FllightDEK-D180

[Guest]

Where can I find more information about the FlightDEK-D180? I saw the ad in the January Kitplanes mag. It looks great in the ad!

 

[Guest]

Aha...I found teh link for the brochure, please disregard

 

[Dave(Guest)]

The price of the FlightDEK-D180 is $3200 plus probes? That seems like a very good deal. Separately they're $4600. Is that a typo? Even the D10 combo is $3990.

 

[dynonsupport]

No typo!

One 7" screen! It's an EFIS! It's an EMS! Only $3200 (plus probes)!!!
<<cue cheesy infomercial music>>

 

[Dave(Guest)]

I get it now. I thought that was a 2 screen system. Still, that's a very good package for an EFIS plus engine monitor.

Dave

 

[13brv3]

Is Dynon taking orders for this unit yet? Any idea what the probe package for an O-360 with fuel flow option would be? Would an order now, require full payment, or just a deposit?

Thanks,
Rusty (RV-8 needs some goodies)

 

[dynonsupport]

We are currently taking orders for the FlighDEK-D180.

The sensor package for a 4 cylinder carburated Lycoming engine costs $600; the fuel flow sender costs $200.

We do not take any payments on orders until they are just about to ship.

 

[13brv3]

Thanks for the order info.  Does (Will) the unit have any data logging capability built in? I imagine it will likely work with the 3rd party software that was mentioned in another thread, but I don't want to have to carry a laptop around to do this.

Cheers,
Rusty
 

 

[dynonsupport]

When we first ship the D180, it will not have internal datalogging. We may add this in a future software update, but it is not currently a high priority.

For future development it would be helpful if you could describe what your ideal datalogging system would look like. There's a hundred ways we could do it and it is always helpful to hear what our customers are looking for.

 

[13brv3]

My idea of the perfect datalogging system is one that records the data automatically in a FIFO buffer. In other words, you don't have to decide whether you want to save it or not in advance. A feature to stop the recording, and hold the current data would be nice though, particularly if the buffer isn't very big. If it could save even a few hours of data, that would be great, but I'd say 10 hours would be perfect. Ideally, this could be downloaded to a USB memory stick, but downloading with a laptop would be OK too. You would also need a basic program to view this, and plot the data on a computer.

A friend has a JPI EDM-900, and it records something like 25-30 hours. He recently had about 30 seconds of rough engine running during a flight, but then it went back to normal. After the flight, he was able to download the data, and see that the EGT on his front two cylinders changed significantly during that time. Using this info, the problem was fairly quickly traced to the lightspeed ignition coil that runs the front two cylinders. Needless to say, I was impressed.

I'm very nearly ready to order one of the D180 units, but do worry a bit about getting the first of anything. Certainly, if there turns out to be a problem, Dynon will make it right, but what about features that are added in the semi-near future? If it's just software, then I'll get it with the updates, but if changes are made to the hardware, will I have a fairly painless ($$$) option to update my early unit?

Note- correct answers to the above questions will almost certainly result in an order being placed Monday

Cheers,
Rusty

 

[dynonsupport]

Rusty,
The datalogging on D180 will be complex, as we have attitude, altitude, airspeed, AOA, OAT, fuel flow, EGT, MAP, etc, etc, etc. We do hope to get there someday, but it's a real user interface challenge, especially on the PC display program.

As for D180 hardware, a D180 is literally EFIS-D10A and EMS-D10 hardware in a box, with new software. We've been selling the D10A for 18+ months now and the EMS for about a year. These are both stable hardware platforms and we have no changes planned. We have yet to introduce a feature on the D10A or EMS that isn't availible on every unit we have shipped with only a SW update. We have thought long and hard about what we would like to add to the D180 and it's all possible with the current HW.

he D180 is really building on the platform that we have been developing for years, so it's not really a "new" product- it's the integration of two of our current generation products, so we don't expect any major hardware updates to it.

 

[13brv3]

Thanks for the comments. I guess now I just have to decide if the datalogging is important enough to keep me from getting the D180.

Thanks,
Rusty (must decide)

 

[13brv3]

Another question- Does the D180 have any sort of audio warnings?

Thanks,
Rusty (trying to figure out how many audio inputs I need)

 

[dynonsupport]

The FlightDEK-D180 will have audio warnings.

 

[13brv3]

Excellent.

Thanks,
Rusty

 

[Dave B(Guest)]

Why bother writing a PC display interface for data logging - just do a data dowload programme that produces a simple text file (comma separated variable or similar) that users can import into a spreadsheet. It'll be easy enough for folk to make their own simple displays and to swap them via the net.

Dave

 

[dynonsupport]

If you search around the forums here, you'll find that there are a couple of users that have written data capture / log scripts and utilities as you are describing.

 

[13brv3]

A few posts ago, you made it sound like the biggest datalogging challenge was in the user interface program for the PC. Since other users will write programs, or spreadsheets to display the data, what we really need from Dynon is for the unit to save the raw data internally. Could something like this be implemented much sooner than a full blown datalogging function that would include a PC program?

BTW, I just ordered my D180 this morning 8)

Cheers,
Rusty

 

[dynonsupport]

If we do get to datalogging as we hope to some day, the baseline implementation would likely be similar to what you describe. Note that if you capture the serial out from the EFIS/EMS, you can essentially create this storage mechanism today on an external device such as a laptop.

 

[GigG]

FlightDEK-D180 -> EFIS10A

What will be the options for information trasfer between the D180 and the D10A or D100?

Example D180 for the left seat whith a D10A or D100 for the right seat and the right show the engine info from the D180.