Setting up the software

[peastlake]

1. What power supply are you using, and is anything else loading the supply ?
2. The rating of the USB cable, it should really be 20AWG for the power
3. What IOS device

Also, do you have a multimeter to test the voltage on the PI itself.
I have seen a huge voltage drop on some cable/supply combinations

1) At home a 5V/2.5A iPad mains charger. In the trike/car a three way adapter rated at 5V/6.6A total (2.2A per socket). I don't know how I'd avoid using this, as I need to power the iPad (draws about 2.1A) & the GLO (I think this has a current draw of 0.5A) Then I read somewhere that the Pi draws about 750mA & the ARF (which isn't installed yet) about 250mA, so that's 1A. In total, about 3.6A, which should be well within the capabilities of the charger.
2) Dunno. it's one I've taken from a "power brick" & looks quite chunky to me & is probably 50cm long. I've ordered the one you recommended from eBay
3) iPad mini2 running iOs 8.4 (12H143). as I've noted, works fine with the GLO directly.

Yes, I've a multimeter. where would I touch the probes to measure the voltage on the Pi?

Paul

[Admin]

or as you say, plug it into PilotAware, boot it and see what comes up in the hotspot !

Hi Lee

The second WiFi dongle seems to have the address 0013EF30110F. Can you supply a licence & I'll give it a go.

Still intermittent in the car to & from work today.

Paul

Hi Paul,
License sent.
I also have a topi already for handling licensing, we should probably use this in future - easier to make sure I dont lose requests
Thx
Lee

[Admin]

1) At home a 5V/2.5A iPad mains charger. In the trike/car a three way adapter rated at 5V/6.6A total (2.2A per socket). I don't know how I'd avoid using this, as I need to power the iPad (draws about 2.1A) & the GLO (I think this has a current draw of 0.5A) Then I read somewhere that the Pi draws about 750mA & the ARF (which isn't installed yet) about 250mA, so that's 1A. In total, about 3.6A, which should be well within the capabilities of the charger.
2) Dunno. it's one I've taken from a "power brick" & looks quite chunky to me & is probably 50cm long. I've ordered the one you recommended from eBay
3) iPad mini2 running iOs 8.4 (12H143). as I've noted, works fine with the GLO directly.

Yes, I've a multimeter. where would I touch the probes to measure the voltage on the Pi?

Paul

Hi Paul,

the best place to take the voltage reading is on the GPIO of the Pi Header
http://raspi.tv/2014/rpi-gpio-quick-reference-updated-for-raspberry-pi-b
pin 1 = 3.3v
pin 2 = 5.0v
pin 6 = GND

Further reading ...
the RTL-SDR usb dongle can allegedley draw approx 300mA http://superkuh.com/rtlsdr.html
The WiFi I have seen reports of upto 157mA

The RPi by default has a limitation of 600mA on the USB, or it powers down the usb devices.
I wonder if somehow your installation is hitting this limit ?

I already have a USB power meter which measures average voltage and current, so I have just
purchased one of these
http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/maplin-usb-power-meter-n55ce

in addition to the averages, this can measure peak current spike (max) and peak voltage drop (min),
So I will test out the following

1. Supply to RPi
2. RPi(USB) to WiFi
3. RPi(USB) to DVB-T

This should give us a better estimation of the averages and peaks.

Thx
Lee

[grvbc]

In openwrt you can significantly reduce the current drawn by the wifi dongle by setting the transmit power (tx-power) in the /etc/config/wireless file.  I simply dont know if the same applies to debian/rPi, but would think so.  Worth a try.  After all, in the cockpit, you wont need to be blasting out a signal for  a connection over a foot or two.

Would imagine that Tx-Power = 5dbm would be plenty.

[Admin]

In openwrt you can significantly reduce the current drawn by the wifi dongle by setting the transmit power (tx-power) in the /etc/config/wireless file.  I simply dont know if the same applies to debian/rPi, but would think so.  Worth a try.  After all, in the cockpit, you wont need to be blasting out a signal for  a connection over a foot or two.

Would imagine that Tx-Power = 5dbm would be plenty.

In a previous release i dropped the power down to 5mw, but is now back at 20mw. I think you are right but at the time I was trying to overcome what I thought could be too much noise in the cockpit

Thx
Lee

[Admin]

Still intermittent in the car to & from work today.
Paul

Hi Paul,

I have uploaded a new S/W release. I have added KEEPALIVE and TIMEOUT's to the socket communications between
PilotAware and the Nav system - possibly too much information ;-)

Would you be able to try this out and see if this makes a difference.

One difference it will definitely fix is the problem when SkyDemon cannot reconnect without rebooting PilotAware.
PilotAware will now timeout a disconnect, allowing a reconnection simply by 'go flying'

Thx
Lee

[peastlake]

Hi Paul,

I have uploaded a new S/W release. I have added KEEPALIVE and TIMEOUT's to the socket communications between
PilotAware and the Nav system - possibly too much information ;-)

Would you be able to try this out and see if this makes a difference.

Hi Lee. Sorry for the delay - was away for the weekend.

Er... the latest software seems to have broken something. The screen connected to the Pi shows the normal boot, then streams of "Connecting SBS1" followed by streams of "Error: Socket()". There may be other messages, but they pass by too fast to read - and the WiFi initially connects to the iPad, then drops (the LED on the dongle goes out). Additionally, in the time the WiFi appears to be connected, Safari won't connect to 192.168.1.1

[Admin]

Hi Paul,

I have uploaded a new S/W release. I have added KEEPALIVE and TIMEOUT's to the socket communications between
PilotAware and the Nav system - possibly too much information ;-)

Would you be able to try this out and see if this makes a difference.

Hi Lee. Sorry for the delay - was away for the weekend.

Er... the latest software seems to have broken something. The screen connected to the Pi shows the normal boot, then streams of "Connecting SBS1" followed by streams of "Error: Socket()". There may be other messages, but they pass by too fast to read - and the WiFi initially connects to the iPad, then drops (the LED on the dongle goes out). Additionally, in the time the WiFi appears to be connected, Safari won't connect to 192.168.1.1

Hi Paul,

I will double check, I am pretty sure I am running this on all my devices now
That error message would normally indicate an issue with the DVB-T dongle.
(I will cleanup the messages)

Thx
Lee

[onkelmuetze]

Er... the latest software seems to have broken something. The screen connected to the Pi shows the normal boot, then streams of "Connecting SBS1" followed by streams of "Error: Socket()". There may be other messages, but they pass by too fast to read - and the WiFi initially connects to the iPad, then drops (the LED on the dongle goes out). Additionally, in the time the WiFi appears to be connected, Safari won't connect to 192.168.1.1

same problem here!

[Admin]

OK, I am downloading and trying myself ...

First thing I notice, the version on the website has an older datestamp than expected,
checking to see if it is corrupt

I am uploading a new version, Also including a datestamp file in the root directory
so we can refer to revision information.

Please standby...

I have uploaded a new release, downloaded, installed and tested.

It all seems to work fine.

Can you please try this and let me know ?

one additional question, can you confirm are you running on a Pi B+ ?

Thx
Lee

[peastlake]

I have uploaded a new release, downloaded, installed and tested.

It all seems to work fine.

Can you please try this and let me know ?

Last night, all seemed fine at home. Today, in the car, I used it connected to a power brick putting out 2.4A max with no other drain. SkyDemon dropped the GPS connection every 5 to 30 seconds. When it reconnected (which it NORMALLY did - although one re-boot of the Pi was required), SkyDemon then reported my position as where I was minutes before, with no groundspeed - but traffic could be seen. The interesting thing is that, after a dropped connection, the WiFi selection in the iPad Settings can say it's still connected, Safari can see the "home page", but CollisionAware says it's disconnected & can take 5 or so swipes of the switch to make it go green again. Before that it'll say "Check WiFi settings" - but, as stated, all appears connected in the iPad settings.

I'm being to think it's the Wi-Fi! Was Bluetooth ever an option for connection? Can an iPad have more than one Bluetooth connection at a time (as I'm using a Garmin Glo)?

Anyway, now re-downloaded the software, in case you've downloaded a version with a longer timeout - & it's running in the spare room! But not moving of course. Will try again tomorrow in the car.

[Admin]

Hi Paul

The one thing I am now starting to think. Is the garmin glo.
Is your ipad a wifi ?
If so do, you have access to an iphone?

I was going to suggest the following
1. Connect iphone to pilotaware using collisionaware (for gps)
2. Connect ipad to pilotaware using skydemon

This would be a useful datapoint

If your ipad is cellular, could you try using the internal gps ?

Thx
Lee

[Admin]

Hi Paul

Probably a stupid question, what version of ios are you running, I have been reading about the issues of external gps issues in 8.3

Thx
Lee

[peastlake]

Hi Paul

The one thing I am now starting to think. Is the garmin glo.
Is your ipad a wifi ?
If so do, you have access to an iphone?

Yes, WiFi only, running 8.4.1 with which the Glo works directly (i.e. "Go Flying" using "Location Services") perfectly well. I agree it would be useful to compare by running the PilotAware with a cellular iDevice with built-in GPS - but I've not got one. My 'phone (supplied by work) is Android, & I use that as a WiFi hotspot when necessary, which is why I have a WiFi only iPad.

[Admin]

Hi Paul

Thanks for info
Unfortunately i do not have a glo I can test, but i can put some diagnostics in to give more information about what goes wrong.
If I go ahead and do that are you able to rerun and give feedback ?

Probably will not be until middle of next week before it would be ready.

Thx
Lee