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I took a risk and added a pair of bluetooth audio extensions. This lets the timer sit at the edge of the field and the audio system be back at the scorekeepers tent.
Works good, just need to keep them on charge as they only last about 6 hours on a charge. https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00YC...?ie=UTF8&psc=1 |
Latest blog entry: AIrcraft I've built.
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The addition of the second display, as well as the Bluetooth audio modules worked great this weekend at CCHLF. Between the two displays, it was easy to keep up with what was going on, and Bluetooth audio made towing it into the sound system quite easy, and of course made placement easy for the main display.
Great job, Mickey! Thanks for posting a link for the audio modules too. |
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It has been a couple of years since I brought back to NZ from US a pair of MBT display boards developed by Mickey. One set went to the south island, and the other set stayed here in the north island. Kevin Botherway spent some time and made a really nice enclosure for the two displays.
Gerry Carter of gliderscore.com fame modified his contest scoring software so that when one sets up a contest in gliderscore, it could automatically generate the files necessary to import into the MBT so that no fancy editing of any files are necessary. Plug and play, it is a wonderful thing! For the last two years, we have been using these display boards and the audio output for all of our competitions here in NZ (except for F3B, which needs some extra stuff for distance and speed). Having these systems on the field has really made for easy running contests. A quick look at the board and you know what round and flight group is currently running as well as the time, and whether it is prep, working time, landing window, etc. The audio callout at the start of prep time is very good, with the pilots in the group listed, as well as the task and description if flying F3K. Using these boards in our events has really made for smoothly run events here. The combination of gliderscore and MBT has definitely reduced the workload for the contest director, as well as providing much more information for the contestant. Huge thanks to Mickey for making these systems available to the public for essentially the cost of materials. The development has been a labor of love, and the result needs to get more exposure. |
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Latest blog entry: Greater Detroit Soaring and Hiking...
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The display panels are 32x32 1/16 scan, LEDs from Sparkfun. The panel driver is an STM32L432 nucleo board with a custom shield that pins out the connector to the panel. The big panel driver will be a STM32F446RE nucleo with a custom shield for the pin outs and radio. There a couple of power supplies and some cabling. The controller is a STM32F469I-Disco with a shield with drivers and radio socket. If you knew how much I was losing on these, you wouldn't consider making one. |
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Latest blog entry: Greater Detroit Soaring and Hiking...
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Plus I can't screw existing customers that paid for theirs and helped fund the development a little. Right now it's about 65K lines of embedded C not counting the graphics library, chip library and the operating system, developed on a full seat of IAR EWARM, using a Segger JLINK Pro. It's not a casual development, it's just like what I do for a living. There are couple of systems out there that provide adapter driver boards for driving your own home brew display. Look in the F5J forum. Gliderscore will drive them, and some guy makes a driver that works with it. If you really want to do all the labor that's the way to go, but you will still have a couple hundred $ in it when you are done. Those systems apparently work very well, as does Adrians. Mine is a different solution, with lots of features for local practice as well as full blown national contests, and mine is turnkey, just turn it on and go. It does F3K, F5J, F3RES and F3J, knows all the F3K tasks, can run audio only for practice, and includes practice options and easily setup contests with just the controller for using at the field without a computer. Not trying to be a downer, hope you can see my position. Good luck which ever way you decide to go. |
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OK, Mickey. I'm sorry that I misunderstood you - honestly I did get somewhat distracted by the "DIY" mention in one of your posts. I certainly don't expect you to work for free. Since you mentioned your setup is turnkey, lets talk offline about that option if thats possible. I'll send you an email or PM.
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Latest blog entry: Greater Detroit Soaring and Hiking...
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I can certainly make you one, I think I have 10 fielded units right now, including NZ, Germany, France, Argentina, and USA. The DIY was early on when I was thinking that their might be some people willing to help develop. In that situation I would have gone open source and used open source tools. The development would have been slower but in the public. When no one signed up, I fell back to my rapid development model using my non-open source solutions which are much faster to develop with. Sent you a PM with an email address, so we can talk offline. --mickey |
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Well, I've finished the prototypes for the new system with the big display.
I changed the design to use the 1/8 scan 32x32 panels, as they seem to be less expensive (about half the cost of the 1/16 scan). The 1/8 scan was a lot of work and took more compute power. I've also laid out a PCB for the display driver board so there is virtually no hand wiring in the system any more. I put footprints down for 2.4 gig xbee modules, but also a foot print for a Linx long range 900 meg module or 868 meg module that will be legal in the rest of the world. The big display is shown in the video. Note that the times are shortened, and I fast forward to make the video shorter. Take note of the new icons. A square ("window") in the upper left indicates prep time, flying permitted. An X in the upper left indicates prep time, no flying permitted (< 1 minute for Task C). A square in the middle indicates the actual window, clock color is green. A down arrow in the middle, clock color red, indicates land. An X in the middle indicates no flying, time between windows in task C. For Task C, the bottom left number is the flight number, 1 to 3 or 1 to 5. For regular windows the landing down arrow is positioned on the bottom left. The plan is to beta test this weekend at San Felasco. Sample Task C with shortened times
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Last edited by mnowell129; Feb 10, 2019 at 10:06 PM.
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Good luck with the beta testing this weekend. I suspect it will do just fine. Mine finally made its way out of the box a week or so ago, sitting along side a couple of other electronics projects including another CNC controller and a hotwire CNC controller.
Hope to have panels mounted in a week or two so I can start testing it prior to snow melting... Hope to... |
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So the beta test went well. I found and fixed a bug that Austin had reported so that update will go out soon.
PCB boards will go out for fabrication now and I can make the big display available to others. |
Latest blog entry: AIrcraft I've built.
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