My Attempt at a $115 ADS-B Receiver Build for Foreflight

Everskyward said:
True... I wasn't imagining that someone was making a DIY AHRS. I was replying to the later posts about the coding problems in commercial offerings for iPad. The AHRS in our airplane is a 5, if not 6, figure item in itself, and there are two. Of course part of that figure is because they are certified and installed in a jet.
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But that has been a feature of the Stratux for several months. While not polished at all, technically many people who put up the extra $30 for the AHRS have built a DIY AHRS, including me. Would I use it for anything other than a toy? nope. I don't even have a permenant way to mount the stratux in my plane other than tossing it in the little glove box in the panel. Doesn't make for a very stable AHRS when its sliding around the cockpit :hairraise:
 
For anyone building, I'll toss this out there... this battery is wicked big, and in initial testing today worked VERY well. Quite impressed for the price I paid. ($35 as an Amazon Prime Deal of the Day, currently $49.)

http://www.ravpower.com/26800mah-external-battery-charger-black.html

Only downside is that it's such a monster (and it will charge at 2A rate if whatever charger you use to charge it will provide 2A at the usual 5V... the charge port is mini-USB and it comes with two short mini-USB cables kinda "hidden" in the ends of the box) that it'll take a LONG time to charge from dead.
 
I should add... when I started the long run test today on the whole setup just letting it sit on my desk at my office, the iPad Mini 2 was showing 50% battery.

The Stratux dual-receiver setup was plugged into that RavPower battery as well as the iPad. Stratux was also driving a USB keyboard (roughly 100mA draw continuous).

The iPad was at 100% charge at the end of the day and the RavPower showed two of four lights (so I'm guessing 50%-25% charge left) after 8-9 hours of run-time, including charging up the iPad.

Also interestingly, it appears that I drive right past the ADS-B ground site for south Denver Metro and it's on the way out east to my place in the boonies, so I'll see if it receives the tower on the way home... assuming nobody calls with problems with tonight's software deployment and interrupts my drive home "fun"... :)
 
ifly4fun said:
I don't even have a permenant way to mount the stratux in my plane other than tossing it in the little glove box in the panel. Doesn't make for a very stable AHRS when its sliding around the cockpit :hairraise:
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Velcro. :)
 
I've glanced at some of the code, and as someone that does do professional software development including interfacing with a lot of hardware...I'd be much a bit less critical as to the quality then he is being. I wouldn't be surprised to see such mistakes in the codebase of pretty much any software product, Foreflight included.

I've certainly seen a HELL of a lot worse out there.

It's obviously not going to be anywhere near what a Stratus 2, given all the thick piles of software slammed together, but I don't see them claiming that.

It's really easy to be the IT guy that looks at a few commits then harshly judges all the developers. It's a little less easy to be the guy that is actually writing code. I used to be the IT guy doing that...not anymore..now that I'm also the guy writing much of it.

Would I trust my life on the AHRS in Stratux? Hell no. Would I trust my life on the AHRS in Stratus/Foreflight? Hell no.

But if everything else in the airplane ****s out...and one of those is what I have left...either one will be a HELL of a lot better then I would be going by the "seat of my pants" which would result in a sure crash in short order.
 
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jesse said:
It's really easy to be the IT guy that looks at a few commits then harshly judges all the developers. It's a little less easy to be the guy that is actually writing code. I used to be the IT guy doing that...not anymore..now that I'm also the guy writing much of it.
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Same excuses, third decade -- of watching the same bugs happen over and over. Color me unimpressed with them at this point.

Nothing personal, everyone does their best and the industry isn't really getting any smarter.

Not sure it ever will. I'm not saying I have any answers, but the industry has its head in the sand pretending it has control of the complexity it creates.

See the CVE numbers for 2015? Not pretty.

Considering the info in the Win10 thread, it doesn't help much when even OS level code is malicious at worst and questionably immoral at best, underneath it all.

At least these guys making this thing aren't doing that. :)

And like I've said before... They pay me really well to clean up the messes. Still want that "Internet Janitor" business card...

We had a vendor shove a $16K software upgrade down our throats with the threat of non-support in Q4. It was installed and running a whopping 6 hours before it brought that portion of the business to a complete stop, and is now a $16K paperweight in the server room, and the cables were plugged back into the old one that works.

The vendor says they'll "try" to schedule us into their "training schedule" sometime in February but no promises. LOL.

I bet they practice Agile development. Hahaha.

Except of course, they forgot sometime in the last five years to bother to ask us how we use our $2M printer that the software runs... and didn't make sure the new UI did what the old one did... ROFLMAO.

Not sure where this industry is headed, but it ain't toward doing it better...

The nice part is, job security is great as long as you know how to plan how to roll back to what worked. :)
 
Wait until you are managing a system with 375 million lines of code, most of which was written by the cheapest vendor, then you can really complain about quaility and bugs.

Job security for some I suppose.
 
I did this for a friend a few months ago, hope it helps someone
 

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WingX latest version seems to have more Stratux changes
 

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Somebody trying to make a Dynon D2 using the Stratux engine....

e960486d38b0b8ad48dda7c23aa418ee.jpg



https://github.com/Bagarre/Pi2D2
 
Good amount of Stratux info included now..
 

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I see from Reddit that someone is building Stratux units and selling them for $400 !!!

For something that's experimental at best - $400 really
 
Scrabo said:
I see from Reddit that someone is building Stratux units and selling them for $400 !!!

For something that's experimental at best - $400 really
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If he offers it for sale and someone is foolish enough to buy one what's the problem? Don't knock a man's hustle if it works for him!
 
Pinstriper said:
If he offers it for sale and someone is foolish enough to buy one what's the problem? Don't knock a man's hustle if it works for him!
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There is a fool born every minute I suppose.
 
Scrabo said:
WingX latest version seems to have more Stratux changes
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RE: WingX 8.6.3

I don't see it on iTunes, just 8.6.1

Maybe later tonight. Tuesday is Apple's traditional update day.
 
I gave this a shot myself, followed instructions, hooked it up to WingX last night, the GPS On thing flickered, along with the ADS-B, but I had no info like Scrabo shows under External Hardware/Stratux. Heartbeat was green though, so..thinking I screwed up somewhere along the way or something..
 
Caramon13 said:
I gave this a shot myself, followed instructions, hooked it up to WingX last night, the GPS On thing flickered, along with the ADS-B, but I had no info like Scrabo shows under External Hardware/Stratux. Heartbeat was green though, so..thinking I screwed up somewhere along the way or something..
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Does your tablet/phone show you are logged into the STRATUX wifi network?
 
Everything "looks" ok on the admin page. All greens, shows I'm connected shows receiving weather and traffic, nothing on any of the screens though and still nothing showing up in the wingx external hardware section..
turned on logs, nothing showing up in there.


EDIT: looks like I was running .4r4, i see there's a few newer versions .5b5 for example, maybe a beta, but I'll give it a shot and see if that changes anything...
 
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Caramon13 said:
Everything "looks" ok on the admin page. All greens, shows I'm connected shows receiving weather and traffic, nothing on any of the screens though and still nothing showing up in the wingx external hardware section..
turned on logs, nothing showing up in there.


EDIT: looks like I was running .4r4, i see there's a few newer versions .5b5 for example, maybe a beta, but I'll give it a shot and see if that changes anything...
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Yeah the later betas have the new WingX "data blocks" for want of a better term.

5b5 is what I have been running and so far so good with the latest WingX release
 
Finally got around to soldering my replacement chip and connecting to the GPIO on the Pi, WingX looks go so far, I know there are still some issues with the AHRS coding but it's getting there...
 
Hi everyone.
Anybody tried to interface directly to the USB in the tablets to Avare, without using the Pi? Thanks.
 
bluesideup said:
Hi everyone.
Anybody tried to interface directly to the USB in the tablets to Avare, without using the Pi? Thanks.
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If you mean hook up the USB SDR directly to Avare on an Android tablet via OTG adapter, yes, I have done it, see this thread describing it.
I have a GDL-39 based solution with Garmin Pilot, plus the rPi based solution, but have also played with the direct connection per that thread.
I use the Avare ADSB Pro app, which costs a few dollars and has some advantages over the free "Avare ADSB" version. That app can receive and decode UAT and 1090, but not simultaneously, AFAIK.
 
Flew into a Class C today, had traffic showing all over. Forgot to screenshot it to see what receiver was getting the traffic.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Caramon13 said:
Everything "looks" ok on the admin page. All greens, shows I'm connected shows receiving weather and traffic, nothing on any of the screens though and still nothing showing up in the wingx external hardware section..
turned on logs, nothing showing up in there.


EDIT: looks like I was running .4r4, i see there's a few newer versions .5b5 for example, maybe a beta, but I'll give it a shot and see if that changes anything...
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I'd go up to the beta. Too much stuff changed between their "release" and now.

And make sure you've turned on the receivers in "Settings" on the web page, like so... They're off by default.

4e3789b70911fda7b9ed2aaece451aff.jpg
 
Yeah 5b5 is working for me. I haven't been up in the plane in a week or so, but planning to go up tonight. I'll see how things perform when I'm airborne. On the ground I can't pickup any towers or traffic.

I could previously pick up traffic with my ADS-B receiver so, I'm having doubts but we'll see what it looks like when I get this to the airport.
 
Pinstriper said:
I may just sell mine to another pilot and buy one these in the nifty case
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What is the point of the GPS chip in the Flight Box kickstarter package?

I don't have a GPS chip, and mine works fine. (Note: I have an iPad with 3G, so it has the internal GPS.) Is the GPS chip to replace an external Bad Elf type of solution??
 
JoseCuervo said:
Now a Kick Starter set up for single band and dual band versions, pre-loaded, including a case at $150 and $200.

Flight Box Kick Starter

e1b5ce76eb1d66635a903142f74335cf_original.png
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My personal opinion - if someone is making money with the Stratux software, Chris Young (developer) should be getting a hefty chunk of the $$$$. Without him, none of this is possible.
 
murphey said:
My personal opinion - if someone is making money with the Stratux software, Chris Young (developer) should be getting a hefty chunk of the $$$$. Without him, none of this is possible.
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That kickstarter company promises to kick back $10 per sale to "the Stratux project".
 
I don't quite get the difference between the $200 dual-band and the $250 dual-band.

Also, since this has a GPS and I have a non GPS iPad (wifi only) I assume this means I wouldn't need another external GPS.

Also, Garmin Pilot not supported?
 
Hi BrianNC,

The $200 dual-band was an "early bird special" - a $50 discount to the first 50 people who ordered. Once those run out, the dual-band unit goes for $250. (We ran out some time early this morning.)

On the GPS issue - correct. You do not need another external GPS. The GPS information is provided to the tablet with the weather, traffic, etc. Wifi only is fine.

Unfortunately, Garmin Pilot only works with Garmin hardware. We're open to working with them if you happen to know anyone at Garmin.
 
murphey said:
My personal opinion - if someone is making money with the Stratux software, Chris Young (developer) should be getting a hefty chunk of the $$$$. Without him, none of this is possible.
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Given that I found the Kickstarter by going to Chris Young's Stratux.me webpage, and following the links there, I am going to make the assumption that he is good with the idea and the concept of the Kickstarter.
 
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