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Marco from Hangar 5
Pterodattilo
Netherlands
892 Posts |
 Posted - 25/07/2023 : 11:03:08
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Hi Guys,
Last week I have flown a competition, only 2 competition days out of 7 so not a big success, but the days cancelled were well spend.
On the first day I discovered my old Red Box Flarm was not sending/receiving data (blinking red power led). I know that after moving your glider hundreds of Km to another location it might need some time to figure out where it is, but even after several hours it did not turned green. I will spare you the details of trouble shooting, but in the end I gave up on the Red Box and bought a new FLARM Unit, Glider Equipment had one available, a LXNav PowerMouse, so not only FLARM but also ADS-B IN.
For the competition I have removed the Red Box and strapped the unit with a few ty-raps on top of the S80 Vario, using the available data cables to connect with the S80 GPS port, which also provides power to the PowerMouse. After installing the latest firmware and configuring it with my glider identity, everything worked just fine! Second data port I used to connect with the old display. The PowerMouse has Bt, so connection with the Galaxy A34 was super easy and setup with LK8000 was also straight forward.
I have flown 2 days with this configuration, and worked fine, very stable connection with the PowerMouse, and also the Bt connection with the radio still works.
Disadvantage is that using the Powerflarm as the GPS/Flarm data source for LK8000 I have lost connection with the S80 Vario, for task declaration, automatic Mcready, external wind.
Yesterday I have solved that problem as well, I have removed the Wifi Serial bridge, so I also have given up on wifi, which has never worked 100%, I have removed the wifi serial bridge from my glider already. I have installed the Soartronic Bt Module instead!
The Soartronic needs to be powered with 3 Volts, from Pin 3 on the IGC standard RJ45 connector, but the special cable I used to connect the NON IGC standard PDA port on the S80 with the wifi does not have 3 Volts. So I have made a special data Cable where ONLY pin 3 (3V) and pin 4 (Ground) are connected from the second IGC RJ45 port on the PowerMouse to the RJ45 'display' port on the Soartronic module.
On the first data port of the PowerMouse I have a splitter to connect with the flarm display (wire 2 NOT CONNECTED on the Rj12 plug) and the S80 GPS port.
Yesterday I have installed all this and after removing the pairing with the PowerMouse Bt, it worked right away. I can now declare a task into the S80 from LK8000, but the S80 gives an error in trying to send it to the PowerMouse.. But that is logical, the PowerMouse I have, is not an IGC logger. In LK8000 the driver to be used for the PowerMouse is 'LX Nano 3'
So quite happy now, i hope the PowerMouse will last as long as the Red Box did (15 years) because it was quite expensive! |
Marco
BU (PH-588)
Mini Nimbus HS7, s/n 039
http://www.zweef.nl/
Zweefvliegcentrum Noordkop, NETHERLANDS |
Edited by - Marco from Hangar 5 on 25/07/2023 11:03:53 |
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LXNav PowerMouse + S80 + Soartronic Bt experience
