Mailing List flyrotary@lancaironline.net Message #28743
From: Russell Duffy <13brv3@bellsouth.net>
Subject: External datalogging, and other stuff
Date: Sun, 25 Dec 2005 17:24:02 -0600
To: Flyrotary List <flyrotary@lancaironline.net>
Message
Holiday greetings to all,
 
The wiring, and EM-2 calibration is complete.  So far, everything seems to work, but I won't know what I miswired to the engine until I try to crank it.  I retrieved the trailer from the hanger this afternoon, and plan to haul the Kolb to the hanger tomorrow.  First (attempted) run of the single rotor should be next weekend. 
 
Since I've gone crazy ordering RV-8 stuff, the current plan is to do the ground testing of the single rotor as time allows at the hanger, but to concentrate on getting the RV-8 flying before I actually finish the Kolb.  Once the weather gets warm again, and I get sick of working on the RV-8, I might change my mind, but for now, the RV-8 is the priority.  My wild and crazy goal is to have it flying by the end of the Summer.  It's ambitious, but possible. 
 
Now, for the important part.  I seem to be drawn to manufacturers who don't seem to think datalogging is a very high priority.  Oh, we've heard all the excuses, "I'm too busy working on my 3 rotor RV-8".  Ha, I can't even type THAT with a straight face  :-)   Anyway, I'm now buying a Dynon D180, which is an EFIS, and EMS all in one box.  Unfortunately, it would seem that Dynon is another one of those companies who is "going to add datalogging in the future".  Once again, data everywhere, but none of it being logged. 
 
On the Dynon unit, they spew ALL their flight, and engine data onto the serial port at real time speed.  To quote "waiter" (who's parents must have lost a bet when he was being named <g>):
 
When connecting to the serial port to capture data, keep in mind that the Dynon is spitting out an 80 byte serial stream approximately 64 times a second. Thats about 5k per second, 300k per minute, 18meg per hour. The amount of data and the speed its coming out, presents a challenge to any program that wishes to receive the data.
 
He has written a program to capture this, if you have a fairly fast laptop.  Unfortunately, I don't have room, nor the desire to carry a laptop in the RV-8, and certainly not in the Kolb.  In looking for other options, I found this little gizmo, that takes serial data, and stores it to a CF memory card.  Best we can tell, this will work right out of the box for the Dynon, though it's a bit pricy. 
 
 
While thinking of all this for the Dynon, I began to wonder if the same thing will work for the EM-2/EC-2.  Tracy said that he doesn't currently push much data out on the serial link, but that he could certainly tweak the software to send it out if we wished to capture it.  His serial link is not RS232 format, which the above recorder uses, but he said converting his serial data to RS232 was a simple, one chip project if we needed it in that format.   
 
The real question for anyone here is whether there are other serial data recorders that would be suitable for this purpose.  The one above is all I can find, and though it's almost exactly what I'm looking for, it just doesn't seem like it should cost nearly as much as it does.  Are there any other options?
 
BTW, with the popularity of digital devices in planes now, I think there's a very real market for a flight data recorder.  Imagine capturing data from the GPS, EFIS, EMS, in real time, and saving it for analysis.  It would be way cool, and is probably the perfect project for Ed :-)
 
Cheers,
Rusty (no idea when this will arrive) 
 

 
   
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