USB FTDI LEDs

[Steve6443]

Good evening, I have just packed out my soldering iron and soldered up some cables. Rather than go down the route of Flarm Mouse, I have elected to go for the Flarm Eagle (Power Flarm based) and it's booted up ok (at least I think so.) However the LEDs on the FTDI are resolutely blank. When should they start transmitting? If it's set for GPS and Traffic on Flarm Tools, shouldn't I see these blinking when the satellites have got a fix?

[Ian Melville]

Have you set the USB ports on the PAW config? Make sure you get the right port and match the speed with that set on FLARM Eagle.

[Steve6443]

Yes, Port 1 (top left) is set to Flarm, 19200 baud but no LEDs on the USB connector are lighting up hence I was wondering whether I had an issue with either my soldering or whether the LEDs were just not working or whether my unit is defective.

Just out of curiosity, what colour should I expect to see? I bought the USB-RS232-WE-1800-BT 0.0 from RS electronics.

[Ian Melville]

The LEDs are Green and Red. Green should be flashing when receiving data. If you power up the PAW and then plug in the USB-RS232 cable the LEDs should both flash as the chip boots up.

I usually find these issues are wiring errors.
Looking at the Flarm Eagle manual. From the data port pin-out, Pin 4 needs to go to the yellow of the FTDI cable and pin3 needs to go to the black. Though at this stage it serves no purpose, I would also connect pin 5 to the orange.

Looks to be a much better bit of kit than the old mouse. I withdrew my mouse as it was as much use as a chocolate teapot, darn expensive one at that :-(

[Steve6443]

For some reason, the LEDs now flash. Weird. No wiring defect - pin 4 went to yellow (which on my RJ was green), pin 3 to black (which on my RJ was yellow). Could just be that the thick clouds and location of the GPS antenna on the dashboard of my car last night was blocking a fix and it only flashed when data was received (I didn't check to see whether the LEDs flashed when the PAW booted.....

However I didn't wire the orange to pin 5 - what functionality could the PAW give to the Flarm Eagle?

Am off away for a week or so, when I get back and find some flying weather, will fit it in and take the old kite flying and report back.

[Ian Melville]

However, I didn't wire the orange to pin 5 - what functionality could the PAW give to the Flarm Eagle?

PAW has aircraft profiles, so if you change ship, then PAW profile change can write the correct hex ID and reg to the Flarm Eagle. quickly done and no need to find a PC. Whether there are sufficient Flarm devices out there connected to a PAW to be work Lees time to finish that side-task

[Steve6443]

PAW has aircraft profiles, so if you change ship, then PAW profile change can write the correct hex ID and reg to the Flarm Eagle. quickly done and no need to find a PC. Whether there are sufficient Flarm devices out there connected to a PAW to be work Lees time to finish that side-task

I will only be using it in one aircraft so that's not something that needs to be done...... even so, interesting.

Flarm Eagle also claims to be working on an ADS-B detection system, if that's the case, I might retrofit that such that I can remove the ADS-B dongle (one less antenna). Any thoughts on whether removing the TV dongle / antenna would have any negative impact on the functionality of PAW? As far as I see it, PAW integrates the Flarm data into the PAW system. If Flarm is sending data including ADS-B and Mode A / C / S, then that would seem to obviate the need for the additional antenna?

[Ian Melville]

Have they actually said they will detect A/C/S with a Flarm Eagle? Which will need an additional antenna to receive anything on 1090 anyway?

[Steve6443]

Have they actually said they will detect A/C/S with a Flarm Eagle? Which will need an additional antenna to receive anything on 1090 anyway?

Yes, that is the Plan. Currently, with the official PowerFlarm you can buy either the PowerFlarm Pure (only Flarm) or PowerFlarm ADS-B. The latter shows Mode C / S (no A), Flarm and ADS-B. The unit used in the Flarm Eagle is Power Flarm Pure.

The makers of Flarm Eagle have said they will be offering an upgrade for the Flarm Eagle which will convert it from PowerFlarm Pure to PowerFlarm ADS-B. Now, they have some space to fit a third Antenna but that is usually used for antenna diversity in the Flarm Eagle Pro so maybe it's either diversity for Flarm OR ADS-B. I am waiting to see what the upgrade will cost......

[exfirepro]

Steve,

Sorry, I've been busy the last couple of days, but have been following this thread. Having just read back over the thread and also re-read the (currently very basic) Flarm Eagle quick-start manual, it does appear, as you say, that LXNavigation now intend to produce an upgrade option to 'PF + 1090'. Pretty sure that option wasn't in Version 1 of the guide. This would be relatively easy by adding the standard 'PFC' 1090 Module already used in Flarm's own PFC.

I haven't personally seen the physical size of the Eagle yet, but judging from the size of the connectors, this would almost certainly need to be an either/or alternative to adding the second Flarm Receiver. I would suspect the additional cost would be in the same ballpark as the existing price difference between the current PF Pure and PF Core - i.e. in the region of £500. It might of course be cheaper, but still much more expensive than PilotAware, and you will still need a 1090 antenna.

With regard to the LEDs on the FTDI lead, Ian is correct, the Green LED flashes to indicate received data, but I can't say without re-testing whether this flashes on receipt of GPS data or only on receipt of traffic data because I currently use a different lead in the plane with no LEDs (having donated my FTDI to connect our CFI's PFC to his PilotAware). I do have a spare FTDI lead here, however, so will try to set it up and test it tomorrow.

Best Regards

Peter

[Ian Melville]

The LED will flash for any RS232 packets. The FTDI device has no idea what is being sent. If the Green LED is flashing then it is almost certainly GPS data as the odds of there being a Flarm unit in range are slim.

[exfirepro]

Thanks Ian,

Thought that should be the case but didn't want to say so without testing it.

Regards

Peter

[Steve6443]

Thanks, Peter, for your input.

I disconnected the GPS aerial from the PAW and fired it up yesterday afternoon and everything worked. Green light was merrily flashing away but unfortunately due to weather, no Flarm traffic to be received. On the home page of the PAW web server  I could see that it was using Flarm as the basis for GPS source so all good....

The size of the Flarm Eagle is about the size of a pack of paper handkerchiefs.....

[Ian Melville]

The size of the Flarm Eagle is about the size of a pack of paper handkerchiefs.....

Sadly quite familiar with those at the moment

[exfirepro]

Thanks, Peter, for your input.

The size of the Flarm Eagle is about the size of a pack of paper handkerchiefs.....

Thanks for that Steve, definitely helps picture the size, but I can't get the picture of Ian M with his paper handerchiefs out of my head now    (sorry Ian)

I am trying to 'justify' buying yet another device at present, but am torn between the potential ease and reliability of LXNav's PowerMouse with its USB and 2 x Data Ports and the the Eagle's Dedicated Power supply (I used to have PFC but never liked the idea of supplying the power via a data lead). I already run ADSB, via a TT21 with dedicated GPS (installed pre-PAW), PilotAware with FlarmMouse (I actually have 2 x FlarmMouses...(Mice?) as that was the only way I could carry out my initial testing when we were trying to integrate it with PilotAware) and a Zaon MRX (used since 2009, but not so often these days - except for comparison, so will be interested to hear how you get on.

Best Regards

Peter