Today we finished testing our new dual programmer board design coupled with the V29.4 software release. This incorporates 8 levels of LCD brightness and 16 levels of contrast adjustment. These features were in response to user requests to tone down the backlighting levels for night flying.
This was the old default level 7
This is medium level 4
This is low level 1
All photos shot at contrast setting of 10.
It's hard for the camera to catch the true levels in the studio even with 63 points of averaging. We estimate the 0 setting is about 1/20th the brightness of 7.
The contrast settings allow better clarity and wider viewing angles under different ambient and backlighting situations.
The new programmer release also combines an LCD display with wider temperature specs, now -20 to +70C. This again, from requests by users in very cold and very hot climates where the characters often became hard to read or slow to change in the cold.
As before, our dual board programmer can access either ECU board in a dual ECU system without any need to swap cables behind the panel.
In another area, we're also releasing our new crank sensors with SMT Hall Effect sensors in place of the older through-hole type. These were tested for 6 months on our shop car under some very hot conditions to be sure they were as reliable as the legacy components. The front aircraft mounting sees far less temperature than in this auto environment which is only a few inches from the radiator face.
This last change was mainly to reduce production costs/ time as we try to add features like the programmer functions without increasing system costs for the customer.
All of these things take time and money to develop and test so if we can offset those costs somewhere else without compromising reliability, we will.
This was the old default level 7
This is medium level 4
This is low level 1
All photos shot at contrast setting of 10.
It's hard for the camera to catch the true levels in the studio even with 63 points of averaging. We estimate the 0 setting is about 1/20th the brightness of 7.
The contrast settings allow better clarity and wider viewing angles under different ambient and backlighting situations.
The new programmer release also combines an LCD display with wider temperature specs, now -20 to +70C. This again, from requests by users in very cold and very hot climates where the characters often became hard to read or slow to change in the cold.
As before, our dual board programmer can access either ECU board in a dual ECU system without any need to swap cables behind the panel.
In another area, we're also releasing our new crank sensors with SMT Hall Effect sensors in place of the older through-hole type. These were tested for 6 months on our shop car under some very hot conditions to be sure they were as reliable as the legacy components. The front aircraft mounting sees far less temperature than in this auto environment which is only a few inches from the radiator face.
This last change was mainly to reduce production costs/ time as we try to add features like the programmer functions without increasing system costs for the customer.
All of these things take time and money to develop and test so if we can offset those costs somewhere else without compromising reliability, we will.
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