Vario choice: LX1606 or Borgelt B500?

On Wed, 13 Jul 2011 06:23:51 +0000, Max Kellermann wrote:

Ben C wrote:
I am looking at replacing my L-nav with either an LX1606 or Borgelt
B500 (B800 if released). It will be used with a PNA running XCSoar for
glide calculations. I would appreciate peoples opinions on the various
merits (or otherwise) of these two instruments.

On LX/Borgelt: we have drivers for these, too.

I use a Borgelt B500 with Xcsoar on an HP hx4700. It is fully supported,
zig-zag wind, outside air temp display, etc. There were some bugs, but I
reported them and the Xscoar team fixed them :-)

Borgelt cannot do bidirectional communication; things like MacCready
settings are copied from Borgelt to XCSoar but not the other way round.

I think this is a "feature". The B500 is designed to be a fully
functional unit, with its own (high quality) GPS, final glide computer,
way point database and user interface. So it makes sense to put the
MacCready, ballast and bugs settings directly into the B500. The PDA adds
functionality, but you have lots to fall back on if the PDA fails in
flight.

And: the Borgelt B50 rounds the barometric altitude to 100ft accuracy,
which is of course unacceptable and unusable.

I have not actually noticed this as a problem, I am not sure what I am
missing out on.

The B500 has a "stereo vario" function and Xcsoar a "thermal assist"
display, both to help centre on thermals. Neither work for me, but most
of our flying is mountain flying and I guess our thermals are a bit buggy!

I have a Borgelt PSU/switching card. In hindsight I would not bother
buying this again. I ended up using another power supply unit for the PDA
- because it came attached to the cable. The card was very tricky to
mount on the panel and most of switching functions are redundant. Next
plan is a card that talks USB to an Android PDA/Tablet/Phone and serial
to Flarm, Volkslogger and B500 (all at the same time), but to be future
proof it should be able to talk USB to other slave devices too.

One comment about Borgelt, the software is a little quirky and the
hardware is no where as sturdy as the Zander I had before. But the
support is good (e-mails and even Skype conversations with Mike). If you
are local to Oz, this must add a few points in favour of Borgelt.


Ian