I take advantage of off the shelf software and hardware. Way more powerful
than anything out there. Less expensive. Data logging is common need in the
process industry, so this off the shelf stuff handles it well. Uses dead band
limits and such to keep logs to very small size. Yet you miss nothing. In four
years of flying I've never had to purge any log files from the laptop.
The logic utilized by your software during flight is around 40 times
more valuable than logging. Yet I agree logging has value. All of the EFIS
systems currently available are still pretty dumb. As a result, they don't
reduce flight risk anywhere near as much as we need. Check out my web page for
details on some of the safety logic. My glass cockpit talks to pilot when
needed, never gives false warnings.
I've given up all the source code. Goal is to save some lives. This is one
of the most significant things you can do to reduce risk.
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)