Project nearing completion.

mosquito56 · 2009-05-15 16:19

·I am working on an "EIS", engine instrument system. The photo is a shot of the main screen.

Voltage of battery, note to myself to add current sensing, time of current flight, Outside Air Temp and total Engine time are on the top tier.

Vertical bars are 1. rpm 2. Engine Oil pressure 3. Engine oil temperature 4. 2 Eghaust gas temps's· 5. 4 cylinder head temps· and then left and· right fuel tank levels.

· It uses

· 2 adc0838
· a temperature sensor from paralax lm38?
· 3 dual op-amps for the thermocouples
· sd card reader from ucontroller
· t.v. card from ucontroller
· spinstudio from ucontroller
· timer object from Mike Green to keep track of flightimes.

A t.v. from Best buy
The buttons on the bottom are to change screens but will be replace by the 4x4 matrix keypad I just got working today. These are nice little buttons from radio shack.

Thanx to all the wonderful people here on the forum for their massive amounts of help. I have been using the prop for about 6 to 12 months and without your help I couldn't have gotten as far as I have.

Don

p.s. sorry about the quality of the picture. I only use the camera outside to record the building of the plane this will go in and have no idea how to get a good pic.
·

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······· "What do you mean, it doesn't have any tubes?"
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James Long · 2009-05-15 18:17

Hey,

I'm working on the same thing.

You have to excuse the picture, it is a little old. The display now has everything on it, and working.

James L

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James L
Partner/Designer

Lil Brother SMT Assembly Services

Post Edited (James Long) : 5/15/2009 6:22:25 PM GMT

mosquito56 · 2009-05-15 19:20

Nice, with altimiter too. What size screen you using and plan to put in plane? I used a 7".

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······· "What do you mean, it doesn't have any tubes?"
······· "No such thing as a dumb question" unless it's on the internet
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James Long · 2009-05-15 20:18

mosquito56 said...
Nice, with altimiter too. What size screen you using and plan to put in plane? I used a 7".

The system is being designed for the Innovator Mosquito exclusively (Single seat Helicopter).

The screen is a touchscreen 5.6 in diagonal, transflective(absolutely sunlight readable). I suggest if your planning to put yours in a plane, You test it in ambient outside light. Our first version was unreadable, and the screen was advertised to be sunlight readable. That was a wasted $300.00

I just finished putting everything on the screen and getting it all to work (screen wise). Now, to iron out the Altimeter jumping, and VSI. It seems to never end.

There will be a future version for fixed wing, but it will come after all the testing is done for the rotor wing version. Color is coming too, but I have to source a screen for that. I can't find a color touch screen that is transflective in the size I want (at a reasonable cost).

James L

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James L
Partner/Designer

Lil Brother SMT Assembly Services

mosquito56 · 2009-05-15 22:22

······ The t.v. cost $70 and I was planning to take it outside in a couple of weeks, hook it up to an r/c engine and test it outside. I also want to hook the motor to a board and vibrate the heck out of it.

· I have a $1700 gps in my plane I fly now and I can't read it half the time so I have a feeling that sunlight is something I'm just going to have to live with.

· ·I just got my first ever pcb board made and can't believe it actually works. I sent it out on pcbexpress on Sunday and recieved it on Thursday. Not really happy with quality but am happy with first time experience.

·· I was hoping for· a touchscreen but that's going to be a ways in the future. I don't see how to run something like this without color. I want to just glace at it when I'm flying and not spend the time to read it. If everything is green I know everything is good. I will also be adding audio alarms if I have enough pins.

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······· "What do you mean, it doesn't have any tubes?"
······· "No such thing as a dumb question" unless it's on the internet
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James Long · 2009-05-15 23:22

mosquito56 said...
The t.v. cost $70 and I was planning to take it outside in a couple of weeks, hook it up to an r/c engine and test it outside. I also want to hook the motor to a board and vibrate the heck out of it.

I have a $1700 gps in my plane I fly now and I can't read it half the time so I have a feeling that sunlight is something I'm just going to have to live with.

I just got my first ever pcb board made and can't believe it actually works. I sent it out on pcbexpress on Sunday and recieved it on Thursday. Not really happy with quality but am happy with first time experience.

I was hoping for a touchscreen but that's going to be a ways in the future. I don't see how to run something like this without color. I want to just glace at it when I'm flying and not spend the time to read it. If everything is green I know everything is good. I will also be adding audio alarms if I have enough pins.

Well doing the system without color was a challenge. There are alarms with everything on the panel. All the temps, Rotor speed (high & low), low fuel, Low Voltage, etc.

The instruments are for reference of actual numbers. If everything is running normally (not on the low side though), the system just spits out values on the gauge. If something goes over temp or out of safety margin, the system sounds an alarm. Different things have different sounding alarms.

I agree color is the best way to go, but at the time we found the readable problem (first color screen), only a monochrome readable screen was available. There are annunciators on the panel too, to see what is out of range at a glance. This was done because of the lack of color.

The panel so far has worked out to be a nice looking system. The touch screen makes the interface very easy without adding buttons.

Keep us apprised of your progress. I will like to see how your project changes with time. I know it will.

Just for discussion, here is a picture of our first system. It looked really good, while programming, but in the sun, you couldn't even see the text.

James L

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James L
Partner/Designer

Lil Brother SMT Assembly Services

mosquito56 · 2009-05-15 23:48

··· Are you using pwm for the alarms or playing a wav file? I haven't started on the alarms yet but was hoping to add some.

Was looking for a HAL synthisizer but not able to find one. Alarm::: Dave, your oil temperature is upsetting me!!

Have you looked at ucontrollers keypad? 4x4 for $15. Would eliminate need for touchscreen.

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······· "What do you mean, it doesn't have any tubes?"
······· "No such thing as a dumb question" unless it's on the internet
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James Long · 2009-05-16 01:20

mosquito56 said...
Are you using pwm for the alarms or playing a wav file? I haven't started on the alarms yet but was hoping to add some.

Was looking for a HAL synthisizer but not able to find one. Alarm::: Dave, your oil temperature is upsetting me!!

Have you looked at ucontrollers keypad? 4x4 for $15. Would eliminate need for touchscreen.

I'm using PWM for a piezo speaker. HAL would be real cool, haven't thought of that.

I went with the touch screen to make life easier with the interface. The touch screen (Monochrome) is a real good price, and it has a built in GUI programming that alleviates the propeller from having to deal with it. The PCB is nothing but sensor interface, buzzer, and propeller. It's programming is probably easier than what you have done. The color screen was dumb, and needed all the graphical programming done through the propeller. It was a lot of code.

James L

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James L
Partner/Designer

Lil Brother SMT Assembly Services

Project nearing completion.

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