FrSky Variometer

derFrickler · Post by **derFrickler** » Mon Jan 09, 2012 10:17 am

First of all,

This is very great work you are doing here, i modded my TH9x and flashed er9x, did the FrSky mod and some other stuff and this Transmitter really rocks now! I like the Idea of open-source and i am a programmer myself (unfortunately more Java, my C-Knowledge is very limited)

I use the FrSky sensor hub with the Vario and GPS Sensor. Showing the values in er9x works very good.
a really gread Ad-On would be an acoustic Variometer based on the values read from the FrSky Vario sensor.
With the Speaker mod this should be possible in general, it is just some code that is missing. An option to assing one of the switches to turn the Variometer on/off would be the cherry on the cake.

There are some other avr/arduino Variometer projects, maybe some code could be taken from them.

As said, i would really like to help here, but my C-Knowledge is limited, i did some very small AVR programs and Arduino things, but....

Greets from Germany

Johannes

Btw. this is my modded TH9x: http://translate.google.com/translate?u ... pair=de|en

Post by **Rob Thomson** » Mon Jan 09, 2012 10:32 am

If you use this product:

http://www.wingedshadow.com/thermalscout.html

You can already achieve what you want.

The Winged Shadow system uses the A1/A2 channels which means you can easily set alarms for sink & lift. I use the system of 3 gliders - and love it!

As added bonuses, you can turn the system on & off from the tx using a spare channel, and the system if VERY SMALL!

Work in progress is to make the alarms trigger audio alerts. Currently these are simple tones outputted by the frsky module. Hopefully within 3-4 weeks these will be hooked into the speaker mod.

In terms of making the HUB vario work with sound alerts. This is something that is being considered - but will take some work considering the lack of free space on the existing board. I suspect we will see more of these sorts of features being satisfied on the new ERSKY9X board.

Rob

derFrickler · Post by **derFrickler** » Mon Jan 09, 2012 1:02 pm

Yes, i know the thermalscout, but as i want to keep the FrSky Voltage sensors and already have the Sensor-Hub + Sensors it would be nice to use this as well.

You say that the processor-memory of the current TX board is the problem here? This should not need that much space or am i wrong?
reading the altitude value is already in, so we keep the last or last x values and do a higher or lower beep depending on the altitude change from the old to the current value. Should not be that big deal or? As far as i know the Altitude is received 5x per sec.

Or i might go the other way and put an arduino into the TX that decodes the FrSky Stream and has its own speaker....but the er9x solution would be nicer of cause.

Post by **Rob Thomson** » Mon Jan 09, 2012 4:22 pm

The issue is really that we are so close to having no space left on the firmware to add any more code!

The reason I raise the point is simply to keep expectations in check. The reason the new board has been developed is to address the firmware size issue.

While every attempt will be made to squeeze it in - there is simply no garuantee it will fit.

That being said.. Mike is a wizard when it comes to saving space!

Flaps 30 · Post by **Flaps 30** » Mon Jan 09, 2012 11:19 pm

I do hope that something can be done to give us some nice bleeps with the Thermal Scout. I have added an earphone output to the TX for such a use.

Post by **jhsa** » Tue Jan 10, 2012 10:02 am

The PCM audio mod would be able to do that I think..
I know, I'm a pain in the ***

I wish I had the knowledge to do it

Post by **Rob Thomson** » Tue Jan 10, 2012 10:20 am

Working on sound output at the moment - patience

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Post by **jhsa** » Tue Jan 10, 2012 1:15 pm

I'm patient.. I'll just make sure you guys don't forget it

Keep the wonderful work.. you guys ROCK..
Thanks,
João

derFrickler · Post by **derFrickler** » Wed Jan 11, 2012 8:54 am

Thanks a lot for your help Guys,

er9x really rocks, like it more every time i use it!

derFrickler · Post by **derFrickler** » Tue Jan 31, 2012 7:01 am

So, i started to program my own Variometer based on an Arduino parsing the frsky data. I ported the er9x code for parsing the FrSky Hub data to arduino, hope thats ok.

By the Way, the new FrSky sensor hubs use protocol version V2 to support the new sensors.

http://www.frsky-rc.com/uploadfile/2011 ... 818462.pdf

Although the barometric height is now transferred in 2 bytes, 0x10 contains the meters, 0x21 contains the cm. It would be cool to update the er9x code to show the height in cm or maybe at least dm too. As the height sensor produces some noise, it would make sense to filter or average the displayed height over some measurements if possible.

Greets
Johannes

P.S. older FrSky Hubs can be updated to V2 protocol using the firmware update provided by Frsky:

http://www.frsky-rc.com/uploadfile/2012 ... 140839.pdf
http://www.frsky-rc.com/uploadfile/2012 ... 110161.zip

sandro snap flap · Post by **sandro snap flap** » Tue Jan 31, 2012 9:42 pm

Hi all,
They are Sandro and I'm writing from Italy.
First of all, I want to thank all the staff er9x for the tremendous work he is doing.
Use your fimware for about 6 months with the form FRSKY and telemetry.
Every day I see all the great things that have been doing for telemetry frsky.
If you could have the sounds of ascent and descent from the vario or gps would be a really great thing for the flight with gliders and I think that after this there is nothing more to ask.

I hope you can do it.

Thanks again for all your work.

Greetings to all from Italy.

HAL-9000 · Post by **HAL-9000** » Sun Feb 05, 2012 4:38 pm

First of all - hello from freezing cold Poland

I am very impressed with wide possibilities and fast development of firmware. Keep up good work!

Not sure, if this is the right spot to write suggestion for improvement. As I purchased telemetry hub recently and vario (really altitude) sensor, I can imagine extension of it's use to:

1. Indicate maximum achieved altitude
2. Indicate minimum altitude (really, just to see pressure change form takeoff to landing)
3. Calculate and filter actual_altitude minus previous_altitude and filter it, to see lift / sink rate.

Some of above could be useful also for GPS signal.

Regards,

HAL-9000

HAL-9000 · Post by **HAL-9000** » Sun Feb 05, 2012 4:40 pm

First of all - hello from freezing cold Poland

I am very impressed with wide possibilities and fast development of firmware. Keep up good work!

Not sure, if this is the right spot to write suggestion for improvement. As I purchased telemetry hub recently and vario (really altitude) sensor, I can imagine extension of it's use to:

1. Indicate maximum achieved altitude
2. Indicate minimum altitude (really, just to see pressure change form takeoff to landing)
3. Calculate and filter actual_altitude minus previous_altitude and filter it, to see lift / sink rate.

Some of above could be useful also for GPS signal.

Regards,

HAL-9000

Post by **MikeB** » Sun Feb 05, 2012 8:38 pm

All this is possible, although we are getting close to the limit of the available flash memory for the software. Also we need to find somewhere on the screens to display everything, and some time to program it.

Mike.

sterby · Post by **sterby** » Mon Feb 06, 2012 9:46 pm

How about making a small fork from the NOHT version, putting in the variometer code and calling it FrSky_NOHT_Vario?
Is the "no space issue" still standing without the heli mixes and templates?

ReSt · Post by **ReSt** » Mon Feb 13, 2012 10:11 am

does anybody know, what type of processor is used in the FrSky Hub ?

Reinhard

Post by **jhsa** » Mon Feb 13, 2012 10:17 am

And what about the people that fly helis and fly also gliders?? Should they change the fw when they want to fly one or the other??

Post by **MikeB** » Mon Feb 13, 2012 11:30 am

sterby wrote:Is the "no space issue" still standing without the heli mixes and templates?

The FrSky version is the largest, so Erazz has decided to drop the templates permanently from it to gain some space, seems a good idea. This gains quite a bit of space, added to which I appear to have found around 700 bytes of flash saving, not quite sure how I managed that having slimmed it so much already.
We just have to be careful what we add so we don't use up all the remaining space too quickly.

Mike.

FriedOnion · Post by **FriedOnion** » Thu Feb 16, 2012 5:23 am

Rob Thomson wrote:The issue is really that we are so close to having no space left on the firmware to add any more code!

The reason I raise the point is simply to keep expectations in check. The reason the new board has been developed is to address the firmware size issue.

While every attempt will be made to squeeze it in - there is simply no garuantee it will fit.

That being said.. Mike is a wizard when it comes to saving space!

I know very little about programming, but it might be worth considering making a nice interface for custom compiling ER9X in EEPE. I know that you can get the source code and change it yourself, but if you have checkboxes for what features you want, it might solve the space issue. I don't know how hard that would be but it would be a nice feature

lospalos · Post by **lospalos** » Thu Feb 23, 2012 11:59 am

I have two technical questions on FrSky guys:
- can somebody put here picture of how exactly is the HUB connected to Rx, since on HUB there is 4 pin connector dedicated for that purpose but on Rx there is only 3 pins connector (Tx,Rx,G)?
- is it possible to connect Vario sensor directly to digital data-stream port on Rx, or is it possible only via HUB?

P.

Post by **MikeB** » Thu Feb 23, 2012 11:35 pm

Your hub should have come with a ready made cable for connecting it, mine came with two wires in it, one yellow and one black, with a 4 pin connector for the hub and a 3 pin connector for the rx. The black wire goes to the G pin on the rx.
No, the variometer only connects via the hub.

Mike.

Post by **Rob Thomson** » Fri Feb 24, 2012 6:56 am

The FRSky vario requires the hub.

The Winged Shadow vario can go direct to the RX's A1/A2 channel.

lospalos · Post by **lospalos** » Fri Feb 24, 2012 7:05 am

Thnaks for reply.
Vario that comes do analog ports in RX is useless for me, because on the ground I'm working with digital protocol.

HAL-9000 · Post by **HAL-9000** » Fri Feb 24, 2012 7:47 am

As far as I know, FrSky Vario sensor sends signal via I2C line, and hub translates it to RS232 format that can be transmitted and received by telemetry digital link.
Hub's task is to translate various signals to RS232.

But again, I'm not an expert, and might be wrong.

HAL-9000

manu · Post by **manu** » Fri Feb 24, 2012 10:01 am

[quote="Rob Thomson"]The FRSky vario requires the hub....quote]
What a bummer!
That's why I still hang on my tx9 with Jeti as a DLG Modeller. The 5CH Rx with mVario is small and light, has alarm, min/max values. Unfortunately max height is still not able to reset by switch. Would be a great feature for practice throws.
regards
manu

lospalos · Post by **lospalos** » Fri Feb 24, 2012 10:17 am

manu wrote: What a bummer!
That's why I still hang on my tx9 with Jeti as a DLG Modeller. The 5CH Rx with mVario is small and light, has alarm, min/max values. Unfortunately max height is still not able to reset by switch. Would be a great feature for practice throws.
regards
manu

OK but mVarion doesn't do acoustic too, do it?
I really don't understand why such crucial and simple thing like acoustic vario make problems to implement when the datalink can contain Vario data. OK Jetibox doesn't contain any buzzer AFAIK, but i think FLD-02 does. Or am I wrong?

Post by **Rob Thomson** » Fri Feb 24, 2012 2:37 pm

Thats why I use one of these...

http://www.wingedshadow.com/thermalscout.html

Plugs into the A1 or A2 channel on the RX.

You can then set all the alarm points you need.

Simple!

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