DIY thermal sniffer

[dusty IV]

Winter put a big crimp in my flying so nows the time to mess around with some hare brained ideas.

The thermal sniffer available is mucho $ so I'm thinking about a DIY. Anyone out there every play with these things? I wonder if it works?

There are some really neat pressure sensors used on cars for the fuel system. I think I'll order one out to play with.

It doesn't seem like the hardest project in the word. I'll keep you informed on progress but don't hold your breath. :)

[Ironsides]

Dusty:

Just to give you some feedback, a sniffer would be a very interesting project.

Last summer I stood beside an RC glider pilot who had one of those expensive rigs. The sensor in the plane sent downlinked data to a receiver he had hooked on his belt. It gave a series of long tones for UP and short tones for DOWN - something like that. About once a minute a synthesized voice gave the altitude in meters. That's a long way of saying, "Yes, they do work".

It would appear that the components needed are a pressure sensor that would pick up about a one foot change in altitude, a processing unit to detect altitude change encode the signal as a data stream, a downlink and a receiving unit that woud process the signal and provide audible clues.


David

[randy lee]

I did build a vario with a map sender as my base.
sound w/ 3' movment at 20 fpm
4" meter +/- 1000'
temp comp.
digital alt 10' incraments (c. card dvm)
all for 12ma./9v.!
without the meters its 1"x3"x1/2"

85' dodge map without the case is 1"x1"x1/4"
2 volt change/10,000'
4-9 volt supply
Randy
ahga.org

[Mr DIY]

They are actually quiet easy to make.

I built a system with 25cm resolution thats feeds back data real time and displays the information on a biggish dot matrix display. Go look for the Motorolla MPX range of sensors.

Brian

[rance]

Dusty,

Try Motorola MPX5100, MPX4115, and MPX2100 for starters. Then you'll have to integrate this to either a piezo on the plane or build a downlink of some kind.

Rance

[bjcnow8]

scribe