EFIS development (needs to be GTN compatible)

[brodhaq 0]

Hello,

I am here with a question regarding datarefs of GTN 650/750 for the EFIS which I am developing for my homecockpit.

1) Is there any chance you could add "Custom Datarefs" also for the second unit? My plane has GTN 750 as master and GTN 650 as secondary, but EFIS is able to display navigational data to both of them. Currently as far as I understand I can have those Custom Datarefs only for the 750 as this is the master device.

2) In not so far future I would love to program a moving map display which shows the GPS route (again, both from the master 750 and the secondary 650). Could you somehow publish flight plan waypoins from those units? I guess you can access them in the trainer, because you are feeding them into XPL default GNS 530/430, so you could probably make them available as some array dataref. Or is there a way to access those default XPL GPS flight plans somehow? I havent find the correct dataref for the flightplans. Are they available via XPL SDK, so that I could write a custom plugin which would extract them? I would be pretty happy with LAT/LON only, waypoint names are not needed as they are not visible on the EFIS map.

3) can you please specify RXP/radios/indicators/gps_discrete_out? I wonder what are all the information which I can read there.

 

Thank you!

Best regards,

Pavel Brodský

 

[RXP 2,336]

Hi Pavel, I'll try my best:

1) The GTN (or GNS V2) custom datarefs are to be used only when you rather have 'master device' data directly, unbiased by X-Plane. Otherwise, any device not sharing the same resource overrides its own set of datarefs.

NB:  The 'master device' controls which of the two devices 'owns' the data feed to the instruments. Say both devices link to the pilot side HSI, only one can 'feed' data obviously, the master device is the one selected to do so.  The same applies to the autopilot, only in this case it is not a matter of pilot/copilot since there is only one.

As an example, setting device #1 to pilot, and device #2 to copilot, override pilot and copilot equivalent datarefs separately, like the ones ending like this:

• "sim/cockpit2/radios/actuators/HSI_source_select_pilot"
• "sim/cockpit2/radios/actuators/HSI_source_select_copilot"

Conversely, device #1 overrides #1 datarefs, and device #2 overrides #2 datarefs like:

• "sim/cockpit/radios/gps_dme_dist_m"
• "sim/cockpit/radios/gps2_dme_dist_m"

 

2) This feature was added in the latest update for our Professional customers only. We are looking at different ways for our retail customers, most likely something via the default FMS/GPS flight planning system but XP11 was a moving target in this department until recently.

 

3) I'll send you a PM for these.