To twist or not to twist, that is the dilema!

[N747PW]

A very compeling and desirable user interface is a knob that can twist. With all the wonderful things Dynon products do, they do not allow me to twist (yes, I'm old enough to know what that means!) I would love to be able to twist a knob to set the altimeter, the altitude bug, the heading bug, you get the idea. I also appreciate that this would not be viable with a simple firmware update and that sending a unit back to Dynon for a major mechanical upgrade is undersirable to both parties. Here's the solution... provide an encoder knob with an interface to the DSAB. A simple hole in the panel, a connection to the DSAB and a firmware upgrade would give me all of my wishes. The operation would be equally simple... push a button to select, say altimeter setting, twist the knob. The D100 (or other) will detect the encoder change and adjust the altimeter setting appropriately.

Simple hardware and a small matter of programming (SMOP). Yes, I have been in engineering for too long.

Pat

 

[Canadian_JOY]

Likewise - let's twist! ;-)

Having been involved in avionics development for many years and can honestly say that twist knobs are vastly superior to buttons for slewing pointers and setting values. Human factors analysis shows that in a high-workload cockpit the crew doesn't have time to hold their attention on, for instance, an altimeter setting value, and wait for it to increment to the correct setting. A knob allows the crew to more quickly dial in information, and allows the to more accurately estimate the correct setting without having to give that setting their undivided attention while doing so.

Additionally, one of the most frequent complaints in any new avionics integration is the rate at which values slew when they're driven by button pushes. Too often the slew rate is different between different manufacturers - while most use a 'ball spinning in water' algorithm to produce slew rate, they don't use the same algorithm, thus a 2-second button push on one instrument may result in a 50% change in value while that same duration of button push on another instrument may produce only a 30% change in value. Obviously this isn't as intuitive as twisting a knob.

The concept suggested by 747PW sounds good to me!