AKB

My Feedback: (6)

Hi Carsten
Excuse me if I am not understanding this but, are all of components available now and if so do you have a web site with pricing and will you be going through retailers or are you marketing this yourself? And finally would you be set up to ship and accept CC payments from Canada?
The big thing. Is this going to be user friendly to set up and maintain.
Sometimes I notice some of our RC Hobby cottage style electronics businesses have great ideas at the start and for some reason either rush to the market or possible financial reasons, the last bits are missed or forgotten and then the customer has to be the trouble shooter.
Looks to be a very interesting.

Thanks
Alan

Carsten Groen

Hi Alan,
The ASSI board has been around for almost a year now and a pretty well descibed in a document for it (see the seperate ASSI thread here, there you will also find configuration tools, log converter etc).

The user-side of these things are very important for me, and I do very well understand your concerns! I do my best to make everything as easy as possible for everyne to use. The ASSI board was "tested" by a bunch of local guys here before release, that way I was sure that it was relatively easy to setup and understand (although it is a pretty complex device).
The pressure sensor as well as the LCD display are finished, and can be bought from Ultimate Jets in the US, as can the ASSI board. The CAN-RF (and the CAN-GPS) module that enables the telemetry to a Android phone is working in prototype stage right now, production will begin in a couple of weeks. Once available they can also be bought from Ultimate Jets.

I know these are "special products", somewhat technical, but I hope they have some benefits to offer to the user (thats the response I have gotten so far)
It's not always easy for me to explain everything as well as I would like, but I do my best

olnico

The articles are available from here:
http://www.ultimate-jets.net/collections/assi-telemetry

We do ship to Canada without any problem.
We are taking a point of honor to offer professional documentation and support on these very high tech products.
The range of application of this device is expanding constantly, to support BF-Turbines and Behotec ECUs soon as well as Weatronic radios.

olnico

We are the offical distributors for BF-Turbines, Behotec, Mibo Jets, Aviation Design and Weatronic in North America and the Middle-East.
We supply the UAV industry in the USA and the middle-East as well.
Nothing like a cottage style electronics business...

AKB

My Feedback: (6)

Hey thanks Carsten and Oli.
Carsten you did well with your description. I have to do some more research on it and watching of the Oli's videos. I do have an 18 Mz so would I still need an Android smart phone to be able to complete the telemetry download or would that come down my SBus 2 system. Interested in the flame out notification information.

Thanks
Alan

Carsten Groen

Thanks Alan,
in this thread and in the ASSI thread there are a bunch of videos I have shot of the systems, hope they can be of some help, and please don't hesitate to ask any question!
The 18MZ can show all of the telemetry values from the ASSI (and also supports two engine setup using 2 ASSI modules). Howéver, due to the rather "un-flexible" way the Futaba systems are made, it is not too user friendly when doing warnings etc. This is due to the fact that I use some of the built-in sensors of the Futaba systems (RPM and TEMP sensors). On the Android system I have complete control of what to show and what spoken messages/warnings are emitted. In a previous video in this thread you can see how the system reacts on a twin engine setup. It will tell you which engine stopped (Left/right) etc something that are not too well shown on a 18MZ unfortunately.

A system using a 18MZ and just the ASSI board(s) can easily be upgraded to the "Android telemetry" system just by adding the CAN-RF module as shown in the drawing above. In either case it is a good idea to have either a Futaba GPS or the CAN-GPS module installed in the plane as this will allow the ASSI device to make a very comprehensive log file for each flight (a Google Earth KML file can be exported and shown in Google Earth, see the ASSI thread)

AKB

My Feedback: (6)

Hi Carsten.
Thanks for the explanation. So to make full utilization of what you just said for the monitoring of a twin installation and to have easy set up and the full alarm notification without the too much pain I would need the following of your hardware:
ASSI board
Can RF module
GPS module
and I supply an Android Smart phone(that doesn't necessarily need phone capability)
So would this be correct?
thanks Carsten

Alan

Carsten Groen

Hi Alan,
you are welcome
In a twin engine installation you would need:
2 x ASSI board (one is "Master" and one is "Slave". The slave only extracts data from the second turbine, the Master is the "real" ASSI board with airspeed measuring etc)
1 x CAN-RF module (includes the radio modem)
1 x CAN-GPS module
1 x Seperate radio modem for the Android phone

And correct, you supply the Android phone, until now its been testet on Samsung S3, S4 and S5, Sony Z3 and one of the latest Huawei as well as a couple of Samsung tablets (10.1" and a 7").
The radio modem can be delivered in either 433 MHz or 915 MHz depending on the country it is going to be used in. The radio modem I use is a standard "off-the-shelf" unit!
Pricing of the CAN-RF and CAN-GPS modules are not fixed yet, but they will be affordable

One of the hard(er) things in Android apps is the compliance to the zillion different phones that are out there, so to be on the safe side, go with one of the before mentioned phones!
Again, it will be a few weeks until all is finished and ready, after the release expect updates along the road of the Android app and also firmware upgrades to the CAN-RF module (updated via a SD card)

AKB

My Feedback: (6)

Ok Carsten
We will be watching for your market release of the Can-RF and Can-GPS.
Thanks for the information, so far. I am sure there will more questions in the future.

Alan

Carsten Groen

A new piece of video, showing among other things the ability to switch between imperial/metric. Also some new stuff at the end of the video for some exciting features to come in the future (still working on that )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpCWqh0goUY

olnico

Do you mean exciting features?
Ok, I am out of here

Carsten Groen

Yes I sure do, sticky button on my keyboard

Carsten Groen

Guys,
I finally came around to changing the Android app so it fits devices in landscape mode (both phones and tablets).
I have made it so that whatever orientation the device is in when the app is started, it stays in!
So, if you have your phone/tablet in "portrait" mode, the app will show itself in that orientation and it will NOT change if you rotate your device!
Likewise, if you start the application when the phone/tablet is in "landscape" mode, it will stay in that mode !
That way your spotter does not have to be carefull how he holds the device, he can swing it around and it stays in the same orientation

Below is a few screen captures from the landscape mode.

I also shot a small video sequence from this mode, the video is BAD because the app is being run in a PC based emulator, on a real device everything runs smooth as butter

http://youtu.be/VmqKC8E-kt0

olnico

I've just played with the IGS app on the Galaxy S3. The app is superb. The screen is also fantastic. I never used AMOLED screens before. This is extremely nice, crisp with flashy colors. It stands out very nicely under the desert sunshine. Super nice...

Carsten Groen

Yes, those AMOLED screens are super, the screenshots on my message above is how they look in real life on a mobile, totally crisp and clear (some (all?) of the transmitter brands could learn a thing or two regarding screens, even my CAN-LCD design uses a far better screen than the TX manufacturers )

Carsten Groen

I bought one of the "DJI Phone holder" brackets the multirotor guys uses: http://www.digitech.nl/part-18-phone...hantom-2vision
This enabled me to mount my Samsung S5 on my 18MZ in landscape mode.
I would strongly recommend to put the phone in "airplane mode" so that the GSM part is shut off when it is so close to the transmitter!

George

My Feedback: (57)

That's slick!!!

Carsten Groen

Thanks George
Yes, it sits nicely there! However, I don't think I will be using this configuration much, I have no brain left for looking at a screen when flying so I normally just have a earplug (bluetooth) in one of my ears. I then get warnings etc as audio and can concentrate on the plane with my eyes. I see the "bling bling" screen more as something for a spotter, or maybe put up on a big monitor at jet events for the audience to follow (they can then see the speed, G force, RPM etc).

I have previously written that the videos of the simulated device was shaky and slow, I managed to record a video off my normal phone (a Samsung S5) to prove that the real device rocks
Recording it this way unfortunately means that there is no audio on the recording (can't have it all I guess )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaCU8JjWcQU

mr_matt

My Feedback: (10)

Hi Carsten

Thanks for your clarification on SBus compatibility. I bought a system and look forward to trying it out.

Do I have to fabricate my own pitot for the AoA sensing?

Thanks

Carsten Groen

Hi Matt,
currently there is no finished solution I'm afraid. I have a friend that was talking about doing a run of tubes but I think he is too busy at the moment, I will investigate!
I will send you a PM shortly

HoundDog

My Feedback: (49)

Next project maybe a Head Up display for those that can't fly and chew gum at the same time ....
Just Kidding Looks like U have a great product there. Keep up the good work. Too bad a lot of Jet Jocks
don't read forums.

olnico

Yes, the HUD is coming. Mid next year probably.

Carsten Groen

Spektrum is now also supported

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwPML1gItVA

olnico

Woody has got a DX-18 with quite a few planes configured for it. He will load the Spektrum firmware in an ASSI board as soon as it is released and will publish some videos here and on our Facebook page of the full configuration with the Android device program.

PowerBoxDanny

My Feedback: (47)

Carsten, this is amazing work and look forward to a more in depth look into the product! Quick question, as a JR rep, I will have the XG28 here next month. Being that the XG28 is android based, will this system work with the new XG like it does with the 18MZ?

Thanks again!