My Attempt at a $115 ADS-B Receiver Build for Foreflight

Well I finished my build. It had been a work in progress and my last step was to put a fan on it. Here are some pics
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Fan with command strip cut to fit. Mounting it on the pi board itself pointing toward the cpu heat sink.
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Fan in place.
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I decided to mount the gps unit on the opposite end of the pi. More room there for me because the jumper wires I used to plug into the gpio pins were too much in the way of the gps chip being mounted above.
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Picture of the jumpers I used.
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Final product. You can see the top of the gps antenna through the airplane cut out.
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Notice the small silicone legs. Keeps the unit from sliding around on the dash.
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I power mine with the anker e5 16000mah and never have any power issues. Mostly run on aircraft power but carry the anker for backup.

Matt


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I'm building this over the weekend. I'd like to test it out on a commercial flight on Monday - American Airlines.
Will they let this through security?
Am I allowed to use this on the plane?
 
G-Man said:
I'm building this over the weekend. I'd like to test it out on a commercial flight on Monday - American Airlines.
Will they let this through security?
Am I allowed to use this on the plane?
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They'll probably arrest you, then the press will get the story and you'll get invited to The White House like the kid who built a clock they thought was a bomb. :D
 
Depending on the printed case, just tell them it is a portable wireless hard drive, which is technically accurate though a tad misleading.
 
Re: Commercial flight question

D'ont know if you have enough time but another approach might be to get with the security folks well before boarding time and show your system to them and tell them that it will simply feed data into your tablet or phone and answer their questions about it. I believe some other people have posted results of their systems while on commercial aircraft. Sometimes simple honest approaches work better than more elaborate deception. Probably a smoothly finished unit in a case will be better received than a bunch of IC's loosely wired together.

The previous request to post your results is very good for all of us. GOOD LUCK
 
Well, I'm flying out of Denver International Airport so I might just be the first POAer who meets OverDrive while he's working in the line of duty. I expect my cell will be near the secret dinosaur lizard lair below the airport's public level. Seems like a win-win!

Edit - Hot Damn! It works, after birthing pains. Looks like a main issue was a cheapie power cord from battery to Pi. Now, sitting at home showing "FreeFlight, 0 Towers" and "Radar not available" but seeing traffic (assumedly airliners) from time to time.

Troubleshooting tips for others - with the right amount of power, the radios glow steady soft blue instead of a flashing small LED. And the Wifi USB module has a tiny flashing LED on top. Now running a 2A battery but charging the new Anker 16Ah battery that can provide 3A.

Running ForeFlight on an iPad 3 and it is showing traffic as eeeee662 and eeeee580. These eeeees seem like a errors? IMages show =124 and =84 with alternating diamonds and arrows. Where to learn about this?

Next question - where are the instructions for adding the GPS/AHRS? And, where do I connect the fan power leads? Thanks!
 
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Edgefly said:
Re: Commercial flight question

D'ont know if you have enough time but another approach might be to get with the security folks well before boarding time and show your system to them and tell them that it will simply feed data into your tablet or phone and answer their questions about it. I believe some other people have posted results of their systems while on commercial aircraft. Sometimes simple honest approaches work better than more elaborate deception. Probably a smoothly finished unit in a case will be better received than a bunch of IC's loosely wired together.

The previous request to post your results is very good for all of us. GOOD LUCK
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Rule of thumb when dealing with the Feds - don't volunteer anything, don't ask permission. Remember, you're dealing with TSA at this point.

By definition, it's a receive-only, consumer electronic device. Tablets & phones can be used at all times (but in airplane-off mode), computers must be shut off below 10K, then ok to use them. (I just got off southwest). You'll need to sit next to the window for the antenna(s). The GPS will take a few minutes to sync (tablet or otherwise).
 
Anyone try out wingx after today's update? Just got home and saw an update for wingx and the description said it added support for stratux ahrs. Haven't tried it yet myself.


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denverpilot said:
Just to be pedantic, you have delayed radar that's 1990s resolution, not current weather reports but close, METARs, delayed "unofficial" TFR data that FAA already decided wasn't good enough for one guy, and some traffic.

:)
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This may have been asked already, but does the ready to go much more expensive Stratus give better info?
 
RalphInCA said:
This may have been asked already, but does the ready to go much more expensive Stratus give better info?
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Here is the Stratus feature set and pricing.
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With 5v2 wingx ahrs works. I drove around with it and it seemed to work well.


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It is a lot more stable then the foreflight version when it was working.


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So does your red light on the Raspberry stay lit the whole time it's on? Mine blinks randomly (I think it's random) on and off
 
Pinstriper said:
So does your red light on the Raspberry stay lit the whole time it's on? Mine blinks randomly (I think it's random) on and off
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Sounds like a power issue, red light should be static. Flashing indicates brown outs.
 
I may just start plug hinging it into the power port (cigarette lighter) in the airplane.. But my light now blinks.. Could it be from current draw running dual antennas?
 
JoseCuervo said:
Looks like there are now specifically built antennas for each frequency by the guys on Reddit.

$10 gets you a pair of them. Plus, it looks like you need a $5 connector from Amazon.


Straux Antennas

Reddit Discussion on the Antennas
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I saw those before but I will stick with the digikey ones i got of SkyRadar, they are pulling in 7 towers and signal strength is great. If they are good enough for a commercially made receiver,mood enough for me !!

Dan's $10 antenna are apparently tuned for each freq but how to do know which tuner to connect the appropriate antenna ?
 
Scrabo said:
I saw those before but I will stick with the digikey ones i got of SkyRadar, they are pulling in 7 towers and signal strength is great. If they are good enough for a commercially made receiver,mood enough for me !!

Dan's $10 antenna are apparently tuned for each freq but how to do know which tuner to connect the appropriate antenna ?
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From the inventor of the antenna.....


The antennas themselves come in bags which are labeled as to which frequency they are. As to putting them on the "right" SDR - my understanding is that the best way to do this is to plug in only ONE SDR and boot up the stratux - this will end up being your 978 radio. Then shut down, add the second, this will be your 1090 radio. They will stay that way permanently. I may have that wrong, so hopefully one of the experts can chime in. The easiest way to verify is, of course, to take off one of the antennas and see which band's message count plummets - that'll make it obvious which is which!
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I'll just stick with my digikeys.. They work very well
 

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Scrabo said:
I'll just stick with my digikeys.. They work very well
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Did you follow the Reddit discussions to see why they went to the effort of building custom ones vs the ones from DigiKey?? (I did not see such discussion.)

(The discussion here on building antennas went way over my head, seemed to get bogged down in detail, and, ultimately lead to nowhere.)


What do the DigiKey ones cost?
 
JoseCuervo said:
Did you follow the Reddit discussions to see why they went to the effort of building custom ones vs the ones from DigiKey?? (I did not see such discussion.)

(The discussion here on building antennas went way over my head, seemed to get bogged down in detail, and, ultimately lead to nowhere.)


What do the DigiKey ones cost?
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I think the discussion on antennas over on Reddit has moved into the nerd zone, they are trying to squeeze every last ounce of performance, come in, it's a raspberry Pi based system, there are bigger issues to address !!

With the digikeys I was able to pick up 7 of the 15 towers in AZ above 2500ft which is good enough. Can't see spending more money on 'home made' antennas is going to buy me much performance gain. Digikeys were about $5 each.
 
kgruber said:
Sorry, must be dense. I see two "connectors." Do I need both?
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Each connector has two different ends(MCX and SMA) which you see in the photo, you need to order 2 of these if you are using a dual freq setup
 
Scrabo said:
I'll just stick with my digikeys.. They work very well
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I have a single digikey on mine right now. It's performing well, but I can't keep it upright. I have to bend it at 90 degrees and then wrap a rubber band around the box, otherwise it will flop over.

Did you have this problem?

The Reddit antennas look like they screw in.

Jim
 
buzzard86 said:
I have a single digikey on mine right now. It's performing well, but I can't keep it upright. I have to bend it at 90 degrees and then wrap a rubber band around the box, otherwise it will flop over.

Did you have this problem?

The Reddit antennas look like they screw in.

Jim
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Don't have that problem at all
 
Why is it when I plug in only one receiver my red light stays lit permantley.. But when I plug in the second receiver the red light randomly flashes? I'm using the specified KMOSHI battery.. should the red light stay solid?
 
Red light should be solid, the second receiver is just putting too much drain on the battery

Must people now use an Anker battery with better quality cable from the battery to the Pi.
 
So let me ask this, what's the real advantage on having both the 978 and 1090 receivers? I have them both but is it really necessary?
 
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