By ken@blackman.co.uk - 2/4/2020 1:27:56 PM
+x+xHmm, a solution has to be in widespread use for it to be viable for us to develop support. I hadn't realised that some of the PowerFlarm devices support Bluetooth, that's interesting.
My understanding is that if a device supports Bluetooth 4/LTE (or something similar) they do not have to go through any Apple dance to be supported. Thanks for thinking about it. I'll try an Ipad with the Soartronic board and see if it will connect. I thnk it is BT 2.0 though rather than BT 4 / LE (LTE is something different :-)
Alastair
Hi Alastair
I would be really interested to know to hear if you managed to get an iPad to connect to a Soartronic. I have been struggling for a long time to get a reliable wifi connection between a PF portable and an iPad using an AirConnect.
Ken
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By ken@blackman.co.uk - 2/4/2020 1:29:30 PM
+x+x+xHmm, a solution has to be in widespread use for it to be viable for us to develop support. I hadn't realised that some of the PowerFlarm devices support Bluetooth, that's interesting.
My understanding is that if a device supports Bluetooth 4/LTE (or something similar) they do not have to go through any Apple dance to be supported. Thanks for thinking about it. I'll try an Ipad with the Soartronic board and see if it will connect. I thnk it is BT 2.0 though rather than BT 4 / LE (LTE is something different :-)
Alastair
Hi Alastair
I would be really interested to know to hear if you managed to get an iPad to connect to a Soartronic. I have been struggling for a long time to get a reliable wifi connection between a PF portable and an iPad using an AirConnect.
Ken Hi Alastair I would be really interested to know to hear if you managed to get an iPad to connect to a Soartronic. I have been struggling for a long time to get a reliable wifi connection between a PF portable and an iPad using an AirConnect. Ken |
By Alastair Mutch - 2/4/2020 7:21:31 PM
+x+x+x+xHmm, a solution has to be in widespread use for it to be viable for us to develop support. I hadn't realised that some of the PowerFlarm devices support Bluetooth, that's interesting.
My understanding is that if a device supports Bluetooth 4/LTE (or something similar) they do not have to go through any Apple dance to be supported. Thanks for thinking about it. I'll try an Ipad with the Soartronic board and see if it will connect. I thnk it is BT 2.0 though rather than BT 4 / LE (LTE is something different :-)
Alastair
Hi Alastair
I would be really interested to know to hear if you managed to get an iPad to connect to a Soartronic. I have been struggling for a long time to get a reliable wifi connection between a PF portable and an iPad using an AirConnect.
Ken Hi Alastair I would be really interested to know to hear if you managed to get an iPad to connect to a Soartronic. I have been struggling for a long time to get a reliable wifi connection between a PF portable and an iPad using an AirConnect. Ken Hi Ken, Unfortunately the Soartronic BT module is Bluetooth 2.0 only and not Apple qualified - so it will not work with the iPad.
With the PF portable you need external power connected to the device when using Airconnect and, as above, neither version of the Airconnect works correctly but the older one (with the pin number on the label) can be modified to work reliably. See PM.
Alastair
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By Alastair Mutch - 1/18/2020 7:29:57 PM
I'm using 3.13.3.0 on an Android tablet - Samsung S2 - with data from a Powerflarm via an Airconnect wifi interface.
A couple of times now I've got a pop-up dialogue saying "Flarm data invalid" along with a flarm data string displayed. Clicking to acknowledge this results in the program going back to planning mode. This has happened on the ground before take-off only and not in the air (so far at least).
Interesting enough I was playing with the set-up in the house with both the tablet and my PC connected to the Airconnect and Skydemon running in navigation mode on both. Both were using the current latest version - 3.13.3 When I got the error on the tablet the PC continued quite happily with the data with no errors.
If it is a checksum error on a data sentence please, please, please could you just dump that sentence and continue on to the next. I don't really want to know about what is probably a single bit error in the data transfer. If there are multiple or frequent errors then by all means put up a warning or refuse to use the data stream. Yes it shouldn't go wrong... but it obviously can do.
Thanks.
Alastair
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By tarutino - 3/20/2020 7:40:00 AM
+x+x+x+x+xHmm, a solution has to be in widespread use for it to be viable for us to develop support. I hadn't realised that some of the PowerFlarm devices support Bluetooth, that's interesting.
My understanding is that if a device supports Bluetooth 4/LTE (or something similar) they do not have to go through any Apple dance to be supported. Thanks for thinking about it. I'll try an Ipad with the Soartronic board and see if it will connect. I thnk it is BT 2.0 though rather than BT 4 / LE (LTE is something different :-)
Alastair
Hi Alastair
I would be really interested to know to hear if you managed to get an iPad to connect to a Soartronic. I have been struggling for a long time to get a reliable wifi connection between a PF portable and an iPad using an AirConnect.
Ken Hi Alastair I would be really interested to know to hear if you managed to get an iPad to connect to a Soartronic. I have been struggling for a long time to get a reliable wifi connection between a PF portable and an iPad using an AirConnect. Ken Hi Ken, Unfortunately the Soartronic BT module is Bluetooth 2.0 only and not Apple qualified - so it will not work with the iPad.
With the PF portable you need external power connected to the device when using Airconnect and, as above, neither version of the Airconnect works correctly but the older one (with the pin number on the label) can be modified to work reliably. See PM.
Alastair
Hello Alastair, Could you describe the Modification of the older Airconnect to make it reliable? This would help many people... Thanks! Thomas
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By Alastair Mutch - 3/20/2020 10:13:27 AM
I modified the earlier Airconnect (one with a pin code). This was done using the user interface described for the Microchip WiFly module used in these earlier units. I turned off the detection of LF (0xA) and set it to instead send out a Wifi packet when there was a gap of 100ms or more in the datastream to force it to send the GPS data in fewer, bigger chunks. This seemed to work OK on the ground - capturing the input data to Airconnect from flarm and also the output data on wifi and comparing the two showed no differences whereas with the original set-up it had occasional errors. (The newer Airconnect unit without a pin code had errors every few seconds. This uses a design from a German company In-Circuit and is not configurable afaik ).
Our gliding airfield has been flooded for a while and so I only managed to fly with the modified Airconnect once. Whilst it was 100% reliable on the ground. it still caused a Skydemon error in the air during the flight - when I was close to some busy airspace, close to patchy cloud and a bit stressed. This was with a Powerflarm Core. I haven't tried it again.
I gave up at that point and bought some serial to Wifi adapters from ebay and used them to replace the Airconnects on both of the aircraft I fly with Skydemon - a Falke motorglider and an AA5. I tested the adaptor at home in the same way as the Airconnect units and didn't see any data loss or corruption. I also tried a second different Taiwanese adaptor and that worked OK too.
When I tried it last week in the AA5 with a Powerflarm (FlarmBat) it was perfect for the whole 1 hour flight. We had two android tablets running Skydemon connected to it as my passenger also used his. Both worked perfectly and showed all of the traffic as expected. It worked 100% reliably on the ground when tested - no data corruption. .
The adaptor I used is this one: (I did try another adaptor from Taiwan as well and that worked fine too)
It’s simple enough to program it to emulate the Airconnect protocol – 192.168.1.1 and Port 2000. I set it to detect a gap in the serial data of greater than 100ms and send a Wifi packet out. I used a 9 way D-Type to rj15 adapter and then a bit of rj15-rj15 cable (6p6c) was quick and easy to knock up. It only needs +12V, 0V, TXdata and Rxdata connected.
A suitable adaptor plug is here:
I've chased Airconnect a few times but they don't have a fix for their units. Having said that several people seem to have them working without any issues - even on Powerflarms. Things tend to go wrong when I go near them I guess. Life it just too short to sort out other people's mistakes though.
Alastair
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By ken@blackman.co.uk - 3/20/2020 11:50:25 AM
Hi, Following Alastair's very kind and patient advice I changed my very unreliable Airconnect for the WA-232E Alistair mentioned. I have a PowerFlarm portable connected to SD on an iPad via the wifi adapter WA-232E. I haven't done a lot of flying with it yet but so far it has proved 100% reliable. It has the added advantage that you can have up to 4 devices connected to the WA-232E, so I have a the PowerFlarm connected to my iPad and also to my iPhone which I use the full screen traffic radar falicity on SD for mobiles. Another advantage is that the WA-232E can be battery powered so I don't have to start the engine before configuring my PowerFlarm portable and SD for the flight.
On a related matter mode C/S traffic is no longer displayed on my SD although it is still shown on the screen of my PowerFlarm portable. This seemed to have stopped around the time of the last upgrade of SD. I have double checked all the settings on SD and my PowerFlarm to ensure that will all allow the display of mode C/S traffic on SD (again this was working late last year). Using a telnet session I have collected logs of the sentences coming out of my PowerFlarm data port and sent them to SD and Flarm, but unfortunately no fix yet.
I was just wondering if anyone else has seen this problem? I am aware of one other pilot who has experienced the same problem.
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By Tim Dawson - 3/23/2020 11:38:27 AM
Ken, there was no bearingless traffic information in the data you sent us.
Is it possible Flarm have stopped sending bearingless information on the datastream or made it optional?
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By Alastair Mutch - 3/23/2020 11:42:32 AM
+xKen, there was no bearingless traffic information in the data you sent us.
Is it possible Flarm have stopped sending bearingless information on the datastream or made it optional? I just checked mine yesterday as a C152 flew past my house with only mode-C and got both the traffic message and the circle appearing on SD. Very strange.
Alastair
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By tarutino - 3/23/2020 2:43:39 PM
+xI modified the earlier Airconnect (one with a pin code). This was done using the user interface described for the Microchip WiFly module used in these earlier units. I turned off the detection of LF (0xA) and set it to instead send out a Wifi packet when there was a gap of 100ms or more in the datastream to force it to send the GPS data in fewer, bigger chunks. This seemed to work OK on the ground - capturing the input data to Airconnect from flarm and also the output data on wifi and comparing the two showed no differences whereas with the original set-up it had occasional errors. (The newer Airconnect unit without a pin code had errors every few seconds. This uses a design from a German company In-Circuit and is not configurable afaik ).
Our gliding airfield has been flooded for a while and so I only managed to fly with the modified Airconnect once. Whilst it was 100% reliable on the ground. it still caused a Skydemon error in the air during the flight - when I was close to some busy airspace, close to patchy cloud and a bit stressed. This was with a Powerflarm Core. I haven't tried it again.
I gave up at that point and bought some serial to Wifi adapters from ebay and used them to replace the Airconnects on both of the aircraft I fly with Skydemon - a Falke motorglider and an AA5. I tested the adaptor at home in the same way as the Airconnect units and didn't see any data loss or corruption. I also tried a second different Taiwanese adaptor and that worked OK too.
When I tried it last week in the AA5 with a Powerflarm (FlarmBat) it was perfect for the whole 1 hour flight. We had two android tablets running Skydemon connected to it as my passenger also used his. Both worked perfectly and showed all of the traffic as expected. It worked 100% reliably on the ground when tested - no data corruption. .
The adaptor I used is this one: (I did try another adaptor from Taiwan as well and that worked fine too)
It’s simple enough to program it to emulate the Airconnect protocol – 192.168.1.1 and Port 2000. I set it to detect a gap in the serial data of greater than 100ms and send a Wifi packet out. I used a 9 way D-Type to rj15 adapter and then a bit of rj15-rj15 cable (6p6c) was quick and easy to knock up. It only needs +12V, 0V, TXdata and Rxdata connected.
A suitable adaptor plug is here:
I've chased Airconnect a few times but they don't have a fix for their units. Having said that several people seem to have them working without any issues - even on Powerflarms. Things tend to go wrong when I go near them I guess. Life it just too short to sort out other people's mistakes though.
Alastair
Hello Alastair, thank you very much for your Description. I have ordered this Adapter and will report when its installed. Thomas
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By ken@blackman.co.uk - 3/23/2020 2:56:21 PM
+xKen, there was no bearingless traffic information in the data you sent us.
Is it possible Flarm have stopped sending bearingless information on the datastream or made it optional? Hi Tim, following further patient and kind help from Alastair I have managed to get Mode C/S traffic displayed on my SD. It turned out that you were correct, my Powerflarm portable had stopped sending bearingless information on the datastream. Changing the settings on my PF from the control knob on the front had no effect, Alastair showed me how to reconfig my PF by loading a new config file via a SD card.
Many thanks for your help.
Ken
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By ken@blackman.co.uk - 5/18/2020 12:38:17 PM
+x+x+xKen, there was no bearingless traffic information in the data you sent us.
Is it possible Flarm have stopped sending bearingless information on the datastream or made it optional? Hi Tim, following further patient and kind help from Alastair I have managed to get Mode C/S traffic displayed on my SD. It turned out that you were correct, my Powerflarm portable had stopped sending bearingless information on the datastream. Changing the settings on my PF from the control knob on the front had no effect, Alastair showed me how to reconfig my PF by loading a new config file via a SD card.
Many thanks for your help.
Ken
Hi Ken, which firmware is on your PF Portable?
Hi Peer
Apologies for the delay in replying. My PF is on version 6.82
Regards
Ken
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By Europa XS - 6/1/2020 10:35:18 AM
+xI modified the earlier Airconnect (one with a pin code). This was done using the user interface described for the Microchip WiFly module used in these earlier units. I turned off the detection of LF (0xA) and set it to instead send out a Wifi packet when there was a gap of 100ms or more in the datastream to force it to send the GPS data in fewer, bigger chunks. This seemed to work OK on the ground - capturing the input data to Airconnect from flarm and also the output data on wifi and comparing the two showed no differences whereas with the original set-up it had occasional errors. (The newer Airconnect unit without a pin code had errors every few seconds. This uses a design from a German company In-Circuit and is not configurable afaik ).
Our gliding airfield has been flooded for a while and so I only managed to fly with the modified Airconnect once. Whilst it was 100% reliable on the ground. it still caused a Skydemon error in the air during the flight - when I was close to some busy airspace, close to patchy cloud and a bit stressed. This was with a Powerflarm Core. I haven't tried it again.
I gave up at that point and bought some serial to Wifi adapters from ebay and used them to replace the Airconnects on both of the aircraft I fly with Skydemon - a Falke motorglider and an AA5. I tested the adaptor at home in the same way as the Airconnect units and didn't see any data loss or corruption. I also tried a second different Taiwanese adaptor and that worked OK too.
When I tried it last week in the AA5 with a Powerflarm (FlarmBat) it was perfect for the whole 1 hour flight. We had two android tablets running Skydemon connected to it as my passenger also used his. Both worked perfectly and showed all of the traffic as expected. It worked 100% reliably on the ground when tested - no data corruption. .
The adaptor I used is this one: (I did try another adaptor from Taiwan as well and that worked fine too)
It’s simple enough to program it to emulate the Airconnect protocol – 192.168.1.1 and Port 2000. I set it to detect a gap in the serial data of greater than 100ms and send a Wifi packet out. I used a 9 way D-Type to rj15 adapter and then a bit of rj15-rj15 cable (6p6c) was quick and easy to knock up. It only needs +12V, 0V, TXdata and Rxdata connected.
A suitable adaptor plug is here:
I've chased Airconnect a few times but they don't have a fix for their units. Having said that several people seem to have them working without any issues - even on Powerflarms. Things tend to go wrong when I go near them I guess. Life it just too short to sort out other people's mistakes though.
Alastair
Dear Alastair, I have been struggling with the same data transfer problems with AirConnect (with pin) for a long time. Have actually given up. I am interested again through your research. I bought a serial / WIFI connector that is largely freely programmable. But I'm not a specialist. Can you give me some tips or even better instructions? I'm grateful for any support.
Thank you very much
Herbert
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By fokus - 5/5/2020 10:08:07 AM
+x+xKen, there was no bearingless traffic information in the data you sent us.
Is it possible Flarm have stopped sending bearingless information on the datastream or made it optional? Hi Tim, following further patient and kind help from Alastair I have managed to get Mode C/S traffic displayed on my SD. It turned out that you were correct, my Powerflarm portable had stopped sending bearingless information on the datastream. Changing the settings on my PF from the control knob on the front had no effect, Alastair showed me how to reconfig my PF by loading a new config file via a SD card.
Many thanks for your help.
Ken
which firmware is on your PF Portable?
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By Alastair Mutch - 6/1/2020 1:34:31 PM
+x+xI modified the earlier Airconnect (one with a pin code). This was done using the user interface described for the Microchip WiFly module used in these earlier units. I turned off the detection of LF (0xA) and set it to instead send out a Wifi packet when there was a gap of 100ms or more in the datastream to force it to send the GPS data in fewer, bigger chunks. This seemed to work OK on the ground - capturing the input data to Airconnect from flarm and also the output data on wifi and comparing the two showed no differences whereas with the original set-up it had occasional errors. (The newer Airconnect unit without a pin code had errors every few seconds. This uses a design from a German company In-Circuit and is not configurable afaik ).
Our gliding airfield has been flooded for a while and so I only managed to fly with the modified Airconnect once. Whilst it was 100% reliable on the ground. it still caused a Skydemon error in the air during the flight - when I was close to some busy airspace, close to patchy cloud and a bit stressed. This was with a Powerflarm Core. I haven't tried it again.
I gave up at that point and bought some serial to Wifi adapters from ebay and used them to replace the Airconnects on both of the aircraft I fly with Skydemon - a Falke motorglider and an AA5. I tested the adaptor at home in the same way as the Airconnect units and didn't see any data loss or corruption. I also tried a second different Taiwanese adaptor and that worked OK too.
When I tried it last week in the AA5 with a Powerflarm (FlarmBat) it was perfect for the whole 1 hour flight. We had two android tablets running Skydemon connected to it as my passenger also used his. Both worked perfectly and showed all of the traffic as expected. It worked 100% reliably on the ground when tested - no data corruption. .
The adaptor I used is this one: (I did try another adaptor from Taiwan as well and that worked fine too)
It’s simple enough to program it to emulate the Airconnect protocol – 192.168.1.1 and Port 2000. I set it to detect a gap in the serial data of greater than 100ms and send a Wifi packet out. I used a 9 way D-Type to rj15 adapter and then a bit of rj15-rj15 cable (6p6c) was quick and easy to knock up. It only needs +12V, 0V, TXdata and Rxdata connected.
A suitable adaptor plug is here:
I've chased Airconnect a few times but they don't have a fix for their units. Having said that several people seem to have them working without any issues - even on Powerflarms. Things tend to go wrong when I go near them I guess. Life it just too short to sort out other people's mistakes though.
Alastair
Dear Alastair, I have been struggling with the same data transfer problems with AirConnect (with pin) for a long time. Have actually given up. I am interested again through your research. I bought a serial / WIFI connector that is largely freely programmable. But I'm not a specialist. Can you give me some tips or even better instructions? I'm grateful for any support.
Thank you very much
Herbert
Dear Herbert, The instructions are dependant on the type of Wifi unit you have bought. If it is the WA-232F that I mentioned above then I can give you a link to some screen dumps of how to set it up easily enough. Alternatively you can send me your unit and I'll set it up and knock up a cable for you. Best PM me rather than clutter up Tim's nice forum. aim (at) scottishglidingcentre.com will get through.
Alastair.
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