<<<snip>>>

Also, how would I get my iPaq Pocket PC to run both Anywhere Map and

log data from

my engine monitor at the same time?

Finn

Install Linux on it :-)> Good luck on that Finn. You need a PCMCI card

with

both a GPS and an RS232 port. BTW are PCMCI cards even available with
RS232 or any other type of serial port for that matter?
Perhaps you can get a PCMCI card with a bidi printer parallel port.
Then you will have to write a driver for gathering the data which
is very very difficult to do in windows.

The easiest thing to do is get an old 386SX mother board at a swap meet.
Get a power supply that runs off 12 volts and an old 3.5 inch floppy

drive.

Use those parts to make a data acquisition computer for the baggage

compartment.

Boot DOS 5.0 off the floppy and I will write a data acquisition software

program for you

in compiled QB in about five minutes that will store the data directly

on the floppy

boot disk. When it is full the data acquisition will stop. Remove the

floppy

from the drive after you land and copy the data to any PC.

The reason this is so easy is DOS allows direct hardware access to the

ports

in real time while Windows and Linux do not.

If you want to do this I will donate the 386SX mother board, the floppy

drive

and loan you the 12 to +/- 5 volt DC converter power supply. You handle

the

data acquisition plug in card for the ISA bus and the sensors and

wiring.

I got scads of this old stuff lying around almost too expensive to ship
to Florida for what you can buy it locally for. For use as data

acquisition

equipment it is both ideal and a steal.

The lower half of this picture is all you need. You don't need the CRT.
You might need a cheap keyboard however as some bios's won't boot unless
they see a keyboard.

The Nov 2001 issue of Nuts & Volts has an article on how to do this
on page 73 complete with source code on the software driver for a RS232
serial port.

1 800 783 4624     http://www.nutsvolts.com

I did this back in 1989. Greg Richter and I both published articles in
KitPlanes mag about the same time on how to use PC's for data

acquisition

and moving maps.

Paul Lamar

Paul, & all, I am currently researching this VERY topic!  Any info and
especially hardware you can sell me will help enormously.  I intend to
put a Linux based PC in the baggage compartment to do exactly what
you're describing!  I'm trying to find a 16 (or more) channel a/d board
(each channel independently settable) with Linux drivers.  So far, I've
only found one and it's $325 or so, with Linux drivers but the drivers
don't seem to be fully developed.  I need to monitor everything I can
off the engine sensors during the initial flight phases to tweak as much
as possible, of course.

2nd, I'm looking for a gps mouse to connect to the serial port and
software for the moving map display.  There is a good flight sim that
works in Linux and Windoze with source that I can modify for real time
following using the gps instead of calculated via the joystick.  It has
a pretty good database, too.  If I get *real* ambitious, later on I may
try to incorporate digital terrain data, too.

With the recent drastic drop in costs of the LCD displays, a 15 inch
display at $300 should work very nicely.  If the normal dislays aren't
bright enough, there is a site that sells used 1500 nit displays for
about $300, as well.  I don't know how to convert the store-bought spec
of 350:1 contrast ratio to nits, so I don't know if we're comparing
apples to apples.

Any chance of getting reprints of Paul's and Greg's articles?

Thanks,
AI Nut

Could you send me the information on the web site that sells used 1500 nit
displays.  If you are going to display data you really need the full
sunlight displays.  I want to install a cockpit management system but when I
looked at the prices of new displays ($2000 to $3000)I opted for the Compaq
IPAC pocket PC.  I have both the Windows 2000 and Windows CE embedded
software development kits that I obtained free from Microsoft.

You might want to look for a portable PC with a broken CRT, especially if
you are just using it to log data.  I was at Michigan State Univerities
surplus store and they had one or two units for $10 or $15 dollars (not sure
of the exact price but it wasn't much).  Usually you can pick up a 12 volt
cigarette plug type charger for those units.  The challenge comes with
adding an A/D board to the portable if you go that route.  I'm planning to
use PIC processors or a SoC chip from Cypress Microsystems. The latter has
multiple Op-amp modules, A/D and D/A converts, Digital I/0 blocks all of
which can be 'wired' together with software (onboard EEPROM).  The op-amp
offset voltages and amplification can be programmed.  The I/O ports can be
configured for a number of different sychronous or asychronous protocols.
The Circuit emulator, which includes a GUI drag and drop tool and an
Assembler/loader/Chip burner, is dirt cheap (was $125 when I bought it).

My problem is that this all takes time and diverts me from building the
plane.  I will probably go with of the shelf monitoring equipment and later
integrate or replace it with my own custom designed cockpit management
system.
Delbert

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