what do i miss if i build a Straux?

WannFly said:
I don't mind ongoing projects especially when this is solely my backup and I have no intentions of skirting storm cells based on this info. got all the parts, and like an idiot left the Sd card out since you know .. I have like a zillion of them and of course I cant find even ONE rt now.... one of these days I need to organize my 17 unopened boxes. in my defense.. I did move (exactly 2 years back), so a lot of things are still in boxes :p

on a diff note, people who use this with remote mount antenna... is there a best place to mount it? or it something like move around and find the right place and semi-permanently mount it? I plan to put the box itself on the glare shield with a Velcro mount and hope it doesn't get dislodged in chops
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Items set on a Cherokee glare shield really well. Rubber feet seem to be enough to keep things in place on the 'kota.
 
I hope people understand that those who develop this do so on a volunteer basis. Kinda owe no one anything. We owe gratitude. If they do make some money selling kits, good for them...


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avongil said:
What are you missing with Stratux? An organized project.

I think a good expectation to set is, build one it will work. Ongoing support and tinkering takes much more time and effort than an organized project.
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Seems plenty organized for a project to me. Seen plenty worse. Pretty standard open source stuff. Never had any trouble at all reaching the devs or even reading their code. Nothing rocket science in it. Never had any trouble reaching the devs, either. Nice folk.

If you have "expectations" you get to fulfill them yourself in open source. Nobody's stopping anyone from writing user friendly documentation or packaging a product with stable versions of the code after digging in and figuring it all out. Feel free.

Want to pay me my going rate for Linux consulting? I'll do it. Let me know what you want and I'll send over a contract. I'm sure one of the core devs would be happy to work on it for a fee, too.

There's already people making pre-built units that work fine and anyone with "expectations" can plunk down their money and get one.

There's no real money in that anyway, so it's a waste of time to me. But, hourly work to have the output from a hobby project meet your "expectations"?

Sure. Sounds lucrative.

I suspect at least two of the "leading" pre-packaged devices that claim to be different brand names than the Stratux project are stealing the open source SDR code anyway. Not going to bother proving it, but it's quite likely at their price points. And quite unlikely they have a coder on staff who knows embedded SDR code well enough to have written it from scratch.
 
My only complaint with this project was that I was an early adopter to all-in AHRS capability, and wasted money on a chip I really don't need now with the sensor (GPS) based AHRS, which rocks, BTW. I have gotten tenfold returns on my time and money investment with the weather information alone. If you own your airframe, I highly reccommend an airframe mounted antenna (I got a 978 stick and ball version off eBay, works great for both bands with a splitter).
 
To your original question " what do I miss if I build a stratux"

You miss giving your money to the AFS mob who try and maintain a monopoly on their product
 
avongil said:
What are you missing with Stratux? An organized project.

I think a good expectation to set is, build one it will work. Ongoing support and tinkering takes much more time and effort than an organized project.
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I think that your expectations are off the mark. The Stratux is not a single point product where one company has built up the parts list, instructions and software. This is more of a crowd sourced product. If I had to think of an analogy, it would be the early Ubuntu builds (sorry if you're not up on PC operating system history). Required a lot more effort than just popping in a Windows CD.

You want plug & play with no effort or frustration and guaranteed to work out of the box with support? Buy a Stratus IIs. Want to save some money? Buy an assembled Stratux. Want to save even more money and get to tweak things? Build a Stratux.
 
donjohnston said:
If I had to think of an analogy, it would be the early Ubuntu builds (sorry if you're not up on PC operating system history). Required a lot more effort than just popping in a Windows CD.
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Ubuntu was a commercial venture and "stole" a great number of Debian developed by paying them. It was quite controversial at the time.

I'd say, the results have been mixed. It certainly opened up the Linux desktop to the masses more than before, but my God the questions in their forums, and worse, the crap code that has come out of turning a massive number of Unix noobs loose with an OS they didn't have to learn, hasn't helped open source much.

If nothing else, it proved the bell curve is real, and applies as you add thousands of developers to something.

Some of the garbage that comes out of Ubuntu makes my eyes bleed reading it. And I'm just a sysadmin with dev experience.

Conversely, to stay on topic, most of the Stratux code is fairly sane. Of course, Stratux in a way is just wrapper code around the much harder to develop SDR code, which was already around when they started. Some of the SDR code is truly nice.

Which is why I suspect a number of other commercial products of having stolen it, and using it, without releasing their changes, against the licensing of some of it, which requires such.
 
donjohnston said:
Jeeze...

Talk about going off into left field.
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Not really. It's not truly possible to understand open source stuff without knowing how the sausage is made. And that's why complaints of something not being "polished" or "packaged well" abound. It's not intended to be and most folks don't want to do that work without getting paid for it.

Ubuntu was literally a multi-millionaire saying he wanted some folks to do that to the Linux desktop. It's had quite mixed results. Don't think it went like he planned.
 
ANYWAY...

I had the opportunity to meet the dev on this at Oshkosh. There were two forums on the Stratux. Really, really cool stuff. You can tell the guy is passionate about this stuff. He's put literally thousands of his own hours and dollars in the development and refinement of Stratux.

Compared to numerous other open source projects I've been intertwined with, either as a user or dev, I find the stratux.me site quite good. With Reddit forum, it's even better.

But I could see why a non-IT person would be underwhelmed. Just have to keep in mind... Chris is basically doing this on his own. He's got a job, family, etc. He's not making much, if anything, off of this project.

I was really, really excited to get going on this project until the AHRS shutdown. I don't necessarily need AHRS (I can see how it would be beneficial), but I'm more concerned about whether even more functionality will be affected. If Foreflight is shutting down non-preferred AHRS solutions, what's stopping them from shutting out the rest of the them?
 
I just bought a Stratus 2S a few weeks ago and have used it on several flights since then. I know people don't like the $900 price tag (I paid $800 for mine for an Oshkosh special), but I was truly impressed with the form,fit, and function. Comes packaged very nicely with a very nice carrying case (I'm sure someone will joke about it being a $900 carrying case). Works seamlessly.

I am really glad I bought mine.
 
donjohnston said:
Really? How does this relate to building a Stratux?
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Because people do not understand that they're not buying a product. They're building a homebrew device created by enthusiasts. All of open source is this way, Stratux is just a long line of free-to-you stuff that others have invested time and money in, but if you feel like complaining about it -- there's the door. Pick up a shovel and start digging if you don't like it.

The aviation trade rags do seem to not mention this, but it's important information.

Want a product? Call Garmin.

Steve Costello said:
If Foreflight is shutting down non-preferred AHRS solutions, what's stopping them from shutting out the rest of the them?
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Because everyone knows better than to believe their complaints about "safety" when using a homebrew gadget, and they're already on the edge of losing at least this customer over their attitude problem?

I'm not evaluating WingX because I feel the need to waste time doing it. I'm evaluating and playing with it because they're paying more attention to customers and not "partnerships" than ForeFlight currently is.

I'd bet a lot of money that the SDR code inside the $199 device they just "partnered" with is ripped off SDR code from the open source world. If they allow that, and then claim they can't test the AHRS code properly, I call serious foul on that.

I've said that before but also said it isn't worth my time to go prove it. The chances that device wrote a clean room SDR implementation are about zero at the price point it just came out at, though.

Even without any thievery going on, competition is good. There's software that'll gladly let you play with the AHRS stuff if you want to without needing to artificially protect a "partner" from the "competition" of an amateur piece of software and hardware.
 
So finally finished putting it together, there is literally nothing much to it. The biggest time I spent is trying to shove all the wires in. AHRS works fine, but I am on ground, will try it tomorrow. The status page doesn't show any signal on UAT, is it because am on my patio? Will find out tomorrow.

Overall pretty cool for 110 bucks.

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WannFly said:
So finally finished putting it together, there is literally nothing much to it. The biggest time I spent is trying to shove all the wires in. AHRS works fine, but I am on ground, will try it tomorrow. The status page doesn't show any signal on UAT, is it because am on my patio? Will find out tomorrow.

Overall pretty cool for 110 bucks.

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You have to be pretty close to a tower to receive uat.
 
avongil said:
Show me how to find the info on the new AHRS + Fan module.
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You can find the part on ebay for about $20.

AHRS and synthetic vision via Stratux is apparently working in FlyQ and maybe WingX even though it's technically "under development."
 
Bonchie said:
You can find the part on ebay for about $20.

AHRS and synthetic vision via Stratux is apparently working in FlyQ and maybe WingX even though it's technically "under development."
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14.99 on Amazon, works with FlyQ for sure

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WannFly said:
all parts are added to amazon shopping list and comes to under 110 (without the power pack, which i already have enough of). I will use it for ADSB-IN for my iPAD. waiting to see what iLevil Beacon is doing for certification. already have ADSB in/OUT with GDL 90, it doesnt meet 2020 mandate, but i get traffic / wx on my MFD, so i just need something cheap for my iPA. no point spending 400-500 more.

the only thing i dont get in my MFD is the graphical representation of weather, like moving cells etc, i only get METAR. from the documentation of my MFD i see, the live weather is not available with GDL 90.

so my questions is.. with Stratux and my EFB (FlyQ) will get live weather ? (i am aware they actually not live, NEXRAD delay etc)
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I have the Stratux and Foreflight for about 5 hours of flying locally. Works great with a low frustration factor. I did get a large battery for the power source. It gets the WX and other ADS-B aircraft okay but not great. Have yet to see a non-ADSB aircraft. Handles the Texas heat very well ( I have the case and FAN ).
 
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