacers. The tabs on the back plate can also interfere with tangent instruments. When assembled, it takes up at least twice the cubic area than the LXNAX 9000.

Additional panel space is required for the ClearNav on/off switch as well as the CAN/USB extension. The LXNAV incorporates an on/off button in its button set.

On the other hand, mounting the LXNAV is a breeze. It's symmetrical, total size is 114 mm wide x 145 mm high x 38 mm deep exclusive connectors.

So you's pays your money and you's take your choice.

Ben, if you prefer the LX unit, why not simply say so?

My ClearNav is mounted to the side of the panel using Ram mounts,
leaving the rest of the panel for whatever you want.Â* No need for a
power switch, simply connect the power line to the avionics bus (with a
fuse, of course) and it powers on/off with the ship's master switch.Â* If
anyone wants measurements, you can probably get them from Rex, but,
since my ship is down right now, I have mine at home and can measure it
for you, but only to the 1/16".Â* If you use the CN stick grip with
installed buttons, you don't need the CAN/USB panel connector since all
the control buttons are run through the stick and there's a USB jack on
the back of the CN computer.



On 3/7/2018 8:57 PM, wrote:
On Tuesday, January 30, 2018 at 10:11:39 AM UTC-5, Gerry Simpson wrote:
New glider on the way. Would like objective opinions from pilots who have flown with both ClearNav and LXNav and spent enough time to make an honest, educated evaluation. Let me preface this with the information that I have flown with ClearNav since being an early adopter. Both appear to have advantages. Are there enough with LXVav (9000, 9070, 9050) to warrant going through the learning curve for a new system?
Regarding the ClearNav, there are a few issues which have not been addressed. If you are dealing with smaller panels, more consideration and planning are required with the ClearNav.

The ClearNav unit is an asymmetrical "box"; it's left border is wider than the right border. If you chose through panel, behind panel, or tunnel mount (which is most popular) and you want the screen on panel center-line there will be less room for instruments on the left side of the panel than the right side.

Unfortunately, ClearNav website does not provide "footprint" dimensional drawings so you can't determine just how close you can locate other instruments. Other instrument placement also differs between through panel/behind panel and tunnel mount.The tunnel mount helps alleviate horizontal closeness but you need to have all the stuff in hand so you can measure components to eliminate interference. Surely Williams could correct this with little effort. Note to Rex - hunt and peck doesn't cut it.

With the ClearNav tunnel mount, mounting is a "stack" affair. There is a 2" tunnel, 1.25" computer, a back plate, then the Nexus box. It's a clunky affair with multiple sets of screws and spacers. The tabs on the back plate can also interfere with tangent instruments. When assembled, it takes up at least twice the cubic area than the LXNAX 9000.

Additional panel space is required for the ClearNav on/off switch as well as the CAN/USB extension. The LXNAV incorporates an on/off button in its button set.

On the other hand, mounting the LXNAV is a breeze. It's symmetrical, total size is 114 mm wide x 145 mm high x 38 mm deep exclusive connectors.

So you's pays your money and you's take your choice.


--
Dan, 5J

On Thursday, March 8, 2018 at 10:27:12 AM UTC-5, Dan Marotta wrote:
Ben, if you prefer the LX unit, why not simply say so?


Nope, wrong assumption.

I'm just pointing out the CN MFD requires extra planning and is more trouble to mount. ClearNav complicates the fit/no fit decision by not readily providing "should not have to request" dimensional data.

The ClearNav II is a fine navigational computer and is especially good when combined with the XC CNv digital display. I believe David Masson is responsible for it's current software and it is outstanding.

On Tuesday, January 30, 2018 at 8:11:39 AM UTC-7, Gerry Simpson wrote:
New glider on the way. Would like objective opinions from pilots who have flown with both ClearNav and LXNav and spent enough time to make an honest, educated evaluation. Let me preface this with the information that I have flown with ClearNav since being an early adopter. Both appear to have advantages. Are there enough with LXVav (9000, 9070, 9050) to warrant going through the learning curve for a new system?

Like many on RAS I just came from the convention in Reno. The reps where there from CL, LXNav, and LXNavigation. I sat in on a seminar presented by the LXNavigation rep and was truly impressed. The rep described the work that went into the UI and even touchscreen advances (Currently the Colibri is touchscreen and the Zeus is not). Their goal was to make a navigation system easy enough to be able to use without reading the manual. After seeing the screen shots at the presentation and looking at the instruments at the booth later, I would say they have succeeded.
I don't own any LXNavigation instruments and I am certainly not telling you what to buy but if you have not made the decision yet, take a look at the Zeus and some of the other stuff from these guys.
Best wishes with the new ship.

On Thursday, March 8, 2018 at 5:33:27 AM UTC-8, wrote:
On Tuesday, January 30, 2018 at 8:11:39 AM UTC-7, Gerry Simpson wrote:
New glider on the way. Would like objective opinions from pilots who have flown with both ClearNav and LXNav and spent enough time to make an honest, educated evaluation. Let me preface this with the information that I have flown with ClearNav since being an early adopter. Both appear to have advantages. Are there enough with LXVav (9000, 9070, 9050) to warrant going through the learning curve for a new system?

Like many on RAS I just came from the convention in Reno. The reps where there from CL, LXNav, and LXNavigation. I sat in on a seminar presented by the LXNavigation rep and was truly impressed. The rep described the work that went into the UI and even touchscreen advances (Currently the Colibri is touchscreen and the Zeus is not). Their goal was to make a navigation system easy enough to be able to use without reading the manual. After seeing the screen shots at the presentation and looking at the instruments at the booth later, I would say they have succeeded.
I don't own any LXNavigation instruments and I am certainly not telling you what to buy but if you have not made the decision yet, take a look at the Zeus and some of the other stuff from these guys.
Best wishes with the new ship.

With 7 buttons, two knobs, and a 114 page manual I'm not sure Zeus has broken any new man-machine interface barriers. Imagine if Google maps on your cell phone came with a 114 page manual.

With 7 buttons, two knobs, and a 114 page manual I'm not sure Zeus has broken any new man-machine interface barriers. Imagine if Google maps on your cell phone came with a 114 page manual.

Fitchy, Keep in mind those buttons are labeled , unlike some other glide computers. I should have said GUI instead of UI. The LXNavigation stuff at the show had some of the best looking (And yes easiest to interpret) screens of anyone. And thats coming from an LXNav guy. Also, why do you assume instrument manufacturers would use dated technology in regards to touch screens. The stuff displayed at the show was cutting edge in both accuracy and brightness.
If Google Maps could do what my glide computer could I would expect a 114 page manual.FWIW my S100 manual is 105 pages and still leaves a bit uncovered. When you consider the capability and versatility of these things 114 pages is nothing. Even for people like me with short attention spans.

On Thursday, March 8, 2018 at 11:05:31 AM UTC-8, wrote:
With 7 buttons, two knobs, and a 114 page manual I'm not sure Zeus has broken any new man-machine interface barriers. Imagine if Google maps on your cell phone came with a 114 page manual.

Fitchy, Keep in mind those buttons are labeled , unlike some other glide computers. I should have said GUI instead of UI. The LXNavigation stuff at the show had some of the best looking (And yes easiest to interpret) screens of anyone. And thats coming from an LXNav guy. Also, why do you assume instrument manufacturers would use dated technology in regards to touch screens. The stuff displayed at the show was cutting edge in both accuracy and brightness.
If Google Maps could do what my glide computer could I would expect a 114 page manual.FWIW my S100 manual is 105 pages and still leaves a bit uncovered. When you consider the capability and versatility of these things 114 pages is nothing. Even for people like me with short attention spans.

I didn't say they use dated technology but of course they do. Touch screens used are abysmally bad compared to state of the art cell phones. Many are still using resistive overlays vs. the capacitive in-screen touch sensor on cell phones. The Zeus is a 800 x 640 screen vs. 2436 x 1125 on my cell phone, 5 times as many pixels (at 1/4 the price). State of the art cell phones use OLED these days. I'm not really blaming them, the entire lifetime production run of Zeus is about 1 or 2 minutes (literally!!) production for a cell phone manufacturer (about 500K units an hour).

But my point was really UI. There are a couple of modern attempts at flight computers on cell phones: iGlide and WinPilot live. Both have a UI and presentation about 2 decades ahead of LX, LXNav, SYM, etc. Google and Apple have both sunk hundreds of millions of dollars into developing the UI and graphic engines, you cannot expect specialty OS and hardware to keep up in a very small market. The ClearNav have done a better job than most at modernization but is still suffers from the same market realities.

A good gage of UI is "modalism", experts (including the FAA) consider modes generally bad in UI. As a rough gage, the 114 page manual for Zeus mentions "mode" 77 times. The iGlide 16 page manual mentions "mode" twice, both referring to the simulator mode which is not used in setup or flight.

On Thursday, March 8, 2018 at 6:35:28 PM UTC-5, jfitch wrote:
On Thursday, March 8, 2018 at 11:05:31 AM UTC-8, wrote:
With 7 buttons, two knobs, and a 114 page manual I'm not sure Zeus has broken any new man-machine interface barriers. Imagine if Google maps on your cell phone came with a 114 page manual.

Fitchy, Keep in mind those buttons are labeled , unlike some other glide computers. I should have said GUI instead of UI. The LXNavigation stuff at the show had some of the best looking (And yes easiest to interpret) screens of anyone. And thats coming from an LXNav guy. Also, why do you assume instrument manufacturers would use dated technology in regards to touch screens. The stuff displayed at the show was cutting edge in both accuracy and brightness.
If Google Maps could do what my glide computer could I would expect a 114 page manual.FWIW my S100 manual is 105 pages and still leaves a bit uncovered. When you consider the capability and versatility of these things 114 pages is nothing. Even for people like me with short attention spans.

I didn't say they use dated technology but of course they do. Touch screens used are abysmally bad compared to state of the art cell phones. Many are still using resistive overlays vs. the capacitive in-screen touch sensor on cell phones. The Zeus is a 800 x 640 screen vs. 2436 x 1125 on my cell phone, 5 times as many pixels (at 1/4 the price). State of the art cell phones use OLED these days. I'm not really blaming them, the entire lifetime production run of Zeus is about 1 or 2 minutes (literally!!) production for a cell phone manufacturer (about 500K units an hour).

But my point was really UI. There are a couple of modern attempts at flight computers on cell phones: iGlide and WinPilot live. Both have a UI and presentation about 2 decades ahead of LX, LXNav, SYM, etc. Google and Apple have both sunk hundreds of millions of dollars into developing the UI and graphic engines, you cannot expect specialty OS and hardware to keep up in a very small market. The ClearNav have done a better job than most at modernization but is still suffers from the same market realities.

A good gage of UI is "modalism", experts (including the FAA) consider modes generally bad in UI. As a rough gage, the 114 page manual for Zeus mentions "mode" 77 times. The iGlide 16 page manual mentions "mode" twice, both referring to the simulator mode which is not used in setup or flight.

Yotaphone with e-ink screen on the back is nice; wish they were easier to get.

On Thursday, March 8, 2018 at 6:35:28 PM UTC-5, jfitch wrote:
On Thursday, March 8, 2018 at 11:05:31 AM UTC-8, wrote:
With 7 buttons, two knobs, and a 114 page manual I'm not sure Zeus has broken any new man-machine interface barriers. Imagine if Google maps on your cell phone came with a 114 page manual.

Fitchy, Keep in mind those buttons are labeled , unlike some other glide computers. I should have said GUI instead of UI. The LXNavigation stuff at the show had some of the best looking (And yes easiest to interpret) screens of anyone. And thats coming from an LXNav guy. Also, why do you assume instrument manufacturers would use dated technology in regards to touch screens. The stuff displayed at the show was cutting edge in both accuracy and brightness.
If Google Maps could do what my glide computer could I would expect a 114 page manual.FWIW my S100 manual is 105 pages and still leaves a bit uncovered. When you consider the capability and versatility of these things 114 pages is nothing. Even for people like me with short attention spans.

I didn't say they use dated technology but of course they do. Touch screens used are abysmally bad compared to state of the art cell phones. Many are still using resistive overlays vs. the capacitive in-screen touch sensor on cell phones. The Zeus is a 800 x 640 screen vs. 2436 x 1125 on my cell phone, 5 times as many pixels (at 1/4 the price). State of the art cell phones use OLED these days. I'm not really blaming them, the entire lifetime production run of Zeus is about 1 or 2 minutes (literally!!) production for a cell phone manufacturer (about 500K units an hour).

But my point was really UI. There are a couple of modern attempts at flight computers on cell phones: iGlide and WinPilot live. Both have a UI and presentation about 2 decades ahead of LX, LXNav, SYM, etc. Google and Apple have both sunk hundreds of millions of dollars into developing the UI and graphic engines, you cannot expect specialty OS and hardware to keep up in a very small market. The ClearNav have done a better job than most at modernization but is still suffers from the same market realities.

A good gage of UI is "modalism", experts (including the FAA) consider modes generally bad in UI. As a rough gage, the 114 page manual for Zeus mentions "mode" 77 times. The iGlide 16 page manual mentions "mode" twice, both referring to the simulator mode which is not used in setup or flight.

I have been flying with iGlide and LX9000 for long time. I like iGlide for its simplicity but the feature set in iGlide does not come close to what LX9000 offers. In regards to operations the LX9000 is much easier to operate in bumpy air than iGlide and while screen visibility is not bad in iGlide it does not compare to LX9000. I have iGlide in my cockpit as a backup, but I would never rely on its final glide calculation.

I don't disagree with what you said about software, but I haven't seen a
cell phone which comes close to a ClearNav for direct sunlight
readability.Â* Admittedly, I haven't seen all of them, but those
presented on this forum with grand claims of brightness fall short, IMO.

On 3/8/2018 4:35 PM, jfitch wrote:
On Thursday, March 8, 2018 at 11:05:31 AM UTC-8, wrote:
With 7 buttons, two knobs, and a 114 page manual I'm not sure Zeus has broken any new man-machine interface barriers. Imagine if Google maps on your cell phone came with a 114 page manual.
Fitchy, Keep in mind those buttons are labeled , unlike some other glide computers. I should have said GUI instead of UI. The LXNavigation stuff at the show had some of the best looking (And yes easiest to interpret) screens of anyone. And thats coming from an LXNav guy. Also, why do you assume instrument manufacturers would use dated technology in regards to touch screens. The stuff displayed at the show was cutting edge in both accuracy and brightness.
If Google Maps could do what my glide computer could I would expect a 114 page manual.FWIW my S100 manual is 105 pages and still leaves a bit uncovered. When you consider the capability and versatility of these things 114 pages is nothing. Even for people like me with short attention spans.
I didn't say they use dated technology but of course they do. Touch screens used are abysmally bad compared to state of the art cell phones. Many are still using resistive overlays vs. the capacitive in-screen touch sensor on cell phones. The Zeus is a 800 x 640 screen vs. 2436 x 1125 on my cell phone, 5 times as many pixels (at 1/4 the price). State of the art cell phones use OLED these days. I'm not really blaming them, the entire lifetime production run of Zeus is about 1 or 2 minutes (literally!!) production for a cell phone manufacturer (about 500K units an hour).

But my point was really UI. There are a couple of modern attempts at flight computers on cell phones: iGlide and WinPilot live. Both have a UI and presentation about 2 decades ahead of LX, LXNav, SYM, etc. Google and Apple have both sunk hundreds of millions of dollars into developing the UI and graphic engines, you cannot expect specialty OS and hardware to keep up in a very small market. The ClearNav have done a better job than most at modernization but is still suffers from the same market realities.

A good gage of UI is "modalism", experts (including the FAA) consider modes generally bad in UI. As a rough gage, the 114 page manual for Zeus mentions "mode" 77 times. The iGlide 16 page manual mentions "mode" twice, both referring to the simulator mode which is not used in setup or flight.

--
Dan, 5J