Tx battery bar ?

[acefx]

Hi, i've changed my sprekturm Dx8 for the Wonderfull 9x system and one aesthetic item is missing : the visual bat bar.
I know the voltage is displayed, but for dumb people like me , i often prefer to have a visual representation of it.
If it's possible, it would be Great !

[bertrand35]

Yes it is possible. Provided someone proposes a beautiful screen drawing, perhaps starting from one of the screenshots proposed here:
http://code.google.com/p/open9x/wiki/Open9xFeatures

[JustinTime]

As in this? Is that what you had in mind? I made two options. Is there anything else that has to be done to it?

[jlummel]

Just a thought on this. While I like the idea of a battery bar there would be the problem of calibrating the bar.

Currently you can set the battery info for the pack's current voltage and the low voltage warning level. But with so many different types of batteries being used in these 9x radios, there's no way to know what 100% battery level is. I use a 3S LiFe and a lot of people use 2S or 3S Lipos, and still others use NiMH or NiCAD packs - all having different 'full' voltages. The commercial radios like Spectrum, etc., can get away with a battery meter since they know what type of pack will be used and what the 'full' setting should be.

So a battery type would need to be added to the radio setup screen (likely next after the low voltage setting) that has values similar to NiCAD, NiMH, LiFe3S, LiPo2S, LiPo3S (or some such) to provide a 'full' value to work from.

And it would be handy to have this bar on the main screen and not limited to the telemetry for those of us not using the telemetry features of open9x.

James

[bertrand35]

And it would be handy to have this bar on the main screen and not limited to the telemetry for those of us not using the telemetry features of open9x.

James

Any screen drawing for the main views?

[jlummel]

And it would be handy to have this bar on the main screen and not limited to the telemetry for those of us not using the telemetry features of open9x.

James

Any screen drawing for the main views?

Easier to describe it, add a little bar outline next the to voltage number (after the 'v') that fills in based on the battery level. Think the little bar that flickers in the top right as information is being saved to EEPROM by the radio, except do an outline of the bar and then fill it in at the correct level and place it right after the 11.6v in the screenshots. That should allow the bar to be able to fit in anywhere you display the voltage without making further modifications to any of the screens.

I'll see if I can grab one of the screenshots from the Wiki and put my rusty Photoshop skills to work to give you a drawing, though that'll have to be later today or tomorrow.

James

PS- in that list of battery types you can include "--" to shut off the display of the bar.

[jlummel]

Ok, here's the main screen with the battery bar as I described in my previous message:



It could be made thinner or fatter as necessary (I like the fatter one below personally):



James


??: On my screenshots, you have to draw with a pencil which is 2x2 px wide! The PNGs size is 256x128 !
James: I used cut and paste of the existing graphical elements on the image in Photoshop CS6 and used a screenshot from the Wiki, no drawing was done at all. But I assume you mean the lines need to be at least 2 px wide? Is that correct? More like this:

[Kilrah]

But it still won't mean much, half a bar kind of suggest half of battery left, but it's not the case...

Sent via mobile

[jlummel]

But it still won't mean much, half a bar kind of suggest half of battery left, but it's not the case...

Sent via mobile

It depends on how you scale the bar as to the worth it might have in being displayed. If it's scaled from 0v to 'full' for the type of battery you are using, then you're right, it's not of much use.

But if it's scaled one of 2 ways, the first being low-voltage cutoff for the type of battery to 'full' value for that battery type, or the low voltage alarm level to the 'full' level, then instead of having to mentally calculate each time you see the voltage readout, you can tell at a glance how much power you have. There's a lot a utility to being able to determine that at a glance...

James

PS- scaling it from the low voltage cutoff value for the pack type to the full value of the pack type would make the best sense, the low voltage alarm should be ALWAYS set above the low voltage cutoff value for the battery type so you have a reserve to be able to land the plane when the alarm goes off. Having the ability to select the battery type COULD automatically set these values for the user (full, low voltage alarm and low voltage cutoff), replacing the low voltage alarm setting. It could also be a compiler option to use the current system or to use this new battery meter system.

[Kilrah]

But if it's scaled one of 2 ways, the first being low-voltage cutoff for the type of battery to 'full' value for that battery type, or the low voltage alarm level to the 'full' level, then instead of having to mentally calculate each time you see the voltage readout, you can tell at a glance how much power you have.

Still doesn't show anything accurate when based on voltage only like on the stock board. For example for a lipo, the bar would be full for a short time and quickly fall to 50% or so, even though the battery is still 95% full. Then it will vary very little (maybe 20%) until there's 5% left, then fall down to zero in no time. So even with a bar you'll need to think and figure out "how wrong" it can be.

Sent via mobile

[jlummel]

Still doesn't show anything accurate when based on voltage only like on the stock board. For example for a lipo, the bar would be full for a short time and quickly fall to 50% or so, even though the battery is still 95% full. Then it will vary very little (maybe 20%) until there's 5% left, then fall down to zero in no time. So even with a bar you'll need to think and figure out "how wrong" it can be.

Sent via mobile

Yes, my LiFe batteries in both my 9x and my Futaba 7c are that way, they stay between 9.7v-9.9v for the majority of the time I'm using them.

The purpose of the meter would be to show that you are not about to go empty, so the fact the display sticks at half for 90% of the battery's life is not really of consequence. If I were to turn on my radio to check the battery right before I go out to the field, I know I'm OK if the bar isn't at the bottom of the meter. That's a determination that's a lot easier to make for 2 main reasons: 1. that's how we do it with almost all the other electronics be own already, and 2. there is no mental math involved in determining the state of your batteries.

James

PS- if you wanted to get fancy about it, you can include a curve with the battery type so you scale properly for the power not the voltage.

[gohsthb]

The stock board doesn't keep track of Milli amps used. So it cannot compute power used. I supposed have the bar range from 12 at the high end to whatever the battery alarm is set at for the low end. I have an old Futaba radio with a voltmeter, that would stay at 80% for a long time before dropping. And that used nicads. A meter is just more visual, for the people that like visual things.
-Gohst

Sent from my LG-P999 using Tapatalk 2

[jhsa]

Yes, my LiFe batteries in both my 9x and my Futaba 7c are that way, they stay between 9.7v-9.9v for the majority of the time I'm using them.

If I were to turn on my radio to check the battery right before I go out to the field, I know I'm OK if the bar isn't at the bottom of the meter. That's a determination that's a lot easier to make for 2 main reasons: 1. that's how we do it with almost all the other electronics be own already, and 2. there is no mental math involved in determining the state of your batteries.

James

Open9x already uses bars on the telemetry screens. This voltage bar would also be a nice idea.. BUT, as you say, before you go the field you turn the radio on and see that the bar is still at half so you're ok, Right??
WRONG
That bar will be at half during most of the battery charge..
It could happen that you go to the field, fly 5 minutes and the low voltage alarm kicks in The voltage drops really fast at the end of the charge for this type of batteries

[jlummel]

The stock board doesn't keep track of Milli amps used. So it cannot compute power used. I supposed have the bar range from 12 at the high end to whatever the battery alarm is set at for the low end. I have an old Futaba radio with a voltmeter, that would stay at 80% for a long time before dropping. And that used nicads. A meter is just more visual, for the people that like visual things.
-Gohst

Sent from my LG-P999 using Tapatalk 2

You could estimate the power used by the current voltage level, which does have enough of a correlation to the power level on lithium batteries for an estimate, though not on NiMH or NiCad (where you would just use the voltage without a curve, though you would still use a cutoff->full scaling for the battery meter). The curve I mentioned earlier would be the estimate between voltage level and power level, so it would be flat for NiMH and NiCad batteries.

Open9x already uses bars on the telemetry screens. This voltage bar would also be a nice idea.. BUT, as you say, before you go the field you turn the radio on and see that the bar is still at half so you're ok, Right??
WRONG
That bar will be at half during most of the battery charge..
It could happen that you go to the field, fly 5 minutes and the low voltage alarm kicks in The voltage drops really fast at the end of the charge for this type of batteries

Is it a perfect solution, no. Is it 100% accurate, no. All that's being done is adding a visual indicator to the voltage value already being displayed. You're not creating any new information to display, you are merely displaying existing information visually and giving it significance. It's no more misleading than showing the existing voltage value on the display.

You also can't use an arbitrary full value like 12v, this would not work for people who use 2S LiPo or Lion batteries, you need to know the battery type to make the meter worthwhile, so you can scale 'full' to 'low'. You COULD have the 'full' value just as an input similar to the low battery alarm level, but the more elegant and user friendly solution would be to select the battery type from a range of battery types, and have generic power curves connected to each type.

James

[nsf]

Sorry if i'm saying something wrong but programming is not my thing.
If it would be possible to add a menu to choose the type of battery that is being used (lipo 3s or 2s, life 3s, NiMH or NiCAD packs), could that help the calibration issue that is being discussed?

[jlummel]

Sorry if i'm saying something wrong but programming is not my thing.
If it would be possible to add a menu to choose the type of battery that is being used (lipo 3s or 2s, life 3s, NiMH or NiCAD packs), could that help the calibration issue that is being discussed?

To summarize what I'm proposing for adding a battery meter is to calibrate the meter as follows:

Add an input on radio setup screen #1, right before or after the "Battery Low" alarm, for "Battery Type" with several values (for instance the values could be 2SLiPo, 2SLion, 3SLiPo, 3SLiFe, 3SLion, NiCad, NiMH and '--' to disable display of the meter).

Linked to each of the battery types are 3 pieces of information: the 'full' voltage, the 'low' (cut-off) voltage and a power curve which is the % power level at different voltage levels in the range of 'full' to 'low' and either 10 points or 20 points on the curve, NOTE- the curve used would be generic for battery type and NiCad and NiMH would use flat curves.

When displaying the meter, a full meter would be when the battery is 'full', an empty meter would be when the battery is 'low' (the scaling of the meter). The meter would be filled in by taking the current voltage and retrieving the proper power % from the curve data for the battery type and that % of the meter would then be filled in. So if you have 50% of the power left in your battery, the meter will be 50% filled in, regardless of the actual voltage value.

The power meter displayed on the main screen would look like this:



If flight phases are being displayed it would look like this:



Telemetry screen would look like (screen by forum user JustinTime):



NOTES:
You can add a 4th piece of information to the battery types, the low voltage alarm value, so when you select a particular battery type, you can pre-fill in the Low Battery alarm value that suits the type of battery pack in use (which can be changed by the user if they desire).

Only use the voltage values between 'full' and 'low' for the curve data so you have better resolution of the curve. You may be able to get away with a 7 or 5 point curve because the actual graphical meter is so coarse anyways.

Move the Battery Low input from the Alarms heading and put it under it's own Battery heading for both values to be input (Battery Type and Battery Low). Only a suggestion!

Make the battery meter a compile option so people who don't want it don't have to have it in their build.

Since there is a curve editor already built in to open9x, you could give the user the option to customize their battery curve using the generic curve as a starting point (use a Menu button long press when selecting Battery Type to get into the curve editor), allowing for an more accurate display of the meter for particular brands of batteries. And/Or add the battery type 'Custom' and use a Menu button long press to get into the curve editor to allow editing of both the 'full' and 'low' values as well as the curve (and Low Battery Alarm level if included)

[bertrand35]

Problem, there is the flight phase in the middle of the gauge

snapshot_01.png (1.5 KiB) Viewed 14094 times

[jlummel]

Problem, there is the flight phase in the middle of the gauge

If flight phases are being displayed it would look like this:



I updated my summary in the message above with this screenshot...

[acefx]

Woow, what a great discution feed, my question was quite innocent at first time
Thé bat bar was for me more an aesthetic thing nomatter if it was 100% accurate
In fact we are using so much diffèrent battery in our model that it hard To remember all low level threshold.
The batt bat is hère To indicate that you are on th high / médium/ low part of your pack.

[mhotar]

Nice thread here.
There could be compilation option in companion for battery bar along with editable calibration values (10 of them?),or preset values by battery type.

bbar2.PNG (3.55 KiB) Viewed 14056 times

bbar3.PNG (3.5 KiB) Viewed 14057 times

[Rob Thomson]

How about a 1px line at the top of the screen that shows the battery level?

Pretty sure the palm pilots used to have some sort of option like that?

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2

[bertrand35]

Nice thread here.
There could be compilation option in companion for battery bar along with editable calibration values (10 of them?),or preset values by battery type.

bbar2.PNG

Martin this one is not bad!
Of course a compilation option is needed, because there will be some flash needed for the graphics, the min/max calibration, and perhaps the maths...

Bertrand.

[jlummel]

Nice thread here.
There could be compilation option in companion for battery bar along with editable calibration values (10 of them?),or preset values by battery type.

bbar2.PNG

Martin this one is not bad!
Of course a compilation option is needed, because there will be some flash needed for the graphics, the min/max calibration, and perhaps the maths...

Bertrand.

Making it a compile option for battery type (rather than a menu selection in firmware) would save a lot of flash and eeprom, and I really like this readout from mhotar:



James

[LTMNO]

Very nice.

[bertrand35]

It will be in the next release with a 320bytes flash cost (the option will be BATTGRAPH).

[nsf]

Jjust installed the latest release of opentx and I can't find this option anywhere. Is it there?

[jhsa]

Yes, I also can't see it as a compile option in Companion

[Rob Thomson]

Dont think companion is fully up-to-date with all the options yet.

My feeling is that work is being done to pull it to the new branded version. Lets give the dev guys time.

They are MAXED out 100% getting a rather long list of things done for the FRSKY radio/launch.

Rog

[nsf]

Ok Rob. I'm not in a hurry. Was just curious.

[ReSt]

It's there if you can compile with "BATTGRAPH=YES"

Reinhard