AMX on an Airplane

Rpleeb

Hi all,
Our company has gotten a contract to equip a customers business jet with an AMX system and I was hoping some of the smart guys on this forum could help me with this one. The job itself is a simple 8x8 video distribution setup, so no problem there.

What I was hoping to find is a way to find the local time, and reset the master time to the local time. Kind of like how your cell phones always get the local time, wherever you are. The plane is being equipped with "air show" internet access system, if that means anything.

I know, I can teach the crew to set the time through the touch panel, and save a bunch of time and effort, but what fun would that be.

Any Ideas?

ericmedley

Rpleeb wrote: »

Hi all,
Our company has gotten a contract to equip a customers business jet with an AMX system and I was hoping some of the smart guys on this forum could help me with this one. The job itself is a simple 8x8 video distribution setup, so no problem there.

What I was hoping to find is a way to find the local time, and reset the master time to the local time. Kind of like how your cell phones always get the local time, wherever you are. The plane is being equipped with "air show" internet access system, if that means anything.

I know, I can teach the crew to set the time through the touch panel, and save a bunch of time and effort, but what fun would that be.

Any Ideas?

I have a similar thing going on with one of my clients. They have several AMX systems in different locations throughout the world but want to be able to set the time on their control system to the 'home office' timezone.

So, what I do is not use the system time per se. I keep the master set to GMT and then made my own clock that runs at whatever offset the client wants. It does involve the program sending the time to the touch panel instead of using the built-in TP clock.

I think it'd almost be easier to do it this way myself instead of resetting the clock constantly.

I dunno...
e

vining

Your biggest challenge will be determining where you are. If you can pull data from "air show" that would be great but a quick google search revealed GPS devices with RS232 that you can potentially poll for your current position. They may also do the time conversion for you too but if not you should be able to easliy create a look up table to use with the retrieved lat/long.

Like E suggested your best bet would be to keep the system at GMT (Zulu) and use a look up table with offsets based on your returned longitudinal value.

Auser

GPS was my first thought too. Its pretty easy to parse NMEA data from a GPS to get an instantaneous location and you can apply your own rules to calculate local date time.

It seems that the NMEA format has provision for "ZDA" sentences which provides local date and time too, but I'm not sure whether this is based on a pre-configured GMT offset or calculated on the fly. There's a chance that only some GPS devices will provide it too.

the8thst

Don't you or the system being installed (or both) have to be certified by the FAA?

Rpleeb

Thanks guys
I was thinking some kind of a GPS. That seems like a solution I can work with. Does anybody know a model with an easy protocol??




to answer your question about the FAA, we're only mocking the system up in a hanger, then another company is doing the actual installation. As far as the equipment being FAA certified, It seems as long as the equipment ends up in a firebox, and is wired to spec, (we're not doing that either) then all is good.

Who Knew?

the8thst

Rpleeb wrote: »

Thanks guys
to answer your question about the FAA, we're only mocking the system up in a hanger, then another company is doing the actual installation. As far as the equipment being FAA certified, It seems as long as the equipment ends up in a firebox, and is wired to spec, (we're not doing that either) then all is good.

Who Knew?

Interesting... this means that I have a few customers to call back and let them know that I was incorrect and that we CAN work with them on a system for the planes.

Thanks for the info.

Rpleeb

8thst,
i'll let you know how the final installation process ends up. there are two other companies dealing with the actual airplane (737 bbj) and they make it seem like it is no big deal.

Be aware, things get VERY expensive, VERY quickly. Imagine the most you would ever think about spending on of piece of equipment, then quadruple it. For instance, a very simple 26" inch flat screen for this job came in at $16k.


And we thought our touch panels were expensive! Yikes!

HARMAN_shane-a-roo

You mention "air show" internet access. Have you determined what that is? Is it true internet access? If so then the master can be configured to hit a Network time server. In this mode the master can also be configured to a particular time zone and specific DST settings.

vining

shane-a-roo wrote: »

You mention "air show" internet access. Have you determined what that is? Is it true internet access? If so then the master can be configured to hit a Network time server. In this mode the master can also be configured to a particular time zone and specific DST settings.

If you google it, it's used to provide real time doppler radar feeds, weather info and all sorts of usefull internet accessable crap to the cockpit (facebook, twiitter.... ) so when I read that after the OP it sounds like it would be easy to tap into but would they let you? It's ancillary equipment and not mission critical for flight so it's possible.