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bradthepilot
Groupie Joined: 07 Jan 2017 Location: St. Paul MN Status: Offline Points: 65 |
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Posted: 10 Mar 2017 at 9:13am |
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So...anyone tried stratux with the 10.2 update? Stratux spits out GDL90 aka Capstone over both wifi and serial, so wondering if anyone has plugged one into an IFD serial port yet?
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Brad Benson
RV-6A N164BL |
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oskrypuch
Senior Member Joined: 09 Nov 2012 Location: CYFD Status: Offline Points: 3061 |
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That would not be a supported configuration.
* Orest |
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bradthepilot
Groupie Joined: 07 Jan 2017 Location: St. Paul MN Status: Offline Points: 65 |
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I never asked if it was supported, the assumption is that it would not be. It may work, however, given the support for capstone in 10.2 and the stratux ability to squirt capstone out via serial. Just curious if anyone had tried it yet. If it works, the aircraft manufacturer will support it. And I am the aircraft manufacturer in this case. |
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Brad Benson
RV-6A N164BL |
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oskrypuch
Senior Member Joined: 09 Nov 2012 Location: CYFD Status: Offline Points: 3061 |
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Didn't notice that you were experimental. I would still be very leery about connecting something like a Stratux physically/electrically to the panel.
* Orest Edited by oskrypuch - 10 Mar 2017 at 10:38am |
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bradthepilot
Groupie Joined: 07 Jan 2017 Location: St. Paul MN Status: Offline Points: 65 |
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I'm not concerned about it - the potential failure modes are pretty miniscule. A big win, however, is that it would supply a dual-band "in" option until such time as such a thing is available from Avidyne. |
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Brad Benson
RV-6A N164BL |
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pburger
Senior Member Joined: 26 Dec 2013 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 406 |
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Shun the naysayer!! Shun!! Shun!! Please try it and let us know. I've been a Stratux user since 2015, and I want to know.
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oskrypuch
Senior Member Joined: 09 Nov 2012 Location: CYFD Status: Offline Points: 3061 |
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Wow, being shunned is a nasty experience!
* Orest Edited by oskrypuch - 11 Mar 2017 at 9:55am |
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TogaDriver
Senior Member Joined: 23 Sep 2013 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 133 |
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Don't worry, Orest. Education is always better than shunning.
RS-232 is a pretty well understood interface and runs 5-12v peak to peak. Any serial input/output is designed to withstand a wide variety of manufacturer's inputs so, yes, care is warranted, but as long as you are using a legitimate RS-232 source going into the IFD, you won't likely fry it. And, for experimental, I believe it is allowed. Will it void the warranty??? Well, that's a different question.
There are a lot of options including Stratux, that put out GDL90 over WiFi. Brad, I was thinking of cobbling up a WiFi to RS-232 converter that parses and serializes the GDL90 coming from existing Stratus, Stratux, and similar ADSB-in portables. This would allow you to just be a client on the Wifi. Too bad there's not USB on the pins of the IFD or you could even power it from there. |
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bradthepilot
Groupie Joined: 07 Jan 2017 Location: St. Paul MN Status: Offline Points: 65 |
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So a quick follow-up. The stratux didn't quite work right out of the box due to slight differences in how Capstone is implemented (as AviSimpson has pointed out before, every capstone device is unique) but the tweaks required to get it talking correctly were pretty trivial. The only thing not working quite right still is TIS-B traffic; I can see TIS-B traffic on a connected iPad but it doesn't show up on the IFD. Still, that should be pretty easy to fix up next time I get some time to work on it.
First, some traffic delivered to my IFD540 via Stratux: Next, textual weather: Finally, METAR info displayed on the map: I feel I need to point out again that this is in an E-AB, specifically, my RV-6A. I wired and installed the entire panel (and built the rest of the airframe, but anyway...) and found the installation of the IFD540 to be really straightforward. It integrates with the Dynon Skyview and other related items in the panel quite nicely, and this addition should make it even better. The ability to do this kind of thing is one of the major things that convinced to go Avidyne instead of those other guys. More to come when I get some more time...
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Brad Benson
RV-6A N164BL |
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chflyer
Senior Member Joined: 24 Jan 2013 Location: LSZK Status: Offline Points: 1035 |
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And that's over the serial port, Brad, not wifi. Correct?
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Vince
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bradthepilot
Groupie Joined: 07 Jan 2017 Location: St. Paul MN Status: Offline Points: 65 |
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Yep, exactly right. RS-232 @ 38,400bps. |
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Brad Benson
RV-6A N164BL |
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TogaDriver
Senior Member Joined: 23 Sep 2013 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 133 |
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Hi Brad -
I'm about to finally try running GDL90 into my IFD440. What tweaks did you have to make to the stratux protocol to get the IFD to accept the traffic and weather? Edited by TogaDriver - 30 May 2017 at 3:55pm |
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bradthepilot
Groupie Joined: 07 Jan 2017 Location: St. Paul MN Status: Offline Points: 65 |
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Sorry for the late response - I didn't see your post until now. The current codebase *should* work. You'll get weather and traffic, but there will be some occasional alerts about ADS-B sensor connectivity and you might get indications that traffic info is degraded. The alert info comes from the GDL90 heartbeat not getting from stratux to the IFD in a timely manner. My custom build addressed that by eliminating the stratux-specific heartbeat and some other stuff which the IFD doesn't care about and that FF apparently doesn't either. The second thing I tweaked in my custom build is to be able to take GPS data in the same serial port as GDL90 is being emitted on. The GPS position data rolls into the ownship position data needed by GDL90, but more importantly, it provides a realtime clock that stratux lacks and that tablet apps don't care about. The last thing I tweaked is that the generic stratux image utilizes a r/w image and there is little or no interest in changing this. With my installation, the stratux is a black box in the avionics bay and needs to be more robust, so it utilizes a read-only filesystem that doesn't have the opportunity to become corrupted when avionics power goes away.
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Brad Benson
RV-6A N164BL |
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TogaDriver
Senior Member Joined: 23 Sep 2013 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 133 |
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Brad - sent you a PM.
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AndyMeyer
Newbie Joined: 05 Oct 2019 Location: SE PA Status: Offline Points: 29 |
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Brad,
I'm also E-AB and have the stratux feeding the IFD and it works well. One issue I having is that I'm getting TA alerts for aircraft further away or at significantly different altitudes... Is there something I need to tweak on the stratux to either limit traffic to a smaller puck, or have the stratux correctly flag nearby traffic as not TA until its closer? I'm getting TA alerts on traffic 30k feet above me... Having this working is enabling me to leave my iPad closed most of the time... Much easier in a tiny Long EZ cockpit. Thanks! Andy
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AndyMeyer
Newbie Joined: 05 Oct 2019 Location: SE PA Status: Offline Points: 29 |
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Brad,
Care to share the tweaks and how to implement? I'd like to get rid of the nuisance items that you say that you've resolved. Loving flying with the combo - works well! Andy
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R0bst3r
Groupie Joined: 27 Jun 2019 Location: Va Status: Offline Points: 44 |
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I’m interested also
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skitheo
Senior Member Joined: 02 Jan 2016 Location: KFNL Status: Offline Points: 165 |
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Brad, can you crank up the baud rate on the Stratux to 115.2kbps? With the NGT-9000 that's what it took to get everything to transfer to the IFD and out the LIOWIFI. See http://forums.avidyne.com/ifd440-ngt9000-wiring-and-setup_topic2081_post25014.html#25014 Edited by skitheo - 13 Nov 2020 at 11:37am |
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Ralph
Newbie Joined: 16 Jun 2019 Location: Newport, OR Status: Offline Points: 5 |
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Using a Stratux with v1.6 (stock) hardwired to IFD440 RS232 in port. Two issues, first the stratux always powers up normally, but about 1 out 4 times will not send serial data (no flashing LED on the serial card). Reboot usually resolves this. Second I get the ADS-B degraded flag about a third of the time. All of the traffic and WX data are normal, but the flag will appear and disappear sometimes after a period of 20 or more minutes. Reboot doesn't affect the flag. Have tried 3 different GPS units, external and internal with no change. WIFI monitor indicates strong GPS and everything OK. Using 115.2 bps. Appreciate any thoughts. Thanks
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AndyMeyer
Newbie Joined: 05 Oct 2019 Location: SE PA Status: Offline Points: 29 |
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First suspicion would be a flaky CP2102 card...
Get that fixed first... Might also be a bad connection on the Ras Pi... Remember, they're $35 computers! Decent quality, but a few sneak buy, and there are fake ones made of trash out there. I don't bother with anything I suspect might not be authentic. I'd rather support the innovator over the copier and I've had MUCH better luck with the real stuff.
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Ralph
Newbie Joined: 16 Jun 2019 Location: Newport, OR Status: Offline Points: 5 |
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Thanks for the help, I did try another serial card and it didn't work at all (and after looking at it closely I think it may have been a knock off). I'm not unhappy considering my investment it really does work most of the time. I did a comparison of the stratux to a Garmin GDL39 and found the 1090 radio in the GDL39 to be significantly more sensitive. I can't say for sure about the 978 because I didn't have enough comparison traffic, though it appears a little weaker also. I was using the larger antennas on the Stratux.
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PA23
Senior Member Joined: 12 Oct 2019 Location: MMU Status: Offline Points: 317 |
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I was tinkering with a friend on his aircraft with a Stratux and the IFD. We had data going from the Stratux to the IFD which included the WX and the traffic but the IFD would constantly put up a message about the datalink lost. Anybody successful connecting the stratux via serial and not get bombarded with datalink messages?
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brou0040
Senior Member Joined: 13 Dec 2012 Location: KIYK Status: Offline Points: 720 |
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I constantly get the datalink lost message, but it seems to work other than that.
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PA23
Senior Member Joined: 12 Oct 2019 Location: MMU Status: Offline Points: 317 |
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I noticed the same but the messages were constant. I know there was a new release of the Stratux software that includes a handful of GDL90 fixes plus the new yet to be released software for the IFD is supposed to suppress a lot of the nuisance messages. I guess my friend and I will try again and see what happens. PA23
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Ralph
Newbie Joined: 16 Jun 2019 Location: Newport, OR Status: Offline Points: 5 |
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I believe the "datalink lost" message is the result of the IFD not receiving FIS-B data from the local ADS-B site within a specific time. This is, at least for me, the result of not having good line of sight with the ground station. Look at your log files from the IFD, and you'll be amazed at the amount of messages being sent by the Statux, mostly all traffic.
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bradthepilot
Groupie Joined: 07 Jan 2017 Location: St. Paul MN Status: Offline Points: 65 |
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The core issue is the way the stratus sends data out the serial port. This was one of the first changes I had to made to the software.
Stratux isn't very smart about how it conserves bandwidth. Essentially, it sends everything it sees out the serial port when it sees it, except for traffic and the GDL heart beat message which are sent at one second intervals if I recall correctly. This is fine on WiFi, where bandwidth exceeds the amount of data to be sent, but doesn't play well on a serial link where there is a lot of traffic or visible towers delivering data. When there are lots of towers visible, stratux sees lots of FIS-B info (nexrad, textual weather, etc.) and sends them all to the IFD over the serial link. At the same time, the IFD is expecting the GDL90 heartbeat message once per second. Sitting near the Minneapolis airport, with three towers visible, I measured that stratux might spend upwards of four seconds sending FIS-B data over the serial link before sending the heartbeat. This delay causes issues (i.e. "datalink lost"), since the GDL spec states that the heartbeat shall be sent at the start of each UTC second. The fix was to change the stratux software such that traffic and heartbeat data was sent immediately, but that FIS-B data was sent across the serial link only when no pending traffic or heartbeat existed. That mostly eliminated the delay. Another change I had made was to sort the targets by distance; generic stratux code sent all the traffic it saw and with an external antenna mounted on my RV and flying just east of Minneapolis I would sometimes see some targets over Sioux Falls SD (about 175nm away) but not those I could see visually. Changing the code such that only the nearest 25 airborne targets were displayed fixed this issue and traffic reliability was much improved. I've since abandoned stratux; their core audience is not hardwired panels in homebuilts and they have as a result taken some liberties with GDL90 that work great with ForeFlight etc. Nothing wrong with that, for sure, but it wasn't what I was interested in. I replaced the device this last spring with a commercial solution.
Edited by bradthepilot - 04 Aug 2021 at 10:48am |
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Brad Benson
RV-6A N164BL |
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PA23
Senior Member Joined: 12 Oct 2019 Location: MMU Status: Offline Points: 317 |
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Brad, Thanks for the info, that actually explains a lot and it sounds like it may not be worth trying to make Stratux work with the IFD. I have a strong unix background but I am not a programmer so making the required changes to the software by me is not going to happen.
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pburger
Senior Member Joined: 26 Dec 2013 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 406 |
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At Oshkosh last week I was asking about new features in 10.3. The rep asked if I had a Stratus or other similar portable ADS-B unit. I told him I had a Stratux. I then asked if they added the ability to get ADS-B data over WIFI (GDL90 via WIFI into the IFD-540). He said, "just wait...". I told him if he says they added that, that I wouldn't believe him. He said they did add that. He then showed me how to choose a WIFI network you can now browse available networks rather than typing in the SSID. I think THAT was his big news, and that he was wrong about GDL90 over WIFI as a source to the 540.
I wonder if they actually added GDL90 via WIFI? I seriously doubt it. If so, that would be HUGE! Does anyone know for sure?
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AviSteve
Admin Group Joined: 12 Feb 2018 Location: Melbourne, FL Status: Offline Points: 2244 |
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He was correct.
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Steve Lindsley
Avidyne Engineering |
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oskrypuch
Senior Member Joined: 09 Nov 2012 Location: CYFD Status: Offline Points: 3061 |
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Just to explicitly link the above -- 10.3 will allow the ADS-B weather data from a Stratus, to populate a panel mount IFD's display? If so, that is huge. * Orest
Edited by oskrypuch - 05 Aug 2021 at 2:38pm |
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AviSteve
Admin Group Joined: 12 Feb 2018 Location: Melbourne, FL Status: Offline Points: 2244 |
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Yes. If the IFD does not have a wired ADS-B In source, then it can display data from a WiFi source.
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Steve Lindsley
Avidyne Engineering |
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pburger
Senior Member Joined: 26 Dec 2013 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 406 |
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I still don’t (or can’t) believe it!!! LOL!!
But this is AMAZING!! |
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Ralph
Newbie Joined: 16 Jun 2019 Location: Newport, OR Status: Offline Points: 5 |
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Will it display traffic as well from the WIFI source?
Edited by Ralph - 07 Aug 2021 at 2:31am |
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JohnAJohnson
Groupie Joined: 15 Aug 2018 Location: KJKA Status: Offline Points: 45 |
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Brad, sounds like your modifications don't take anything away from the Stratux base code, only makes it better. Any possibility that it could be incorporated into the mainstream code? If so, could you pass it to the primary developer for inclusion into future releases? |
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bradthepilot
Groupie Joined: 07 Jan 2017 Location: St. Paul MN Status: Offline Points: 65 |
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I did submit one change but they tweaked it such that it no longer worked. Another change (limiting the number of targets) was deemed to be not required since their primary audience uses wifi, not a serial link. I haven't tried anything beyond that. |
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Brad Benson
RV-6A N164BL |
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AviSteve
Admin Group Joined: 12 Feb 2018 Location: Melbourne, FL Status: Offline Points: 2244 |
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Yes it will display traffic as well. However, targets will never be displayed as yellow traffic alerts (TA). Instead, they would show up as cyan proximate traffic alerts (PA).
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Steve Lindsley
Avidyne Engineering |
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oskrypuch
Senior Member Joined: 09 Nov 2012 Location: CYFD Status: Offline Points: 3061 |
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I already have TAS605A traffic piped into the IFD ... So, will there be some way to suppress the TIS-B traffic information from a non-certified portable wifi source, and still use the FIS-B weather? I also have Sirius weather, but not on the IFD, so it would be nice to for example at least have the Nexrad and metars on the IFD, from that "non-certified" source. * Orest
Edited by oskrypuch - 11 Aug 2021 at 5:26pm |
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AviSteve
Admin Group Joined: 12 Feb 2018 Location: Melbourne, FL Status: Offline Points: 2244 |
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Edited by AviSteve - 12 Aug 2021 at 1:19pm |
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Steve Lindsley
Avidyne Engineering |
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oskrypuch
Senior Member Joined: 09 Nov 2012 Location: CYFD Status: Offline Points: 3061 |
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Well, perhaps a way to turn off traffic output on the Stratus. IAC, not a biggie, ADS-B weather is relatively useless in Canada. Who knows if I'll ever make it south of the border again. ;-) * Orest Edited by oskrypuch - 11 Aug 2021 at 5:39pm |
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AviSteve
Admin Group Joined: 12 Feb 2018 Location: Melbourne, FL Status: Offline Points: 2244 |
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Hold on, I stand corrected!! I was just informed that the weather and traffic are indeed separate in this regard. So, if you have a wired traffic source but no wired source of weather, then the IFD will use the traffic from your wired traffic sensor and get weather from the WiFi portable device. My apologies..
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Steve Lindsley
Avidyne Engineering |
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PA23
Senior Member Joined: 12 Oct 2019 Location: MMU Status: Offline Points: 317 |
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Now all we need is Avidyne to release the software! You guys have been saying that it is coming out soon for about a year or so!!!
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