BTW I used to be against louvers as being bad for aerodynamics.
I now think they are the lessor evil. Radiators MUST be unobstructed
on their back sides.
Paul Lamar
Ed Anderson wrote:
What? You mean my Louvers are now acceptable and I can stop covering
them
with duct tape when on the ground? {:>)
By the way, I presume I'll see you at Tracy's late October?
Ed
Not in your case Ed :-) If your rad was right next to them I would
like them. Your rads dump into the cowl and then the air tries
to find it's way out. You would be better off with a large cowl flap.
Also I think your rads would work better or could be smaller if
they were not so close to the gear box and the engine.
Yes I will try to be there in Oct.
BTW how are you coming with your PIC programming?
Are we going to see an aerodynamic pressure data acquisition system
any time soon? How about an engine data display using outputs
from Tracy's EFI and other sensors? If you do something like that
please log the data in EEPROM for later RS232 download. That would be
very useful for trouble shooting cooling and other problems.
I'll be your first customer... sight unseen.
Paul Lamar
Shucks! Now we have two classes of louvers - acceptable and still
unacceptable, I'll keep the duct tape handy {:>). I agree that I could
probably do a bit of clean up and revamping my cooling system, but since it
works fine keeping the engine temps where they should be right now, I'll
(for the moment) just continue to pay the drag piper as there are other
things I want to do.
Regarding the PIC, old dog - new tricks. Actually, it has progressed to the
point where I have written all sections of the code for the first iteration
and am playing with the layout on the PC board. I got side tracked by a new
PIC assembly tool that I thought was going to be a big help by simulating
external devices such as 7 Seg Displays, LCD, etc., so I could hook it all
up in virtual reality and see how it worked or where the bugs were.
However, the tool has a high learning curve, does some strange things like
lock up my computer rather than give me an assembly error, etc. Also, it
embedds all sort of its own "housekeeping" code which does nothing to
clarify what the program is doing IMHO. Perhaps if I continue to play with
the tool, it would pay for itself in development time, so for a professional
programmer it may pay off the time invested, but for me it goes on the shelf
for the moment. So back to the old (and Free) Microchip MPLAB assembly tool.
I must admit that despite my initial reluctance to take this approach,
your suggestion to use a PIC does greatly reduce the parts count compared to
my analogy approach and offers much more flexibility. Hopefully I can bring
the PIC prototype with me to Tracy's.
Regarding projects. First is the Fuel Monitoring system (currently
underway), second intended was a WingLeveler using a pizeo gyro (for short
term roll stabiliby) and the GPS for Heading stability (long term). Then I
was thinking about a readout from Tracy's System - but don't have his data
stream information. I also though how nice it would be to have a data
logger and it does not appear to be that difficult for collecting data and
storing x amount of time in epprom - or (I haven't explored it) but
persumably there are just eeprom chips out there for storage of massive
amounts of data.
Ahh, so many things to do and so little time - you know the feeling {:>).
By the way, I think you could go into business with your Rhino expertise
just providing 3 D layouts of FWF packages, I'm impressed. A great service
you are providing to the folks.
See you in October.
Ed
The AirCraft Rotary Engine NewsLetter. Powered by Linux.
ACRE NL web site. http://home.earthlink.net/~rotaryeng/
Copyright 1998-2002 All world wide rights reserved.