Looking for a Colibri ii

Well, on some products. If the epoch is wrong, replacing or recharging
the battery doesn't fix the problem. I've got an ancient Garmin GPS 12
still with the correct date. If the battery went bad, maybe the case
could be popped open, but it wouldn't be worth messing with.

Of course if you open up a secure logger, you break the electronic seal
and there goes your valid traces. The old GPS-NAV let you easily
replace the electronic seal battery, but only if you knew to provide
external power as you were doing that. Replacing the GPS battery would
be not feasible for the user.

Still a lot of CAI 302 loggers in use, they ought to be charged a couple
times in the off season.

Dave


On 3/3/21 3:29 PM, Dan Marotta wrote:
"Not user replaceable" means there's not a little door on the unit which
you can open, remove, and replace the battery.Â* If you're handy or
adventurous, pop that sucker open, find the battery, and replace it. You
may need to do a little soldering...

Dan
5J

On 3/3/21 9:45 AM, Moshe Braner wrote:
On 3/3/2021 10:49 AM, Mike Carris wrote:
On Wednesday, March 3, 2021 at 8:36:11 AM UTC-7, Dan Marotta wrote:
Yeah, and all those 40 year old gliders got badges and records without
any of that fancy stuff. And who doesn't miss the fun of turn point
photos taken out of the sector, or film disallowed because the
processor
cut it, balky barographs, etc.? It took more flights but it was more
fun, I think, the diamonds still sparkle!

Dan
5J
On 3/2/21 5:54 PM, Moshe Braner wrote:
On Tuesday, March 2, 2021 at 6:26:48 PM UTC-5, nickkennedy wrote:
Len
I had a Colibri 2
I really disliked that thing, very difficult to use unless you
have programmer level skills I found out.
Ancient technology.
LXNAV has 3 IGC flight recorders from $480 ,$610 ,$810
The $$610 and 810 have map screens and alot of features along with
a logger.
Easy to use and will last forever.
CRAGGYAERO.COM has them at a good price point.
Call Richard, he'll fix you right up.
Nick
T

Alas nothing lasts "forever". Funny when people put such faith into
the current models, but when I ask why I can't get factory support
for a 15-year-old model I'm told "what do you expect?" Old
mechanical instruments of good quality did last a long time - e.g.,
Sage varios. The Scheumann box in my (originally Kai Gertsen's)
HP14 was still soldiering on after 40 years. Electronics: not so
much. Computerized electronics: designed obsolescence.

A Nano works great and is simple and relatively inexpensive.
Connected to a XCSoar smart phone via BT, gives you everything you
need for XC on any level.


Right, a usable and relatively inexpensive setup.Â* I similarly use
FLARM + Tophat.

But, after a decade or so the battery keeping the IGC security data
inside the Nano (or FLARM or whatever) will die, and you'll need to
have it officially re-blessed.Â* And even if you don't care about
official badges and records, the loss of settings may force you to
replace the battery - if it's replaceable.Â* And the tiny battery in
the GPS module will eventually die, making it slow in re-gaining a
fix, and may lose necessary settings.Â* And that battery may not be
replaceable.Â* And the main power battery inside the Nano (or any other
unit) will die, and may or may not be user-replaceable.Â* And there may
or may not be factory support.

Batteries, can't live with them, can't live without them.

On Wed, 03 Mar 2021 15:36:46 -0500, Moshe Braner wrote:

Alas some of them use non-rechargeable coin cells, that you cannot keep
alive by maintaining the main power.

I thought I'd said that already, but what I should have emphasized more
clearly is that as long as the main rechargeable batteries have enough
charge in them to maintain a usable voltage *no current is being drawn
from the coin cell* so it degrades only very slowly. There *may* be a
diode to prevent flow into the coin cell while the main batteries are
good, but I bet a lot of electronics maker leave that out.

The proof of this is that the original coin cell in my first GPS II+ had
dropped far enough in two years to be flashing up #battery low' warnings
and this is what prompted to get it repaired. At that stage I was running
the alkalines flat and only replacing them before the next time I used
the GPS.

Now, almost 25 years later, both GPS II+ units are still going strong and
not warning about the coin cell getting depleted. It can be safely said
that this is due to the alkilines always being replaced when the battery
state indicator falls to 25% and never taking more than 30 seconds to
swap old batteries for new ones.

If this will work for Garmin GPS II+, then its extremely likely that that
it will work well in almost any other device that relies on coin cellds
to preserve memory while the main batteries are being swapped. If it uses
rechargeables, thin plugging in the charger should have the exact same
effect.

In particular, devices that are
(also) IGC-approved loggers (whether standalone loggers, varios,
computers or FLARM) seem to be REQUIRED (by IGC) to have a battery
inside the sealed unit - for the purpose of detecting any attempt to
tamper with the innards.

Sure, but that isn't problem provided you do as I do and never leave the
logger or whatever with its main batteries connected and containing
enough charge to hold their output voltage higher than the coin cell's
output voltage. In this condition current cannot flow out of the coin
cell.

They are built so that if/when you open the
case, the battery is disconnected and the IGC security memory is lost.

Quite, but not relevant. I'd be surprised if my logger (an EW
Microrecorder) doesn't have a coin cell in its sealed area. However, it
also has an accessible section where its set of NiMH main batteries live.
These can be replaced without damaging any seals - and will need to be
replaced if mistreated.

Ror 'mistreated' read 'let them sit all winter and only recharge before
the first flight next year'. I know a pilot who also has an EW
Microrecorder and did that. They ended up replacing the NiMH batteries
every couple of years. OTOH I've had my Microrecorder since 2012 and its
still using the original set of NiMH main batteries.

The only disadvantage of NiMH is that they have a high self-discharge
rate and so I need to recharge them every 4-5 weeks during the winter
(and the COVID Winter too).

Those batteries end up dead after a decade or so, and then you have to
have a factory rep re-seal them, meaning replace the battery and do
something or another to make the unit consider itself secure again.

Well, the coin cells in the Garmin GPSes have done 25 years so far and
the one in the Microrecorder is going fine after 9 years.

(The sealing sticker itself is just a warning not to open it.) Thus
these devices are ticking time bombs that, without factory-rep support,
will self-brick. Nothing lasts "forever"!

Sure, but the difference in lifetimes between something which is bunged
in the cupboard and neglected between flying seasons and a device whose
kept charged is quite dramatic.

And the inability of long-stored GPS units to figure out which "epoch"
they really are in is another form of planned obsolescence.

I think its more case of volatile memory (RAM) with a coin battery for
backup being more reliable and supporting many more read/write cycles
that the EEPROM that was available when the 1st gen GPS receivers were
built.

I have some very old Garmin GPSs that work just fine, except that some
of them are confused about the epoch.

That depended on the device. O lot of 1st epoch GPSes couldn't resync if
the epoch counter was zeroed by total power loss. IIRC my GPS II+ units
are in that group, which is why I keep them continuously powered except
for 30 seconds every 9-12 months whe n their alkalines are changed.

That's not a problem unless the device is also a flight recorder
(logger) since it will stamp your flight log with the wrong date
(off by about 11 years).

It can be more than that - some early receivers could not rsync with the
GPS constellation from epoch 1 onward if power loss zeroed their epoch
counter - I believe this design fault wasn't recognised until after the
first epoch rollover, at which point it was too late for recovery.


--
Martin | martin at
Gregorie | gregorie dot org

On 04/03/2021 00:01, Martin Gregorie wrote:
And the inability of long-stored GPS units to figure out which "epoch"
they really are in is another form of planned obsolescence.

I think its more case of volatile memory (RAM) with a coin battery for
backup being more reliable and supporting many more read/write cycles
that the EEPROM that was available when the 1st gen GPS receivers were
built.

I have some very old Garmin GPSs that work just fine, except that some
of them are confused about the epoch.

That depended on the device. O lot of 1st epoch GPSes couldn't resync if
the epoch counter was zeroed by total power loss. IIRC my GPS II+ units
are in that group, which is why I keep them continuously powered except
for 30 seconds every 9-12 months whe n their alkalines are changed.

That's not a problem unless the device is also a flight recorder
(logger) since it will stamp your flight log with the wrong date
(off by about 11 years).

It can be more than that - some early receivers could not rsync with the
GPS constellation from epoch 1 onward if power loss zeroed their epoch
counter - I believe this design fault wasn't recognised until after the
first epoch rollover, at which point it was too late for recovery.


IF the GPS transmissions that we use included data on which the current
epoch is, there would not be a problem, but they don't.

Most GPS engines will reset to the epoch in which they were made, not
necessarily epoch 0.

On Thursday, March 4, 2021 at 4:56:28 AM UTC-5, Tim Newport-Peace wrote:
IF the GPS transmissions that we use included data on which the current
epoch is, there would not be a problem, but they don't.

Save a couple of bits in the data packet, lose old equipment... But, is it possible to tell the GPS module what the current date and (approximate) time is? I mean, as a configuration message from the enclosing device. That depends on the GPS module of course. But if they don't build that into the module, that's planned obsolescence. If it is available, but the surrounding device (logger, vario...) doesn't use that feature, ditto. If you think that such a feature would be a burden on the module development, ahem, take a look at the uBlox documentation PDFs, they are hundreds of pages long.

This is a lot like the story with digital thermostats I use in my house. I used to have the typical thermostats that need batteries to maintain the real-time-clock, and the program memory, during a power outage. After some searching I did find a few models that do not use batteries at all, store the program in nonvolatile memory, and after a power outage require setting the clock manually. Why are such models so rare?

If all you're looking for is a good backup, and you have a current SeeYou subscription, you can try SeeYouu Navigator. It's availabe on both Android and iOS, and while it's very basic, I think it does well as both a backup recorder (non-secure) and a flight computer.

I wouldn't want to try a big task or competition with it, but I feel it could help me get home.

MB