Hi Terry Im interested in rolling my own flap and trim control. Are
you willing to share your setup and code design.

Steve Izett



Steve, what board are you planning to use? I have a program that I
wrote for an Arduino Mega that reads a POT connected to the flap
actuator and activates an H bridge. It works- press the down button
and get 10 degrees, press it again get 20 and the third time get max,
which on my plane is 40. Press it once and it goes up a notch, etc. I
have tried to put it on an Uno or Tiny and it doesn't work just
right, but on the Mega 2560 it works fine.

I re-purposed a pair of Microsoft joysticks for my sticks- the center
joystick is elevator and aileron trim, the buttons on the left are up
and down flaps, and the buttons on the right are interior lighting.
The thumb button is autopilot off and on. The trigger is PTT. Works
great.

If anybody wants more info, shout at me.

Let me know if this will work for you-

Kevin Alderman


Hi Kevin Thanks for the feedback. I’m using the Colour Maximite
which used interpreted basic script. Your flap control is similar to
what I plan to do. A few lines of code with a pot as feedback. I’m
interested in automating the pitch trim and wondering whether air
speed, flap position and weight and balance will be consistent data
to reliably adjust trim, or will it require feedback from the
autopilot system? If it requires data from the skyview bus then that
puts it beyond my time/ability/risk decision matrix.

Cheers

Steve Izett

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/818225433/maximite-bbx-the-modern-day-basic-language-compute




Wow!
That is really cool Steve. I got to get one and try it out.

Looks like I can port my GPS driven Moving Map software I wrote in
1990.

Finally one can write real time software on this jewel.

Paul Lamar



Hi there Paul
Geoff has come up with an amazingly simple tool.
http://geoffg.net
Go to Colour Maximite. At the bottom of the page.
Download the MMBasic Language Manual and Hardware Manual and have a read, very clever.
See also the micromite.
I’d need to check the timing specs but it can probably do what you are working on at the moment.

See   http://www.thebackshed.com/forum/forum_topics.asp?FID=16
Geoff and some pretty clever guys are on this forum.

Steve

Thanks Steve.

Here is the source code in zipped form to my moving map program if you
want to take a look at it. Ran on QB in DOS with 650K of Ram.
Two modules. One was called from the hard disk. The Maximite looks to be
perfect hardware for this task.

The program records the flight path on hard disk and can be played back.
There is also a demo program that runs. It includes the FAA data
base for all airports in the US. All zipped to 1.1 meg :)

The runway gets bigger and bigger as you approach on the 3 degree
glide slope.

You could fly the airplane down to touch down on the center line in a fog
with the latest + or - 15 feet GPS data assuming your altimeter
was set to the correct height.

With a high power ultrasonic height above ground sensor
it would be even better.

Paul Lamar


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