I thought I’d do a quick write up about PilotAware and the Dynon SkyView (HDX) and my recent experience of connecting the two. I appreciate this has been done before but this is my attempt to bring it up-to-date and share a couple of my experiences, in the hope that it may help those wanting to do the same. Much is a repetition of what has been written by Russ & Co (useful stuff when the search function is used) but there were a couple of ‘discoveries’ during my installation that might prove helpful.
My plan was to have traffic piped from my PAW to the HDX (easily done) and feed my PAW with GPS information from the HDX (turned out okay…..in the end). It is well documented that one requires an FTDI USB to serial adapter in order to be able to connect the two systems.
I had already discovered that, although they are capable, the USB ports in the PAW are not configured for transmit and receive. This means that two USB to serial adapters are required; one for traffic and one for GPS. With an iGrid dongle, ADSB dongle and two FTDI USB to serial adapters, my PAW USB ports are now full.
I decided to use Serial Port 3 on the HDX for my PAW connections. From the PAW ‘traffic’ FTDI I connected the orange (Tx) wire to the D37 Pin 7 (Rx). The FTDI ‘GPS In’ wire (yellow Rx) was connected to HDX D37 Pin 8 (Tx). The black wires in both FTDIs were combined and fed to an HDX ground.
I configured Serial Port 3 on the HDX as serial input to have ‘Flarm Traffic’ at 4800 Baud rate, with the PAW USB port 4 set to ‘Flarm Out’ at 4800. The HDX serial out was set as ‘Dynon GPS 250’ (‘cos that’s the GPS I have connected to the Dynon system) and automatically set itself to a Baud rate of 38,400. So I reset everything to 38,400. The PAW USB Port 2 was set to GPS/38,400.
Everything was turned on and a very disappointing nada with the GPS going to the PAW but a very satisfying ‘Flarm OK’ on the HDX and traffic appearing on the map.
There was MUCH investigating, including Lee at his house proving the GPS into the PAW is possible (thanks Lee) but it still refused to behave. Baud rates were changed, serial out was changed to NMEA etc etc etc but the PAW Home page still showed a nasty, red GPS. Knowing the traffic option was good I removed the ‘Traffic FTDI’ from the PAW, swapped the ‘GPS FTDI’ into USB Port 4, reconfigured to GPS and green flashing lights on the FTDI!! The GPS block turned green on the PAW Home page and the GPS position counters all started doing what they are supposed to do. All this was with NMEA as the serial out. Switched back to Dynon GPS 250 and the transmit counters stopped. ‘Traffic’ FTDI plugged into PAW USB 2 and Flarm OK came up. It seems that, on my PAW at least, the GPS In does not like USB Port 2.
Lee informed me that GPS into the PAW can be configured as ‘Flarm In’ on the PAW USB setting or ‘GPS’. It just ignores the non-Flarm bits on ‘Flarm In’ and grabs the GPS information. Every day a school day, as they say. What I discovered is if you set it to ‘Flarm In’ then on GPS line of the Home page you get something like ‘Flarm Rcv’ or similar and the counter goes up as it receives GPS info. If you set the PAW USB to ‘GPS’ then the GPS line on the Home page says something like ‘GPS Rcv’ (and the counters go up). The OCD in me had to have it set to GPS, as that’s what I’m feeding into PAW.
SO, after all of that waffle, what works?
The wiring is all good as above but you still need two FTDI USB to serial converters……until the USBs are taught to give and take. One for traffic out and one for GPS in.
I have the GPS in plugged into PAW USB 4. The USB port is set to GPS and I upped the Baud rate 115200 (because I can). In the HDX I have Serial Out set to NMEA Full and the Baud rate set to 115200. When 'Dynon GPS 250' is deselected you can change the Baud rate to your heart's content.
Traffic Out FTDI is plugged into PAW USB 2. The USB port is set to Flarm Out and the Baud rate set at 115200, to keep everything the same. In the HDX I have Serial In set to ‘Flarm Traffic’ and a Baud rate of 115200.
I now have ‘Flarm OK’ on the HDX and traffic showing on the map. On the PAW Home page I have a green GPS blob and the GPS counters increasing. It looks like it’s working well.
The ONLY snag I can see is if I want a USB port in future (e.g. 978 MHz dongle). The only way round this is to have the USBs configured to transmit AND receive, that way the traffic and GPS can use one FTDI, freeing up a USB for something else. This will be necessary for anyone who wants to use a USB port for an FTDI (traffic out, GPS out to a Mode S transponder etc), as one of the ports is always going to be used for the GPS, one for the ADSB and, for anyone who wants to keep up with the latest capabilities, the iGrid dongle.
If we could have some nice weather, I can go out and play with all my lovely new toys
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