DIY Flight-Computer

A group of people within the Academic-Glider section of the Technical University of Graz/Austria has designed a rather spectacular Flight-Computer, certainly a fine addition to any sailplane's panel too.
Best of all, the Glider-Nav-Computer can be build at home by DIY to material-costs of approx 400-500 EURO, depending of functions integrated and a 7" colour-display. Smaller displays (5,7" / 4,3")will reduce the material-costs.
The download of all necessary instructions, drawings, photos and software for is free.
Anything needed, inclusive material-list and a step by step building-instruction with several detailed photos can be downloaded at the designers-website, which is setup all in english-language.
A detailed article in German-language (soon in English too), describing the whole project, can be found via the following link:
http://www.ul-segelflug.de/f-a-e/440...-eigenbau.html
Hope, that this project will be adapted and "cloned" by lots of glider-pilots round the world.
17 DIY-projects around the world are known so far, Austria(2), Germany(6), Switzerland(3), Netherlands(2), Norway(2), Italien (1), Poland(1) and USA(1). If anyone joins the group of self-builders, I would be pleased to hear about.

Best regards from Germany

Klaus

On Tuesday, February 10, 2015 at 1:55:31 AM UTC-8, Kilo-Bravo wrote:
A group of people within the Academic-Glider section of the Technical University of Graz/Austria has designed a rather spectacular Flight-Computer, certainly a fine addition to any sailplane's panel too.
Best of all, the Glider-Nav-Computer can be build at home by DIY to material-costs of approx 400-500 EURO, depending of functions integrated and a 7" colour-display. Smaller displays (5,7" / 4,3")will reduce the material-costs.
The download of all necessary instructions, drawings, photos and software for is free.
Anything needed, inclusive material-list and a step by step building-instruction with several detailed photos can be downloaded at the designers-website, which is setup all in english-language.
A detailed article in German-language (soon in English too), describing the whole project, can be found via the following link:
http://www.ul-segelflug.de/f-a-e/440...-eigenbau.html
Hope, that this project will be adapted and "cloned" by lots of glider-pilots round the world.
17 DIY-projects around the world are known so far, Austria(2), Germany(6), Switzerland(3), Netherlands(2), Norway(2), Italien (1), Poland(1) and USA(1). If anyone joins the group of self-builders, I would be pleased to hear about.

Best regards from Germany

Klaus


Thanks Klaus,

Great project & information.

Best regards,
Craig 7Q

Hi Graig,

glad you like it. I just try to organize a project-group to build a bigger number of computers.
Hope it will work.

Regards from Germany

Klaus

On Tue, 10 Feb 2015 12:46:30 -0800, Kilo-Bravo wrote:

Hi Graig,

glad you like it. I just try to organize a project-group to build a
bigger number of computers.
Hope it will work.

Is there any particular you decided to base the project round a Cubieboard
rather than, say, a Beagleboard Black or a RaspberryPi? The new Pi 2B
looks quite interesting and there are already smallish touch screens
available for it. As a Libelle pilot I prefer small.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |

On Wednesday, February 11, 2015 at 12:34:47 PM UTC+13, Martin Gregorie wrote:
On Tue, 10 Feb 2015 12:46:30 -0800, Kilo-Bravo wrote:

Hi Graig,

glad you like it. I just try to organize a project-group to build a
bigger number of computers.
Hope it will work.

Is there any particular you decided to base the project round a Cubieboard
rather than, say, a Beagleboard Black or a RaspberryPi? The new Pi 2B
looks quite interesting and there are already smallish touch screens
available for it. As a Libelle pilot I prefer small.

I happen to have a Raspberry Pi 2 Model B in my hand, and I expect it would be well up to the job if it has sufficient of the right kinds of I/O. It's certainly faster than the A20 Cubieboard 2, though not the A80 Cubieboard 4.

As the Raspberry Pi 2 was announced only a week ago I think you can hardly blame the project for not using one! The old model was underpowered when it came out three years ago, and laughably so now.

Am Mittwoch, 11. Februar 2015 02:43:40 UTC+1 schrieb Bruce Hoult:
On Wednesday, February 11, 2015 at 12:34:47 PM UTC+13, Martin Gregorie wrote:
On Tue, 10 Feb 2015 12:46:30 -0800, Kilo-Bravo wrote:

Hi Graig,

glad you like it. I just try to organize a project-group to build a
bigger number of computers.
Hope it will work.

Is there any particular you decided to base the project round a Cubieboard
rather than, say, a Beagleboard Black or a RaspberryPi? The new Pi 2B
looks quite interesting and there are already smallish touch screens
available for it. As a Libelle pilot I prefer small.

I happen to have a Raspberry Pi 2 Model B in my hand, and I expect it would be well up to the job if it has sufficient of the right kinds of I/O. It's certainly faster than the A20 Cubieboard 2, though not the A80 Cubieboard 4.

As the Raspberry Pi 2 was announced only a week ago I think you can hardly blame the project for not using one! The old model was underpowered when it came out three years ago, and laughably so now.

Hi Martin,

sorry, but I have no idea about those boards at all. I just tried to spread the news about the project and I now try to organize a builders-group to get some of those flight-computers build.
Question like this, you better ask the people who have developed the computer, so best you use theire website to ask those questions.
But the answer to your question might be the reply from Bruce Hoult, who informed about the introduction of the mentioned board two weeks ago.
As the developer-team surely can not redesign the computer each time a new board joins the marked, I beliefe that we can live with the existing design.

Best regards from Germany

Klaus

On Tue, 10 Feb 2015 17:43:38 -0800, Bruce Hoult wrote:

On Wednesday, February 11, 2015 at 12:34:47 PM UTC+13, Martin Gregorie
wrote:
On Tue, 10 Feb 2015 12:46:30 -0800, Kilo-Bravo wrote:

Hi Graig,

glad you like it. I just try to organize a project-group to build a
bigger number of computers.
Hope it will work.

Is there any particular you decided to base the project round a
Cubieboard rather than, say, a Beagleboard Black or a RaspberryPi? The
new Pi 2B looks quite interesting and there are already smallish touch
screens available for it. As a Libelle pilot I prefer small.

I happen to have a Raspberry Pi 2 Model B in my hand, and I expect it
would be well up to the job if it has sufficient of the right kinds of
I/O. It's certainly faster than the A20 Cubieboard 2, though not the A80
Cubieboard 4.

As the Raspberry Pi 2 was announced only a week ago I think you can
hardly blame the project for not using one! The old model was
underpowered when it came out three years ago, and laughably so now.

I'm not blaming them: just curious.

That's why I mentioned the Beagleboard (I got its name wrong: I meant the
Beaglebone Black). The Beaglebone seems to be a well respected board,
IIRC it has been around longer than the Pi, has more RAM and at least as
much connectivity as a Pi or Cubieboard.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |

On Wed, 11 Feb 2015 00:56:35 -0800, Kilo-Bravo wrote:

I beliefe that we can live with the existing design.

Fair enough: very often hardware gets picked simply because one of the
technical people has used it before - and nothing wrong with that!

Can you say if you're planning to support touch screens or if the plan is
to control the flight computer entirely from the control column? I can't
see any control switches in the photos of panels. My German is fairly
poor, so I wasn't able to tell from the description on the text.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |

Am Mittwoch, 11. Februar 2015 13:53:38 UTC+1 schrieb Martin Gregorie:
On Wed, 11 Feb 2015 00:56:35 -0800, Kilo-Bravo wrote:

I beliefe that we can live with the existing design.

Fair enough: very often hardware gets picked simply because one of the
technical people has used it before - and nothing wrong with that!

Can you say if you're planning to support touch screens or if the plan is
to control the flight computer entirely from the control column? I can't
see any control switches in the photos of panels. My German is fairly
poor, so I wasn't able to tell from the description on the text.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |



Am Mittwoch, 11. Februar 2015 13:53:38 UTC+1 schrieb Martin Gregorie:
On Wed, 11 Feb 2015 00:56:35 -0800, Kilo-Bravo wrote:

I beliefe that we can live with the existing design.

Fair enough: very often hardware gets picked simply because one of the
technical people has used it before - and nothing wrong with that!

Can you say if you're planning to support touch screens or if the plan is
to control the flight computer entirely from the control column? I can't
see any control switches in the photos of panels. My German is fairly
poor, so I wasn't able to tell from the description on the text.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |



Am Mittwoch, 11. Februar 2015 13:53:38 UTC+1 schrieb Martin Gregorie:
On Wed, 11 Feb 2015 00:56:35 -0800, Kilo-Bravo wrote:

I beliefe that we can live with the existing design.

Fair enough: very often hardware gets picked simply because one of the
technical people has used it before - and nothing wrong with that!

Can you say if you're planning to support touch screens or if the plan is
to control the flight computer entirely from the control column? I can't
see any control switches in the photos of panels. My German is fairly
poor, so I wasn't able to tell from the description on the text.


--
martin@ | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org |

Hi Martin,

I must admit, that as the subject is quite new to me, I don´t know what I need and which size.
At a first look at things, I would prefer a 7" Touch-screen, which I think its big anough to let my fingers work on it during flight.
But surely thoughts can change, the more I get involved in the subject.
As you might have seen in my newest blog, I try to get a workshop organized at our place in Germany, so I hope to find a few guys joining me in order to help each other and at the end we come out of it with a few ready Flight-Computers. Would be phantastic.

Regards Klaus

I can't
see any control switches in the photos of panels. My German is fairly
poor, so I wasn't able to tell from the description on the text.


Here you'll find informations about OpenVario in english language:

http://www.openvario.org/doku.php

and here about remote control:

http://www.openvario.org/doku.php?id...:remote_00:top


Waldemar