Airthre CO monitor

[swatson999]

Recently installed the Aithre CO EX monitor that I picked up at OSH. My observations:

Wiring, of course, was dirt simple...+5V, Ground, and signal, with signal to one of the Enhanced GP pins on the EMS.

Setup/configuration was a bit confusing. First, had to email Dynon to get them to email me the config file which included the Airthre devices. OK, so got that and uploaded it. Now the fiddly bits...the device is listed as a *pressure* device, for some reason. After finding and selecting it, all the widgets wanted to call it "CO PSI" or the like. This meant editing the text fields, along with the green/yellow/red ranges, and suppressing the "PSI" label. Meh. Methinks Dynon should have a "miscellaneous" or "generic" category for devices, so it could put things like this in there. And avoid having things like non-pressure devices labeled "PSI". (Oh, and the data file keeps the label, so in Savvy, it says "CO PPM PSI".

Now, all that said, the device works *great*, and all in all, it was pretty simple to integrate. Small, lightweight, 10-year lifetime before servicing, Bluetooth to send data to the iPhone if you want to view it there...and I got the CO-only version at OSH for $250. Outstanding. It's very sensitive, by the way. After a couple of flights, I can say that it's sensitive enough to register the CO that is in the *ambient Los Angeles air* (I noticed that for periods of both flights, it was showing 3-4 PPM, after showing 0 for a goodly long time; I checked, and that correlated precisely with air quality monitors in the basin showing CO increasing to that level).

Glad I purchased and installed this device...nice to have an actual gauge and PPM values displayed on my screen, and to know that I'll get an alert if it goes too high...

 

[DBRV10]

If you want to get rid of the PSI go to the settings and under SHOW SENSOR UNITS select NO. Name your device as CO and it will display just fine.

Have done a couple of these now.....work great.

By the way, if you want the least possible CO from your engine run it "appropriately LOP". At that F/A ratio there is very little CO produced. ;-)

 

[swatson999]

If you want to get rid of the PSI go to the settings and under SHOW SENSOR UNITS select NO. Name your device as CO and it will display just fine.

Have done a couple of these now.....work great.

Yes, I did that. The display looks correct now (although the log file is not, and here's the thing...it's not a *pressure* sensor in the first place!).

 

[DBRV10]

No its not a pressure sensor, but it is a third party device to which you can apply to a pre-existing widget. It could have been voltage too or any other normal measurement.

 

[swatson999]

Yeah, I was just suggesting that Dynon have an "other" or "generic" type category into which various miscellaneous devices could be placed. It's just a UI thing. The sensor works great, the SV display of the data is awesome. I'm very happy, just had some minor suggestions for Dynon that they might consider...this surely won't be the last 3rd party thingie to come along.

In any case, I can heartily recommend the Aithre CO sensor. They have a new version that includes a wireless link to a pressure transducer for O2 tanks, as well...hopefully someone here will install that and add their observations.