Trig TT21 Transponder ... reports?

On 8/20/2010 2:11 PM, Darryl Ramm wrote:
On Aug 20, 8:33 am, Alex wrote:
On Fri, 20 Aug 2010 07:14:01 -0700, Andy wrote:
draws 0.8 amps @ 12v

I've not been near an airfield for 10 years now, but are there no
advances in solar power/battery technology since then that improve a
glider's power supply? What is a typical glider's current requirement?

--
Alex

On Aug 20, 8:33 am, Alex wrote:
On Fri, 20 Aug 2010 07:14:01 -0700, Andy wrote:
draws 0.8 amps @ 12v

I've not been near an airfield for 10 years now, but are there no
advances in solar power/battery technology since then that improve a
glider's power supply? What is a typical glider's current requirement?

--
Alex

With gliders we fly you cannot easily stick solar panels over large
areas of the glider because of cost and critical aerodynamic concerns
and concerns about solar heating the underlying composite structure.
There are specialized solar project exceptions. The manufacturer who
dominates solar panels for gliders today is Strobl (http://www.strobl-
solar.de ) and their panels are available preinsalled from all leading
glider manufacturers or as add-on for a large number of gliders. See
my blog at http://www.darryl-ramm.com/2007/01/s...or-sailplanes/
for what a retrofit kit looks like.

They typically deliver 15-30 watt maximum for several thousand dollars
outlay. The Stobl systems use crystalline wafers in a semi-flexible
ETFE (hey that what is used on Trefzel wire, oops another thread...)
type plastic encapsulation. Likely all hand-built. The panels are
attached with 3M ultra-high-bond double sided tape. Some installations
will have molded in recesses for the panels some use hand applied
filleting, some wedge trim strips around the panels. The crystalline
cells give relatively high efficiency even with only partial fill
factor on the panels. Other options emerging might be to use amorphous
thin film panels but you are typical starting with low efficiency. I
have the larges set of Strobl panels I can get on my ASH-26E engine
bay doors that gives a peak spec of 30W (2.5A @ 12V). The actual
delivered power is *much* lower. And you should rely not plan on solar
panels to significantly boost battery capacity for a single flight as
output drops dramatically under cloud streets, overcast sky etc. I
really like the Strobl panels but it may be more useful/safer to think
of them for use for ground charging of a tied down glider (e.g. some
airports have issues with separate panels near the aircraft when tied
down) and as a way of stretching capacity over several days when usual
ground charging infrastructure is not available.

Although it obviously varies widely a typical power consumption number
for a glider avionics is roughly around 0.8 amp (as Evan noted his is)
for what I am guessing is a typical setup of C302 style computer, a
PDA, and VHF radio. Owners should measure and calculate the loads in
the glider and estimate the battery capacity needed or run time
available from the batteries they have. Do not just divide the nominal
"Ah capacity" by amp load, especially at higher loads, you need to use
the discharge curves data from a manufacturer to estimate the
available run time of a battery at a particular load (most good VRLA
batteries are close enough to use another manufacturers spec sheet for
a similar sized battery).

Transponders (and their encoders) used to be considered a large power
hog. And in the days of horse drawn buggies, steam locomotives and
traveling wave tube amplifiers etc. they were. While they are much
more efficient nowadays, you do need to make sure they fit within a
ships power budget. Modern transponders range in power consumption
from ~0.5A for a Becker 4401 175W and ACK A30 encoder to around ~0.3A
for a Trig TT21 (with built in encoder). Transponder power consumption
will vary depending on interrogation rates and temperature (for the
encoder heater). i.e. The Trig TT21 uses less power than large PDAs
like the iPAQ 4700. The numbers here are realistic for typical glider
operations.

The NavWorx ADS600-B specs implies it consumes 0.8A at 12V. I have no
idea if this is accurate or not, it may be less in practice. Today you
need a separate display with third party software to get traffic
information/warnings from the device, so guess around 0.45A (e.g. for
a iPAQ 4700 PDA dedicated to the UAT data display).

Most gliders have some combination of one or more "7Ah" or "12Ah" VRLA
batteries. So to give a rough idea of maximum run time from typical
single batteries ... (These number are very rough, I don't have my
discharge spreadsheet handy that will do this properly, but they give
the flavor.)

2.0A load = guess of typical glider load + NavWorx ADS-600B + iPAQ
4700 for UAT traffic display
@2.0Ah load a typical "7Ah" VRLA battery ~ 2.7 hours
@2.0Ah load a typical "12Ah" VRLA battery ~ 5.2 hours

---

Since one scenario is people with Mode C might go UAT vs. buy a new
Mode S/1090ES capable transponder. A UAT is does not make a glider
visible on TCAS, so if you fly near airliners or fast jets that
transponder is a good idea. If you do not then just look at the
numbers above)

2.5A load = guess of typical glider load + Becker Mode C + ACK30 +
NavWorx ADS600-B + iPAQ 4700 for UAT traffic display
@2.5Ah load a typical "7Ah" VRLA battery ~ 2.2 hours
@2.5Ah load a typical "12Ah" VRLA battery ~ 4.1 hours

---

All these are numbers are for effectively fully discharging the
battery, you should really not plan on running down batteries this
much on typical flights and having no safety margin. Some fudge (20%)
should be deducted from these numbers for typical battery aging. For
very cold flights (e.g. wave) then maybe halve these run times. And
again do the real calculations for your actual setup.

How much battery capacity do you need? My longest flight was 8-9 hours
(in my old glider with no solar panel). A typical "serious" XC flight
for me is around 5-6 hours.

This all assumes the the NavWorx ADS600-B nominal 0.7A spec at 14VDC
nominal (i.e. 0.8A at 12VDC) is correct. It could be lower in
practice. I'm not even sure why we are down this rat hole. None of
this is not a slight on NavWorx, their UAT transceiver was not
designed for the glider market, NavWorx does not claim it is intended
for the glider market, or target any marketing to the glider market
AFAIK. And issues with incompatibility with all existing (Flarm serial
display protocol based) glider traffic display/software, lack of any
third party traffic display/warning product tuned for glider specific
type environments (esp. gaggles), lack of traffic collision/alert
warning from the receiver box etc. are also issues for use in the
glider market. I am convinced that a company who wanted to target the
USA glider marker with a UAT product would have no deep technical
issues addressing these items, or reducing the power consumption
significantly today. The issue is justifying a business case for a
company to do that for the intersection of the relatively small USA
UAT market and the much smaller USA glider market.

BTW some older slides and spreadsheets on glider batteries at
http://www.darryl-ramm.com/glider-batteries/ but I don't think these
make much sense unless you've seen me present them. I originally made
that presentation because of confusion around batteries and
transponders. That confusion went both ways, people way under capacity
for their loads (BTW interestingly often with PDAs and ClearNav type
devices not just transponders) and people thinking they could never
use a transponder, often based on out of date info on transponder
power requirements.

Darryl

Has anyone thought about using a very small ram air turbine to provide
power in a glider? How big would such a turbine have to be to generate
10 watts? How much would this reduce L/D?

--
Mike Schumann

On Aug 20, 5:48*pm, Martin Gregorie
wrote:
On Fri, 20 Aug 2010 12:11:21 -0700, Darryl Ramm wrote:
Although it obviously varies widely a typical power consumption number
for a glider avionics is roughly around 0.8 amp (as Evan noted his is)
for what I am guessing is a typical setup of C302 style computer, a PDA,
and VHF radio. Owners should measure and calculate the loads in the
glider and estimate the battery capacity needed or run time available
from the batteries they have. Do not just divide the nominal "Ah
capacity" by amp load, especially at higher loads, you need to use the
discharge curves data from a manufacturer to estimate the available run
time of a battery at a particular load (most good VRLA batteries are
close enough to use another manufacturers spec sheet for a similar sized
battery).

I'd seriously suggest a visit to your local RC model shop to look at
battery chargers. $60 - $100 gets you a cycling charger that can not only
peak charge a partially discharged SLA battery without harming it, but
can measure its capacity. Record the measured capacity every year and bin
the battery when it shows a 30% drop and you may even save money.

Slinging an SLA battery every three years is common wisdom here, yet last
winter my three year old batteries still had 90% of their nominal
capacity. Bin them? I think not!

FWIW these batteries have always been charged with a peak charger.

PS; sorry for hi-jacking the thread, but it seemed appropriate.

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

I'm not sure what "peak charge" means in the context of a VRLA
battery. Peak charge/delta-peak/delta-V relies on effects usually seen
in other battery chemistries not in the lead-acid family. A multiple
battery type charger might be labeled delta-whatever but not use that
charge method for lead acid batteries.

The main thing you want to do is pick a charge specifically designed
for VRLA (valve regulated lead acid) aka SLA (sealed lead acid)
battery. The battery charger should be sized so it's bulk charge amp
specs is around C/10 to C/5 (no more) where C is the capacity in amp-
hours of the battery. The charger should support three charge phases
bulk/absorbtion/float but sometimes the documentation does not mention
absorbtion or three stages only to even if the charger really does
this properly.Charge the batteries in a cool environment. If the
charger does not float the batteries at between 13.5 to 13.8V after
the first two phases do not leave the battery connected to it for long
periods (a common cause of death of VRLA batteries by evaporating the
electrolyte out the vent valves) -- some RC model chargers
specifically do *not* do this right. My favorite AC charger is a
Xenotronix HPX series but others are good as well.

I (and I know Eric does as well) recommend the CBA III as a battery
discharge tester (http://www.westmountainradio.com/CBA.htm). It has
the benefit of being able to charge monitor, so you can watch a
charger step though the charge phases on a battery. Handy for checking
out chargers and suspect batteries. A great purchase for a club, FBO
or individual pilot.


Darryl

On 8/20/2010 9:46 PM, Eric Greenwell wrote:
On 8/20/2010 9:25 AM, Mike Schumann wrote:
The ADS-B Ground Station roll-out is moving forward at an accelerating
rate and should be completed Nation Wide by the end of 2012. It is
fully funded and all the necessary contracts are in place.

The vast majority of the country will have coverage above 1,800 ft.
See
http://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/...cast/coverage/


I have no financial interest in any of this.

Mike, with the way my newsreader works, it would be a lot easier to
follow the meaning of your posts if you included at least a paragraph of
the posting you are replying to. Thanks!

Sorry. This was in response to Andy's post claiming that the ADS-B
ground station roll-out would take 10-20 years and wasn't even funded yet.

--
Mike Schumann

On Aug 20, 8:38*pm, Mike Schumann
wrote:
On 8/20/2010 9:46 PM, Eric Greenwell wrote:



On 8/20/2010 9:25 AM, Mike Schumann wrote:
The ADS-B Ground Station roll-out is moving forward at an accelerating
rate and should be completed Nation Wide by the end of 2012. It is
fully funded and all the necessary contracts are in place.

The vast majority of the country will have coverage above 1,800 ft.
See
http://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/...s/ato/service_....

I have no financial interest in any of this.

Mike, with the way my newsreader works, it would be a lot easier to
follow the meaning of your posts if you included at least a paragraph of
the posting you are replying to. Thanks!

Sorry. *This was in response to Andy's post claiming that the ADS-B
ground station roll-out would take 10-20 years and wasn't even funded yet..

--
Mike Schumann

Thanks for the map - pity they only intend to cover many of the places
I fly in the west at above 18,000'. I remain skeptical that it'll be
done in 2 years, but we'll see.

How's the coverage down low on the White Mountains, where there is a
big converging traffic issue? Is it line of sight or can it get around
mountain ranges?

9B

On Aug 20, 8:32*pm, Mike Schumann
wrote:
On 8/20/2010 2:11 PM, Darryl Ramm wrote:





On Aug 20, 8:33 am, Alex *wrote:
On Fri, 20 Aug 2010 07:14:01 -0700, Andy wrote:
draws 0.8 amps @ 12v

I've not been near an airfield for 10 years now, but are there no
advances in solar power/battery technology since then that improve a
glider's power supply? What is a typical glider's current requirement?

--
Alex

On Aug 20, 8:33 am, Alex *wrote:
On Fri, 20 Aug 2010 07:14:01 -0700, Andy wrote:
draws 0.8 amps @ 12v

I've not been near an airfield for 10 years now, but are there no
advances in solar power/battery technology since then that improve a
glider's power supply? What is a typical glider's current requirement?

--
Alex

With gliders we fly you cannot easily stick solar panels over large
areas of the glider because of cost and critical aerodynamic concerns
and concerns about solar heating the underlying composite structure.
There are specialized solar project exceptions. The manufacturer who
dominates solar panels for gliders today is Strobl (http://www.strobl-
solar.de ) and their panels are available preinsalled from all leading
glider manufacturers or as add-on for a large number of gliders. See
my blog athttp://www.darryl-ramm.com/2007/01/strobl-solar-panels-for-sailplanes/
for what a retrofit kit looks like.

They typically deliver 15-30 watt maximum for several thousand dollars
outlay. The Stobl systems use crystalline wafers in a semi-flexible
ETFE (hey that what is used on Trefzel wire, oops another thread...)
type plastic encapsulation. Likely all hand-built. The panels are
attached with 3M ultra-high-bond double sided tape. Some installations
will have molded in recesses for the panels some use hand applied
filleting, some wedge trim strips around the panels. The crystalline
cells give relatively high efficiency even with only partial fill
factor on the panels. Other options emerging might be to use amorphous
thin film panels but you are typical starting with low efficiency. I
have the larges set of Strobl panels I can get on my ASH-26E engine
bay doors that gives a peak spec of 30W (2.5A @ 12V). The actual
delivered power is *much* lower. And you should rely not plan on solar
panels to significantly boost battery capacity for a single flight as
output drops dramatically under cloud streets, overcast sky etc. I
really like the Strobl panels but it may be more useful/safer to think
of them for use for ground charging of a tied down glider (e.g. some
airports have issues with separate panels near the aircraft when tied
down) and as a way of stretching capacity over several days when usual
ground charging infrastructure is not available.

Although it obviously varies widely a typical power consumption number
for a glider avionics is roughly around 0.8 amp (as Evan noted his is)
for what I am guessing is a typical setup of C302 style computer, a
PDA, and VHF radio. Owners should measure and calculate the loads in
the glider and estimate the battery capacity needed or run time
available from the batteries they have. Do not just divide the nominal
"Ah capacity" by amp load, especially at higher loads, you need to use
the discharge curves data from a manufacturer to estimate the
available run time of a battery at a particular load (most good VRLA
batteries are close enough to use another manufacturers spec sheet for
a similar sized battery).

Transponders (and their encoders) used to be considered a large power
hog. And in the days of horse drawn buggies, steam locomotives and
traveling wave tube amplifiers etc. they were. While they are much
more efficient nowadays, you do need to make sure they fit within a
ships power budget. Modern transponders range in power consumption
from ~0.5A for a Becker 4401 175W and ACK A30 encoder to around ~0.3A
for a Trig TT21 (with built in encoder). Transponder power consumption
will vary depending on interrogation rates and temperature (for the
encoder heater). i.e. The Trig TT21 uses less power than large PDAs
like the iPAQ 4700. The numbers here are realistic for typical glider
operations.

The NavWorx ADS600-B specs implies it consumes 0.8A at 12V. I have no
idea if this is accurate or not, it may be less in practice. Today you
need a separate display with third party software to get traffic
information/warnings from the device, so guess around 0.45A (e.g. for
a iPAQ 4700 PDA dedicated to the UAT data display).

Most gliders have some combination of one or more "7Ah" or "12Ah" VRLA
batteries. So to give a rough idea of maximum run time from typical
single batteries ... (These number are very rough, I don't have my
discharge spreadsheet handy that will do this properly, but they give
the flavor.)

2.0A load = guess of typical glider load + NavWorx ADS-600B + iPAQ
4700 for UAT traffic display
@2.0Ah load a typical "7Ah" VRLA battery ~ 2.7 hours
@2.0Ah load a typical "12Ah" VRLA battery ~ 5.2 hours

---

Since one scenario is people with Mode C might go UAT vs. buy a new
Mode S/1090ES capable transponder. A UAT is does not make a glider
visible on TCAS, so if you fly near airliners or fast jets that
transponder is a good idea. If you do not then just look at the
numbers above)

2.5A load = guess of typical glider load + Becker Mode C + ACK30 +
NavWorx ADS600-B + iPAQ 4700 for UAT traffic display
@2.5Ah load a typical "7Ah" VRLA battery ~ 2.2 hours
@2.5Ah load a typical "12Ah" VRLA battery *~ 4.1 hours

---

All these are numbers are for effectively fully discharging the
battery, you should really not plan on running down batteries this
much on typical flights and having no safety margin. Some fudge (20%)
should be deducted from these numbers for typical battery aging. For
very cold flights (e.g. wave) then maybe halve these run times. And
again do the real calculations for your actual setup.

How much battery capacity do you need? My longest flight was 8-9 hours
(in my old glider with no solar panel). A typical "serious" XC flight
for me is around 5-6 hours.

This all assumes the the NavWorx ADS600-B nominal 0.7A spec at 14VDC
nominal (i.e. 0.8A at 12VDC) is *correct. It could be lower in
practice. I'm not even sure why we are down this rat hole. None of
this is not a slight on NavWorx, their UAT transceiver was not
designed for the glider market, NavWorx does not claim it is intended
for the glider market, or target any marketing to the glider market
AFAIK. And issues with incompatibility with all existing (Flarm serial
display protocol based) glider traffic display/software, lack of any
third party traffic display/warning product tuned for glider specific
type environments (esp. gaggles), lack of traffic collision/alert
warning from the receiver box etc. are also issues for use in the
glider market. I am convinced that a company who wanted to target the
USA glider marker with a UAT product would have no deep technical
issues addressing these items, or reducing the power consumption
significantly today. The issue is justifying a business case for a
company to do that for the intersection of the relatively small USA
UAT market and the much smaller USA glider market.

BTW some older slides and spreadsheets on glider batteries at
http://www.darryl-ramm.com/glider-batteries/but I don't think these
make much sense unless you've seen me present them. I originally made
that presentation because of confusion around batteries and
transponders. That confusion went both ways, people way under capacity
for their loads (BTW interestingly often with PDAs and ClearNav type
devices not just transponders) and people thinking they could never
use a transponder, often based on out of date info on transponder
power requirements.

Darryl

Has anyone thought about using a very small ram air turbine to provide
power in a glider? *How big would such a turbine have to be to generate
10 watts? *How much would this reduce L/D?

--
Mike Schumann

Probably not a great idea. The loss would be equal to the power
extracted divided by the efficiency of the turbine and less the form
drag of whatever hangs out in the breeze. Better batteries and lower
power electronics are the better options - or solar if you can get a
clean installation.

I do wonder whether the PowerFlarm guys might ever have 1090ES-out in
the product roadmap, even as an add-on. That would pretty much settle
things once you got to 2020 wouldn't it?

9B

"Darryl Ramm" wrote in message
...
(a common cause of death of VRLA batteries by evaporating the
electrolyte out the vent valves)

Amen! More glider batteries are ruined by over charging and any other cause.
If you tend to connect your battery to a charger and then forget it until days
later (isn't that most of us?) then you need a float-type multi-stage automatic
charger. I am sure that there are many in the RC world, but I like the products
of this company. http://batterytender.com/

Vaughn

On Aug 20, 10:20*pm, Andy wrote:
On Aug 20, 8:32*pm, Mike Schumann
wrote:



On 8/20/2010 2:11 PM, Darryl Ramm wrote:

On Aug 20, 8:33 am, Alex *wrote:
On Fri, 20 Aug 2010 07:14:01 -0700, Andy wrote:
draws 0.8 amps @ 12v

I've not been near an airfield for 10 years now, but are there no
advances in solar power/battery technology since then that improve a
glider's power supply? What is a typical glider's current requirement?

--
Alex

On Aug 20, 8:33 am, Alex *wrote:
On Fri, 20 Aug 2010 07:14:01 -0700, Andy wrote:
draws 0.8 amps @ 12v

I've not been near an airfield for 10 years now, but are there no
advances in solar power/battery technology since then that improve a
glider's power supply? What is a typical glider's current requirement?

--
Alex

With gliders we fly you cannot easily stick solar panels over large
areas of the glider because of cost and critical aerodynamic concerns
and concerns about solar heating the underlying composite structure.
There are specialized solar project exceptions. The manufacturer who
dominates solar panels for gliders today is Strobl (http://www.strobl-
solar.de ) and their panels are available preinsalled from all leading
glider manufacturers or as add-on for a large number of gliders. See
my blog athttp://www.darryl-ramm.com/2007/01/strobl-solar-panels-for-sailplanes/
for what a retrofit kit looks like.

They typically deliver 15-30 watt maximum for several thousand dollars
outlay. The Stobl systems use crystalline wafers in a semi-flexible
ETFE (hey that what is used on Trefzel wire, oops another thread...)
type plastic encapsulation. Likely all hand-built. The panels are
attached with 3M ultra-high-bond double sided tape. Some installations
will have molded in recesses for the panels some use hand applied
filleting, some wedge trim strips around the panels. The crystalline
cells give relatively high efficiency even with only partial fill
factor on the panels. Other options emerging might be to use amorphous
thin film panels but you are typical starting with low efficiency. I
have the larges set of Strobl panels I can get on my ASH-26E engine
bay doors that gives a peak spec of 30W (2.5A @ 12V). The actual
delivered power is *much* lower. And you should rely not plan on solar
panels to significantly boost battery capacity for a single flight as
output drops dramatically under cloud streets, overcast sky etc. I
really like the Strobl panels but it may be more useful/safer to think
of them for use for ground charging of a tied down glider (e.g. some
airports have issues with separate panels near the aircraft when tied
down) and as a way of stretching capacity over several days when usual
ground charging infrastructure is not available.

Although it obviously varies widely a typical power consumption number
for a glider avionics is roughly around 0.8 amp (as Evan noted his is)
for what I am guessing is a typical setup of C302 style computer, a
PDA, and VHF radio. Owners should measure and calculate the loads in
the glider and estimate the battery capacity needed or run time
available from the batteries they have. Do not just divide the nominal
"Ah capacity" by amp load, especially at higher loads, you need to use
the discharge curves data from a manufacturer to estimate the
available run time of a battery at a particular load (most good VRLA
batteries are close enough to use another manufacturers spec sheet for
a similar sized battery).

Transponders (and their encoders) used to be considered a large power
hog. And in the days of horse drawn buggies, steam locomotives and
traveling wave tube amplifiers etc. they were. While they are much
more efficient nowadays, you do need to make sure they fit within a
ships power budget. Modern transponders range in power consumption
from ~0.5A for a Becker 4401 175W and ACK A30 encoder to around ~0.3A
for a Trig TT21 (with built in encoder). Transponder power consumption
will vary depending on interrogation rates and temperature (for the
encoder heater). i.e. The Trig TT21 uses less power than large PDAs
like the iPAQ 4700. The numbers here are realistic for typical glider
operations.

The NavWorx ADS600-B specs implies it consumes 0.8A at 12V. I have no
idea if this is accurate or not, it may be less in practice. Today you
need a separate display with third party software to get traffic
information/warnings from the device, so guess around 0.45A (e.g. for
a iPAQ 4700 PDA dedicated to the UAT data display).

Most gliders have some combination of one or more "7Ah" or "12Ah" VRLA
batteries. So to give a rough idea of maximum run time from typical
single batteries ... (These number are very rough, I don't have my
discharge spreadsheet handy that will do this properly, but they give
the flavor.)

2.0A load = guess of typical glider load + NavWorx ADS-600B + iPAQ
4700 for UAT traffic display
@2.0Ah load a typical "7Ah" VRLA battery ~ 2.7 hours
@2.0Ah load a typical "12Ah" VRLA battery ~ 5.2 hours

---

Since one scenario is people with Mode C might go UAT vs. buy a new
Mode S/1090ES capable transponder. A UAT is does not make a glider
visible on TCAS, so if you fly near airliners or fast jets that
transponder is a good idea. If you do not then just look at the
numbers above)

2.5A load = guess of typical glider load + Becker Mode C + ACK30 +
NavWorx ADS600-B + iPAQ 4700 for UAT traffic display
@2.5Ah load a typical "7Ah" VRLA battery ~ 2.2 hours
@2.5Ah load a typical "12Ah" VRLA battery *~ 4.1 hours

---

All these are numbers are for effectively fully discharging the
battery, you should really not plan on running down batteries this
much on typical flights and having no safety margin. Some fudge (20%)
should be deducted from these numbers for typical battery aging. For
very cold flights (e.g. wave) then maybe halve these run times. And
again do the real calculations for your actual setup.

How much battery capacity do you need? My longest flight was 8-9 hours
(in my old glider with no solar panel). A typical "serious" XC flight
for me is around 5-6 hours.

This all assumes the the NavWorx ADS600-B nominal 0.7A spec at 14VDC
nominal (i.e. 0.8A at 12VDC) is *correct. It could be lower in
practice. I'm not even sure why we are down this rat hole. None of
this is not a slight on NavWorx, their UAT transceiver was not
designed for the glider market, NavWorx does not claim it is intended
for the glider market, or target any marketing to the glider market
AFAIK. And issues with incompatibility with all existing (Flarm serial
display protocol based) glider traffic display/software, lack of any
third party traffic display/warning product tuned for glider specific
type environments (esp. gaggles), lack of traffic collision/alert
warning from the receiver box etc. are also issues for use in the
glider market. I am convinced that a company who wanted to target the
USA glider marker with a UAT product would have no deep technical
issues addressing these items, or reducing the power consumption
significantly today. The issue is justifying a business case for a
company to do that for the intersection of the relatively small USA
UAT market and the much smaller USA glider market.

BTW some older slides and spreadsheets on glider batteries at
http://www.darryl-ramm.com/glider-batteries/butI don't think these
make much sense unless you've seen me present them. I originally made
that presentation because of confusion around batteries and
transponders. That confusion went both ways, people way under capacity
for their loads (BTW interestingly often with PDAs and ClearNav type
devices not just transponders) and people thinking they could never
use a transponder, often based on out of date info on transponder
power requirements.

Darryl

Has anyone thought about using a very small ram air turbine to provide
power in a glider? *How big would such a turbine have to be to generate
10 watts? *How much would this reduce L/D?

--
Mike Schumann

Probably not a great idea. The loss would be equal to the power
extracted divided by the efficiency of the turbine and less the form
drag of whatever hangs out in the breeze. *Better batteries and lower
power electronics are the better options - or solar if you can get a
clean installation.

I do wonder whether the PowerFlarm guys might ever have 1090ES-out in
the product roadmap, even as an add-on. That would pretty much settle
things once you got to 2020 wouldn't it?

9B

A 1090ES data-out only devices as opposed to a full Mode S transponder
with 1090ES is in-principle possible but would have -
- no visibility to traditional SSR radar (needed now in some places
we fly, and in future as a backup for ADS-B)
- no visibility to TCAS systems mandated in all large airliners, etc.
and widely used in military transport, fast jets etc., existing TCAD/
TAS (active interrogators used in some GA traffic systems) and today's
PCAS systems.

Aircraft will need to equip with ADS-B-data-in and CDTI (or an
certified traffic display) to see a 1090ES-data-out only threat, they
will over time but there is requiremnt today for them to do so. Not a
requiremnt with airliners etc. like TCAS is, and not a part of the FAA
2020 ADS-B data-out mandate.

In Europe (powered) aircraft are widely required to be Mode S
equipped, the USA powered aircraft are also required to be transponder
equipped in the same areas they will be required to be ADS-B out
equipped. ADS-B data-out does not have the compelling GBT
interactivity issues it has here in the USA and there is not a wide
ADS-B mandate in Europe that will lead lots of GA traffic to want to
equip with ADS-B for a while. So the market for 1090ES data-out
devices that are not also transponders starts looking smaller and
smaller - and products like those from Trig already does Mode S with
1090ES capability for street prices starting at a bit above ~$2,000.
By the time you ship an empty box, deal with making it DO260B/1090ES
compatible, get that transmitter FCC certified, etc.... I suspect most
companies would make the produce a real Mode S transponder with 1090ES
capability and be able to sell it to a significantly larger potential
market - especially a market that is forced by regulations to deploy
that technology (USA ADS-B mandate and Europe Mode S Mandate, etc.).
Especially given the actual BOM cost may not be much different, yes a
transponder does add a 1030MHz receiver but a lot of the rest of this
is software and FPGA firmware.

My comments only, I have no insight into any future products from any
of these companies.

Darryl

On Aug 22, 11:34*am, Darryl Ramm wrote:

Aircraft will need to equip with ADS-B-data-in and CDTI (or an
certified traffic display) to see a 1090ES-data-out only threat...

Sigh, I meant to say aircraft will need to equip with ADS-B-data-in
and CDTI (or an
*un*-certified traffic display) to see a 1090ES-data-out only
threat...

--

CDTI == cockpit display of traffic information and usually used to
mean a certified product meeting RTCA CDTI specs. Hence the correction
to my typo above.

(and remember here I was discussing the theoretical case of a 1090ES
data-out device is *not* also a Mode S transponder)

Darryl

On Fri, 20 Aug 2010 22:19:56 -0500, brian whatcott wrote:

On 8/20/2010 8:04 AM, Martin Gregorie wrote:
On Thu, 19 Aug 2010 18:19:24 -0700, Darryl Ramm wrote:

BTW I don't want to get sidetracked here but the current USA rules
have not kept track with technology and as a result are strange in how
they do not for example strictly prohibit an ADS-B traffic receiver
(since it is not a "two-way communication device"), but by banning
"two-way communication devices" they do currently prohibit Flarm based
devices.

I'm realising there is another passive collision warning system that we
use in the UK but I think may not be used as such in the USA - NOTAMS.

Whenever there's something happening here that raises a significant
collision risk such as a balloon festival, gliding competition or
microlite rally it will be NOTAMed, giving the base airfield, number of
participants and the area where significant numbers of participating
aircraft may be found. This at least warns other pilots to be more
vigilant in that area.

I've noticed that NOTAMs seem to be much less used in the USA than they
are here, so I'm wondering if your Regionals and national competitions
are routinely NOTAMed.


Anecdotally....a preliminary flight plan I did a month or two ago for
Corpus Christi from Altus (SW Oklahoma) as depicted on sectionals using
that handy service fltplan.com showed up with a flag because it crossed
close by an airfield south of Dallas marked for an air display via a
NOTAM.

This approach beats paper modems easily - the planning service shows
only NOTAMS relevant to the track...

Fighting through a wad of paper is a nightmare. I'd be lost without my
copy of NOTAMplot though I still have to read the unplottable ones. These
days AIS, our official NOTAM source, manages to weed the stack to a
mangeable size, but still doesn't plot them, and in consequence doesn't
really help us glider drivers because you can only anchor its route
briefings to licensed airfields, when we really need something like
NOTAMplot, which understands turnpoints.


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

On 8/22/2010 5:29 PM, Martin Gregorie wrote:
On Fri, 20 Aug 2010 19:43:51 -0700, Eric Greenwell wrote:

On 8/20/2010 5:48 PM, Martin Gregorie wrote:

I'd seriously suggest a visit to your local RC model shop to look at
battery chargers. $60 - $100 gets you a cycling charger that can not
only peak charge a partially discharged SLA battery without harming it,
but can measure its capacity. Record the measured capacity every year
and bin the battery when it shows a 30% drop and you may even save
money.

What units do you suggest? The ones in that price range I'm familiar
with (like the LN5014 Multiplex) discharge at a low rate (~0.4 amps) and
charge at only 14.0 volts, not really a peak charger, which should use
14.6 at least.

snip

More recently (5 years ago) I bought a Pro-Peak Prodigy II charger for
cycling and measuring bigger batteries than my Vencon can handle (mine
was built for accurate operation on smaller batteries), such as those
used in electrically powered models. I currently use it at least once a
year to cycle and check my SLAs and to charge the AA cells my camera
uses. It has separate programs to deal with lead-acid, NiCd/NiMH and Li-
poly batteries and is capable of charging up to 18 NiMH cells in series
off a 12v DC supply: consequently I can run it off one SLA while its
cycling another: I know that sounds like perpetual motion and ought not
to work but it does, honest! It can charge and discharge at up to 5 amps:
you set the charge and discharge currents before starting the run. It
shows what's happening while running and beeps when the run is ended. You
can read off the capacities before turning it off or starting another
run.

The Pro-Peak appears to be identical to the Multiplex LN5014 that I
already have. I like the charger, it works well, it's simple to use, and
is very handy for the glider and other purposes, but I still wish for
one that charged 12 volt SLA batteries at 14.6 volts instead of 14.0,
and would discharge at 1 amp or more, instead of only 0.4 amps.

Maybe someone has another recommendation?

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (netto to net to email me)

- "Transponders in Sailplanes - Feb/2010" also ADS-B, PCAS, Flarm http://tinyurl.com/yb3xywl

- "A Guide to Self-launching Sailplane Operation Mar/2004" Much of what you need to know tinyurl.com/yfs7tnz