LXNav V7 vs Butterfly vario? [Archive]

Richard[_9_]

January 4th 13, 07:17 PM

On Friday, January 4, 2013 9:32:33 AM UTC-8, Chris Davison wrote:
> Anyone got any in flight experience of the LX Nav V7 or the Butterfly vario? I love the features of the Butterfly but looking at YouTube clips it seems to be way too sensitive?? Any alternatives? Thanks Chris

Chris,

I have flown with both the LX Navigation LX1606, LXNAV V7 and the Butterfly Vario. Probably about 30 hours.

This YouTube shows an LX1606 and the Butterfly Vario. Hard to see the LX1606 in the YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1i0IVkHUnWU

The ButterFly Vario is the only display I have ever seen that is as good as my Ultimate Le in the sun.

I don't have a YouTube vs the V7.

I also found the SC a little sensitive on the Butterfly and emailed them about the issue last fall. They agreed and the latest Firmware of the Butterfly added a compensation menu item for the SC error filter. So you can adjust to what you desire. The compensation values in all the instruments should be set to smooth the performance of the vario and in my opinion don't really correspond to seconds.

I tuned the Butterfly Varo using compensation values to exactly match the LX1606 and V7. The V7 and Butterfly have more features than the LX1606. I have not had a chance to test the Butterfly with the latest firmware and the SC compensation, but I am confident it will work well. The V7 and Butterfly also have flarm screens.

All three varios in my opinion are an great improvement over CAI 302 technology.

They also allow PowerFlarm integration with out a multiplexer and operate at much higher baud rates that the 302.

I have all in stock.

Richard
www.craggyaero.com.

Richard[_9_]

January 4th 13, 07:20 PM

On Friday, January 4, 2013 10:17:05 AM UTC-8, son_of_flubber wrote:
> Clear Nav, LX Nav, Butterfly, Vega varios... Is there an open protocol that allows these varios to talk to any and all Soaring_Software/PDA that implements interoperability with them? Or does your choice of vario also commit you to a brand of Soaring_Software/PDA? I realize that you don't necessarily need your Vario to inter-operate with you PDA, but isn't that half the point of spending $2-3000 on a new vario?

The LXNAV V7, LX1606, and Butterfly Vario with send air data to just about any PDA, PNA software.

Richard
www.craggyaero.com

Sean F (F2)

January 4th 13, 08:49 PM

Love my V7!

[email protected]

January 5th 13, 01:02 AM

Richard

The V7 is on my spring wish list. Do you have cables appropriate for connections to Mio 400 running LK8000 and EW Micro Recorder flight logger?

Lane
XF

Richard[_9_]

January 5th 13, 01:48 AM

On Friday, January 4, 2013 5:02:54 PM UTC-8, wrote:
> Richard The V7 is on my spring wish list. Do you have cables appropriate for connections to Mio 400 running LK8000 and EW Micro Recorder flight logger? Lane XF

Lane,

I think the Mio is more trouble that it is worth as far a GPS connection.

I would recommend the Oudie Lite that will run the LK8000 Software.

I have direct cables from the V7 to the Oudie, this cable may work or let the smoke out of the Mio.

No problem with the EW Micro the V7 will provide 12V, RX, TX, GND and I can make a cable.

Richard
www.craggyaero.com

[email protected]

January 5th 13, 01:59 AM

Thanks

I love my mio and have my students using it. $50 setup that seems to work fine. I'll try to download the diagrams and see if pinout is same as oudie.

Lane

Bastoune

January 5th 13, 05:20 AM

On Friday, January 4, 2013 7:59:52 PM UTC-6, wrote:
> Thanks I love my mio and have my students using it. $50 setup that seems to work fine. I'll try to download the diagrams and see if pinout is same as oudie. Lane

Lane,

I have a V7 and I am extremely happy with it. I ran it connected to a MIO400 this summer and it worked flawlessly. I can't remember exactly what was my cable configuration but it was pretty easy with the pin out provided in the V7 Manual. I switched to a V2 PNA this fall and the cable that was provided with the V7 (normally designed to work with the Oudie) worked like a charm, plug and play.

[email protected]

January 5th 13, 11:54 PM

So I have both a V7 that I used at Standard Class Nats last summer, and now also have a Butterfly vario. Sadly, the Butterfly unit didn't arrive until very late in the soaring season, so I've racked up far less experience with the unit. Previously, I used a Cambridge 302 / 303 combination. Here are some thoughts:

(1) Both the V7 and the Butterfly are fantastic units, and a significant upgrade in terms of overall usability compared to the 302/303 combination.

(2) The V7 is significantly easier to install. The Butterfly has a separate box that contains the inertial measurement system, and this has some tricky installation requirements—needs to be level in flight, aligned with the axis of flight, and isolated from sources of magnetic and electrical interference. I ended up installing mine behind my spars, and then routing the communication cable to the Butterfly display in my panel. This also required pulling pitot, static, and TE lines to the shelf behind my spar. Nothing was insanely difficult, but in the end this required a substantial re-wiring of my entire panel.

(3) The Butterfly display is gorgeous. It's easy to read in the brightest conditions.

(4) I use the Butterfly to display Flarm traffic from my Flarm brick. This in combination with sending Flarm traffic to my PDA avoids the need for a separate Flarm display in my opinion.

(5) As a vario and speed to fly computer, I think the V7 and Butterfly are equal right now. I believe that the Butterfly has the potential to become much better in time because it will have the advantage of the inertial measurements for gust filtering and so on. Although I have no special knowledge, my impression is that the Butterfly software is not fully being exploiting all of the data it is getting from the IMU.

(6) Both are very easy to configure to your preferences.

(7) Customer support seems to be a bit better from LXNav in my experience. I had a problem at Nats and received responses to my emails within hours that helped me solve my problems. The Butterfly folks have been responsive to my questions, but usually it takes a couple of days and often it has been an acknowledgment that, yes, I'm an early adopter and they will have to address my concern in a future firmware update.

(8) The Butterfly vario is insanely well built. Parts and finish are all are very high quality.

I'm personally supper happy with both, and look forward to getting more out of them this season. I don't think you would be unhappy with either choice.. It's really a question of how far out do you want to be out on the edge of vario technology—the Butterfly has more to offer in that area.

Chris
42DJ

Kimmo Hytoenen

January 6th 13, 10:13 AM

These new intelligent variometers have a lot options that can be
set by the PNA / Flight computer SW. I would not purchase a
system, which is not open and fully documented. I have discussed
with some variometer manufacturers about their data
communication protocols, and some of them either do not disclose
information, or do not give correct information. Some of them did
not even answer to my emails.

IMHO the value of your variometer will go down faster if it is a
closed platform. If it is open, and can connect with XCSoar and
LK8000 and others, you will benefit of all the new innovations these
soaring SW gurus will develop.

Chris Davison[_2_]

January 6th 13, 01:20 PM

How do the V7 and Butterfly rate in terms of being open and do
they work with XCSoar and K8000??

Chris

At 10:13 06 January 2013, Kimmo Hytoenen wrote:
>These new intelligent variometers have a lot options that can be
>set by the PNA / Flight computer SW. I would not purchase a
>system, which is not open and fully documented. I have discussed
>with some variometer manufacturers about their data
>communication protocols, and some of them either do not disclose
>information, or do not give correct information. Some of them did
>not even answer to my emails.
>
>IMHO the value of your variometer will go down faster if it is a
>closed platform. If it is open, and can connect with XCSoar and
>LK8000 and others, you will benefit of all the new innovations
these
>soaring SW gurus will develop.
>
>

son_of_flubber

January 6th 13, 03:00 PM

On Sunday, January 6, 2013 5:13:39 AM UTC-5, Kimmo Hytoenen wrote:
> I have discussed
> with some variometer manufacturers about their data
> communication protocols, and some of them either do not disclose
> information, or do not give correct information.

That's not surprising. The vario-makers are in competition with each other, and perhaps more to the point, the early adopters of the new varios are in competition with each other.

Evan Ludeman[_4_]

January 6th 13, 04:14 PM

On Sunday, January 6, 2013 10:00:38 AM UTC-5, son_of_flubber wrote:
> On Sunday, January 6, 2013 5:13:39 AM UTC-5, Kimmo Hytoenen wrote:
>
> > I have discussed
>
> > with some variometer manufacturers about their data
>
> > communication protocols, and some of them either do not disclose
>
> > information, or do not give correct information.
>
>
>
> That's not surprising. The vario-makers are in competition with each other, and perhaps more to the point, the early adopters of the new varios are in competition with each other.

FWIW, ClearNav CNv XC, due out Mar 31, will provide GPS and air data out on the serial port according to the CAI dataport standard, which anyone can use.

Evan Ludeman for ClearNav Instruments

David Reitter

January 6th 13, 04:18 PM

On Sunday, January 6, 2013 8:20:09 AM UTC-5, Chris Davison wrote:
> How do the V7 and Butterfly rate in terms of being open and do
> they work with XCSoar and K8000??

I wrote the initial XCSoar driver for the V7. We got sufficient info from LXNav about the protocol to make things work. MC and Bug bias synchronization work as well as all air data and GPS exchange.

I also built a Bluetooth module for my V7 (you can just buy one now) and that wasn't a big deal either. So, no problems in this department with the LX stuff.

LK8000 supports the V7 as well, though I haven't tried it out for lack of an LK8000 installation.

Richard[_9_]

January 6th 13, 04:50 PM

On Sunday, January 6, 2013 7:00:38 AM UTC-8, son_of_flubber wrote:
> On Sunday, January 6, 2013 5:13:39 AM UTC-5, Kimmo Hytoenen wrote: > I have discussed > with some variometer manufacturers about their data > communication protocols, and some of them either do not disclose > information, or do not give correct information. That's not surprising. The vario-makers are in competition with each other, and perhaps more to the point, the early adopters of the new varios are in competition with each other.

I believe Flarm, LX NAV, LX Navigation, and ButterFly are relatively open about their data output. That is their business and openess promotes more sales.
You also don't have to wait until ????

Richard
www.craggyaero.com

son_of_flubber

January 6th 13, 05:30 PM

Apple was historically NOT an open system... and look where they ended up!

pcool

January 6th 13, 07:45 PM

LK8000 supports V7 since march 17th, 2012.
LX (both LXnav and LXnavigation, as well as most of other manufacturers) are
always very helpful and provide docs, specs, support, and sometimes also the
hardware itself to test on.
Sometimes we discover together bugs, and they are promptly fixed.
We dont have butterfly cooperation yet, but I am sure they are kind people
too.

The only problem with these devices is that they are too many, too flexible,
and too good!!

"Chris Davison" wrote in message
...

How do the V7 and Butterfly rate in terms of being open and do
they work with XCSoar and K8000??

Chris

At 10:13 06 January 2013, Kimmo Hytoenen wrote:
>These new intelligent variometers have a lot options that can be
>set by the PNA / Flight computer SW. I would not purchase a
>system, which is not open and fully documented. I have discussed
>with some variometer manufacturers about their data
>communication protocols, and some of them either do not disclose
>information, or do not give correct information. Some of them did
>not even answer to my emails.
>
>IMHO the value of your variometer will go down faster if it is a
>closed platform. If it is open, and can connect with XCSoar and
>LK8000 and others, you will benefit of all the new innovations
these
>soaring SW gurus will develop.
>
>

Max Kellermann[_2_]

January 7th 13, 08:34 AM

On Sunday, January 6, 2013 2:20:09 PM UTC+1, Chris Davison wrote:
> How do the V7 and Butterfly rate in terms of being open and do
>
> they work with XCSoar and K8000??

Some first-hand experience (I've contacted many vendors because I'm a voluntary XCSoar developer, and I co-wrote many of XCSoar's vario drivers):

LXNAV is extremely responsive and helpful. A few V7 protocol improvements were suggestions by me, and a new firmware was published after a few days. LXNAV has donated a V7 vario and a Nano logger to the XCSoar project. Thanks to that, XCSoar works very well with these products.

Note that LXNAV and LX Navigation are different companies; this cannot be pointed out often enough, as many people mix the two. LX Navigation has donated a MiniMap a few years ago, but getting technical information about the LX160/LX1600 product family was impossible for me, no reply to my emails. Therefore, no good XCSoar support.

Butterfly was very interested in XCSoar support, and has promised to donate a Vario to us, but that has not happened yet. XCSoar has no driver for the Butterfly Vario yet. If you're looking for a Vario to connect to XCSoar, wait until we are able to promise good interoperability. I'm positive that this will happen soon.

Another vario that works extremely well with XCSoar is the CAI302. Cambridge has published extensive and excellent protocol documentation before they (unfortunately) disappeared.

Its declared successor from ClearNav has no XCSoar support, and I suppose there will never be. ClearNav did not publish protocol documentation. I asked for documentation, but Richard Kellerman (who I'm not related to) rejected, saying his business is not interested in interoperability with XCSoar. Don't buy if you want to connect it to XCSoar (or any other free software).

Also don't buy Westerboer and SDI/Zander. Westerboer used copyright to take down VW1200 protocol documentation. SDI said (like ClearNav) they're not interested in XCSoar.

Evan Ludeman[_4_]

January 7th 13, 11:24 AM

On Monday, January 7, 2013 3:34:34 AM UTC-5, Max Kellermann wrote:

> Another vario that works extremely well with XCSoar is the CAI302. Cambridge has published extensive and excellent protocol documentation before they (unfortunately) disappeared.
>
>
>
> Its declared successor from ClearNav has no XCSoar support, and I suppose there will never be. ClearNav did not publish protocol documentation. I asked for documentation, but Richard Kellerman (who I'm not related to) rejected, saying his business is not interested in interoperability with XCSoar. Don't buy if you want to connect it to XCSoar (or any other free software)..
>
>

Cambridge is still around, although they are no longer doingany product development that I know of. I had my 302 repaired a couple of weeks ago.

While it is true that ClearNav is not interested in working with XCSoar, we will, as previously mentioned, support the CAI dataport communications standard for our upcoming CNv XC, so the XCSoar community, as well as everybody else already has our protocol. All CNvs sold to date may be software upgraded to XC version with dataport capability. See our website for more information or for more questions, please join our forum.

Evan Ludeman for ClearNav Instruments

http://www.clearnav.net

Max Kellermann[_2_]

January 7th 13, 01:52 PM

On Monday, January 7, 2013 12:24:10 PM UTC+1, Evan Ludeman wrote:
> While it is true that ClearNav is not interested in working with XCSoar, we will, as previously mentioned, support the CAI dataport communications standard for our upcoming CNv XC, so the XCSoar community, as well as everybody else already has our protocol.

That's a trap. It sounds like "buy ClearNav, and it will work with XCSoar", but it will not. Without cooperation, there _will_ be problems .

( = it will work only if you emulate all CAI302 firmware bugs, bit by bit, and all timings are identical. The thing is, the CAI302 does not follow its own dataport communication standard. Not a big deal for XCSoar, we have workarounds, but a standards-compliant device will not work.)

We already know that ClearNav is not interested in XCSoar, and therefore I am mutually not interested in ClearNav. Connecting a ClearNav vario to XCSoar is explicitly not supported.

Though I hope ClearNav changes their minds. (It's up to their customers to highlight the importance of connectivity to them, or to choose a vendor that is open enough for one's personal taste.)

Evan Ludeman[_4_]

January 7th 13, 02:33 PM

On Monday, January 7, 2013 8:52:39 AM UTC-5, Max Kellermann wrote:
> On Monday, January 7, 2013 12:24:10 PM UTC+1, Evan Ludeman wrote:
>
> > While it is true that ClearNav is not interested in working with XCSoar, we will, as previously mentioned, support the CAI dataport communications standard for our upcoming CNv XC, so the XCSoar community, as well as everybody else already has our protocol.
>
>
>
> That's a trap. It sounds like "buy ClearNav, and it will work with XCSoar", but it will not. Without cooperation, there _will_ be problems .
>
>
>
> ( = it will work only if you emulate all CAI302 firmware bugs, bit by bit, and all timings are identical. The thing is, the CAI302 does not follow its own dataport communication standard. Not a big deal for XCSoar, we have workarounds, but a standards-compliant device will not work.)
>
>
>
> We already know that ClearNav is not interested in XCSoar, and therefore I am mutually not interested in ClearNav. Connecting a ClearNav vario to XCSoar is explicitly not supported.
>
>
>
> Though I hope ClearNav changes their minds. (It's up to their customers to highlight the importance of connectivity to them, or to choose a vendor that is open enough for one's personal taste.)

"Trap". Okay... one more time....

We aren't, and won't be making a 302 replacement. We will be using the CAI developed and published dataport standard and with any luck at all we'll be doing a much better job of it than CAI ever did. If users have issues with our products, they should contact us and I have no doubt they will. Where the problems are with our products, we'll do our best to solve them. Hope that's clear?

Third party developers are of course free to integrate their products with CNv based upon the aforementioned standard. That's the point of using an open standard. If there are issues that come up, you should contact us. If the issues are our issues, I expect we'll fix them.

Evan Ludeman for ClearNav Instruments
http://www.clearnav.net

Tobias Bieniek

January 7th 13, 04:18 PM

> Note that LXNAV and LX Navigation are different companies; this cannot be pointed out often enough, as many people mix the two. LX Navigation has donated a MiniMap a few years ago, but getting technical information about the LX160/LX1600 product family was impossible for me, no reply to my emails. Therefore, no good XCSoar support.

I've contacted LX Navigation about their LX1606 vario and they replied with the documentation in a matter of days. No problems on my side.

> Butterfly was very interested in XCSoar support, and has promised to donate a Vario to us, but that has not happened yet. XCSoar has no driver for the Butterfly Vario yet. If you're looking for a Vario to connect to XCSoar, wait until we are able to promise good interoperability. I'm positive that this will happen soon.

The Butterfly vario apparently can be configured to behave like either an LX, a CAI302 or a Triadis Vega vario. Since XCSoar supports all those devices there really shouldn't be many problems in connecting the two.

> Its declared successor from ClearNav has no XCSoar support, and I suppose there will never be. ClearNav did not publish protocol documentation. I asked for documentation, but Richard Kellerman (who I'm not related to) rejected, saying his business is not interested in interoperability with XCSoar. Don't buy if you want to connect it to XCSoar (or any other free software)..

As Evan stated already the ClearNav will use the CAI protocol, so I see no need to publish any protocol documentation from their side. We might just have to disable those workarounds for the ClearNav vario.

Evan Ludeman[_4_]

January 7th 13, 05:02 PM

On Monday, January 7, 2013 11:18:32 AM UTC-5, Tobias Bieniek wrote:
> > Note that LXNAV and LX Navigation are different companies; this cannot be pointed out often enough, as many people mix the two. LX Navigation has donated a MiniMap a few years ago, but getting technical information about the LX160/LX1600 product family was impossible for me, no reply to my emails. Therefore, no good XCSoar support.
>
>
>
> I've contacted LX Navigation about their LX1606 vario and they replied with the documentation in a matter of days. No problems on my side.
>
>
>
> > Butterfly was very interested in XCSoar support, and has promised to donate a Vario to us, but that has not happened yet. XCSoar has no driver for the Butterfly Vario yet. If you're looking for a Vario to connect to XCSoar, wait until we are able to promise good interoperability. I'm positive that this will happen soon.
>
>
>
> The Butterfly vario apparently can be configured to behave like either an LX, a CAI302 or a Triadis Vega vario. Since XCSoar supports all those devices there really shouldn't be many problems in connecting the two.
>
>
>
> > Its declared successor from ClearNav has no XCSoar support, and I suppose there will never be. ClearNav did not publish protocol documentation. I asked for documentation, but Richard Kellerman (who I'm not related to) rejected, saying his business is not interested in interoperability with XCSoar. Don't buy if you want to connect it to XCSoar (or any other free software).
>
>
>
> As Evan stated already the ClearNav will use the CAI protocol, so I see no need to publish any protocol documentation from their side. We might just have to disable those workarounds for the ClearNav vario.

I suggest you treat CNv as the all-new device it is and plan that it will conform to the CAI dataport standard as written, not as implemented over a decade ago by others. I expect we'll have more to say about this when we're closer to product release.

Evan Ludeman for ClearNav Instruments

Max Kellermann[_2_]

January 7th 13, 05:19 PM

On Monday, January 7, 2013 5:18:32 PM UTC+1, Tobias Bieniek wrote:
> I've contacted LX Navigation about their LX1606 vario and they replied with the documentation in a matter of days. No problems on my side.

There is no problem on your side because you did not consider the pass-through bug.

> The Butterfly vario apparently can be configured to behave like either an LX, a CAI302 or a Triadis Vega vario. Since XCSoar supports all those devices there really shouldn't be many problems in connecting the two.

You are talking only about the NMEA extensions, only a very small part of the protocol. And anyway, the NMEA extensions you named are not capable of the advanced Butterfly features. Why buy such an expensive vario, when a CAI302, Vega or LX will do the same?

"Not many problems" is not a desirable state of affairs for glider electronics. We can do better than that. I want us to do better. Therefore, I will only promise that Butterfly works after I have confirmation that it does.

> As Evan stated already the ClearNav will use the CAI protocol, so I see no need to publish any protocol documentation from their side. We might just have to disable those workarounds for the ClearNav vario.

You don't understand, and your post is misleading. This is about a vendor who explicitly says he is not willing to support XCSoar. The vendor will not tell us which workarounds shall be disabled, which new bugs may be in the firmware, and how to detect the ClearNav vario in the first place. You don't even know where to start.

I find it very problematic that you implicitly suggest that problems with ClearNav interoperability will magically be solved. That is a promise to (potential) ClearNav customers. Will you take responsibility for it? Because I won't.

Tobias Bieniek

January 7th 13, 05:44 PM

> > I've contacted LX Navigation about their LX1606 vario and they replied with the documentation in a matter of days. No problems on my side.
>
> There is no problem on your side because you did not consider the pass-through bug.

I am not aware of "the pass-through" bug. I consider these pass-through modes a hack anyway and would not encourage the use of such a mode. IMHO it makes more sense to connect all the devices independently to each other.

> > The Butterfly vario apparently can be configured to behave like either an LX, a CAI302 or a Triadis Vega vario. Since XCSoar supports all those devices there really shouldn't be many problems in connecting the two.
>
> You are talking only about the NMEA extensions, only a very small part of the protocol. And anyway, the NMEA extensions you named are not capable of the advanced Butterfly features.

Yes, I was only talking about the NMEA extensions, since what is documented so far. I've heard from one user also that the Vega driver can also be used for reading IGC files and writing tasks, but I haven't verified that yet. It might be useful to not that the logger of the Butterfly vario is a separate component with a separate interface that uses the Vega protocol. That part doesn't even need an CAN-NMEA converter.

> Why buy such an expensive vario, when a CAI302, Vega or LX will do the same?

Because they don't do the same. Butterfly is not passing all the data on to the PDA, but it does very well use the data for its internal calculations.

> "Not many problems" is not a desirable state of affairs for glider electronics. We can do better than that. I want us to do better. Therefore, I will only promise that Butterfly works after I have confirmation that it does.

Sure, I agree. I never said that I promise it, only that it is very likely to work as expected.

> > As Evan stated already the ClearNav will use the CAI protocol, so I see no need to publish any protocol documentation from their side. We might just have to disable those workarounds for the ClearNav vario.
>
> You don't understand, and your post is misleading. This is about a vendor who explicitly says he is not willing to support XCSoar. The vendor will not tell us which workarounds shall be disabled, which new bugs may be in the firmware, and how to detect the ClearNav vario in the first place. You don't even know where to start.

Indeed, I don't understand. Why not implement the driver according to the protocol documentation without any workarounds and assuming no bugs. If the ClearNav vario is not following that then that is not our problem. It is in any case better than having no support at all. I clearly don't see the problem here, besides ClearNav missing the point of being an open vendor.

> I find it very problematic that you implicitly suggest that problems with ClearNav interoperability will magically be solved. That is a promise to (potential) ClearNav customers. Will you take responsibility for it? Because I won't.

I was actually thinking about buying a ClearNav vario in the future and I know some people that have already done that. Again, I never said anything about promises, just that it is quite likely to work as expected as the driver is already there or that it might be possible to support it with just minor changes.

Max Kellermann[_2_]

January 7th 13, 06:11 PM

On Monday, January 7, 2013 6:44:02 PM UTC+1, Tobias Bieniek wrote:
> I've heard from one user also that the Vega driver can also be used for reading IGC files and writing tasks

Impossible. The Vega is not a logger. Its protocol cannot be used for any of that.

> Why not implement the driver according to the protocol documentation without any workarounds and assuming no bugs.

Because ClearNav refuses to cooperate with us, that's why. There will not be a ClearNav driver in XCSoar because nobody will write it.

> I clearly don't see the problem here, besides ClearNav missing the point of being an open vendor.

Why would they care? They would care if it turns out to be important for their (potential) customers. What you wrote makes people think openness doesn't matter, because, uh, you wrote that it will likely work anyway, and if not, we will disable some workarounds, and then it may work (or not?), yadda yadda. But it will not work, and nobody will figure it out. What you wrote is misleading and only distracts from the real problem. You make it worse, because your post seems to approve ClearNav's behaviour, instead of explaining why openness matters.

I admit you didn't explicitly write that, in fact your posts don't say anything, it's only speculation and rumor, devoid of facts. But it's rhethorically suggstive to people who have less insight into this big problem than we do.

Tobias Bieniek

January 7th 13, 11:34 PM

> > I've heard from one user also that the Vega driver can also be used for reading IGC files and writing tasks
>
> Impossible. The Vega is not a logger. Its protocol cannot be used for any of that.

Seems I got confused there. It might have been the Altair Pro/RU driver instead.

> > Why not implement the driver according to the protocol documentation without any workarounds and assuming no bugs.
>
> Because ClearNav refuses to cooperate with us, that's why. There will not be a ClearNav driver in XCSoar because nobody will write it.

I think if there is a high demand for it, someone will step up and do it. Whether it will be me or someone else, I don't know yet.

> > I clearly don't see the problem here, besides ClearNav missing the point of being an open vendor.
>
> Why would they care? They would care if it turns out to be important for their (potential) customers. What you wrote makes people think openness doesn't matter, because, uh, you wrote that it will likely work anyway, and if not, we will disable some workarounds, and then it may work (or not?), yadda yadda. But it will not work, and nobody will figure it out. What you wrote is misleading and only distracts from the real problem. You make it worse, because your post seems to approve ClearNav's behaviour, instead of explaining why openness matters.
>
>
>
> I admit you didn't explicitly write that, in fact your posts don't say anything, it's only speculation and rumor, devoid of facts. But it's rhethorically suggstive to people who have less insight into this big problem than we do.

To be honest, I don't know how much more open they need to be. They gave the information on the protocol and they created a forum to discuss the implementation. All they did not do yet was lending or donating hardware, but I don't expect every vendor to do that. If they don't they will simply have to wait until someone steps up to do the driver.

I think this has started to be a rather pointless off-topic discussion since the original thread was about the quality of the vario itself, and not the connections to external devices. Sorry about that!

GC[_2_]

January 8th 13, 02:59 AM

On 8/01/2013 00:52, Max Kellermann wrote:
> On Monday, January 7, 2013 12:24:10 PM UTC+1, Evan Ludeman wrote:
>> While it is true that ClearNav is not interested in working with
>> XCSoar, we will, as previously mentioned, support the CAI dataport
>> communications standard for our upcoming CNv XC, so the XCSoar
>> community, as well as everybody else already has our protocol.
>
> That's a trap. It sounds like "buy ClearNav, and it will work with
> XCSoar", but it will not. Without cooperation, there _will_ be
> problems .
>
> ( = it will work only if you emulate all CAI302 firmware bugs, bit
> by bit, and all timings are identical. The thing is, the CAI302 does
> not follow its own dataport communication standard. Not a big deal
> for XCSoar, we have workarounds, but a standards-compliant device
> will not work.)
>
> We already know that ClearNav is not interested in XCSoar, and
> therefore I am mutually not interested in ClearNav. Connecting a
> ClearNav vario to XCSoar is explicitly not supported.

That sounds very much like pure, bloody-minded sour grapes, Max. XCSoar
will not work with Clear Nav because xcsoar will make sure it won't! I
love it when the lovey-dovey world of the open-source hot-gospellers
meets the slightest opposition to their world view. No more Mr Nice Guy!

Evan said CN was the same as Cambridge. Max says the Cambridge protocol
works well with XCsoar. It appears the only problem is that CN won't
grovel. Good for them!

I'm also interested that Max morphs here from just 'someone who's worked
on XCSoar' (earlier post) to 'I am mutually not interested'. It is
clear that XCSoar's salvation was Max imposing control and leadership on
a loose, woolly and dying project. A very commercial model. Similarly,
LK8000 is a tribute to Paolo's management skills as well as his code
writing talent.

> Though I hope ClearNav changes their minds. (It's up to their
> customers to highlight the importance of connectivity to them, or to
> choose a vendor that is open enough for one's personal taste.)

'NOT very open' is generally my taste. There is some lovely open source
software but I believe that's in spite of the model rather than because
of it. There is also a vast wasteland of sloppy, bloated, unfinished
and buggy projects. Most open source people in my experience are rather
too intolerant of different views and obsessive and evangelical about
their preferred software model - as Max has demonstrated here and the
earlier threats and disparagement of Flarm showed.

I know this is all a bit off-topic but I resent open source's totally
unjustified claim to the moral high ground and I'll write against it
every time they push it. It's all just code and doing it for prestige
and reputation is no more praiseworthy than doing it for money.

Cheers,
GC