LXNav V7 vs Butterfly vario?

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.