Hi Ian, answers are in your text.
Turbo Am 26.09.2010 10:59, schrieb Ian: > Hi All > > I bought an HP 4700 PDA to interface with the B500 in our glider, using > XCsoar. It has taken me about a year to get the mechanical and wiring > installation to a point where it is more or less suitable for use in the > air. Now I am turning my attention to software. > > First Question: I am looking at the details of the software. I notice > (at least on the ground) that Outside Air Temperature reads 0 Deg C > while I get a valid reading on the B500 itself. The Barometric height > reading is blank. Is there a bug in here somewhere? (This is with a > "stable" 6.0 version from a few weeks ago). 1) Temperature should be read from the PBB50 sentence. Please go to Config -> Setup System -> Page 8 (Devices) and ensure you have chosen BorgeltB50 as connected device 2) Barometric height should be available to XCSoar independent of that configuration... 3) Please connect the PDA to your device and click on Config -> Raw Logger, wait about 2 minutes (make sure GPS signal is there) and then quit XCSoar. After that there should be a file called "xcsoar-nmea.log" in your XCSoarData folder which you should send us so we can check where the problem is. > Next Question: Which version of XCsoar should I be running at this > stage? I have virtually no experience flying time with a PDA setup. So I > need a stable platform to learn how the device works with the least > distraction in the cockpit. Options are: > > XCSoar 5.2.4 > XCSoar 6.x stable (from Max) > LK800 can now be considered as it is finally GPL complaint. XCSoar 5.2.4: I wouldn't recommend it as it has some wrong calculations and many many bugs XCSoar 6.0: The stable versions work really well and much faster then the old 5.2.4. There are some functions of 5.2.4 that are currently not working, but these are just minor things that you won't miss if you didn't have them before LK8000: It is based on the 5.2.3 code and Paolo created a new user interface for it which is similar to LX8000. As for me, I think the screen is too cluttered and distracting, and I would miss the speed and some features of XCSoar 6.0. It's both good software focusing on different forms of development, but they essentially do pretty much the same. Test it and decide what you are going to do. > Final (long term) Question: The B500 has a switch card module that has > many functions. One which might be useful is to wire the Flarm into the > switch card. You can then switch the NMEA source from B500 to Flarm in > flight. Then I could then chose between the real air data input from the > B500 (for wind vector calcs etc) and "Flarm rada" function from the > Flarm input. How would Xcsoar handle a switch of NMEA device source in > flight (using the same COM Port). Would I have to change the > configuration on Xcsoar too? You might experience a sudden jump in your position due to an offset error of the GPS antenna but everything else _should_ work fine. I've tried this with FLARM/LX5000 setup and it worked quite good, however for LX5000 I was using the "Generic" device driver. > Borgelt also have an optional hardware card that plugs into this switch > card unit. It "blends" two NMEA sources. If I got one of these cards, I > presume it would then supply both real air data and Flarm data, > simultaneously. Would Xcsoar be able to handle a data stream like this? Yes. There is also a german product called "K6 Mux" (http://www.k6-team.de/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=62&Itemid=9 <http://www.k6-team.de/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=62&Itemid=9>) which does the same and if I remember correctly Max has that unit installed in his glider too. > > Are there any folk on the list using B500 + XCsoar? I would appreciate > any useful feedback. DX50/FLARM/LX5000, Sorry ;) > Ian ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Start uncovering the many advantages of virtual appliances and start using them to simplify application deployment and accelerate your shift to cloud computing. http://p.sf.net/sfu/novell-sfdev2dev _______________________________________________ Xcsoar-user mailing list Xcsoar-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/xcsoar-user
