mshafer
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jan 8, 2013
- Messages
- 425
- Reaction score
- 137
I run Foreflight on a RAM mount for charts.
Wanted to add weather to the Foreflight and bought the Stratus 1 from Sportys before the Stratus 2 came out.
Observation - The unit works pretty good, the GPS is consistently 1 meter accuracy. The weather reception is good at altitude on the East Coast and South. The downside is the radar images are coarse when zoomed out, the updates are often very old, especially the visibilities, winds, TAF, etc and sometimes certain data is just missing.
The unit itself is black plastic and unfortunately, works best (reception) when sitting on the dash board. If there is any Sun at all, the unit overheats, gives you the "I'm to hot" message on the Foreflight. The unit does have an external ADS antenna port but does NOT have a remote GPS antenna option so placing it under a seat or in a side pouch is not an option because the GPS degrades or does not work.
Being really annoyed, I vented to Sportys and Appareo and got the obligatory "gosh, we are sorry but the new one is much better, pony up $ 900"
So, I decided to apply some of the money Mom and Dad spent sending me to Engineering School to fix the design deficiencies.. The unit was unusable so didn't have much to loose.
I disassembled the unit and found a single board with the GPS antenna, ADS-B antenna and Wi-Fi antenna with a Lithium battery underneath.
There was room beside the battery so I decided to install two miniature 5 volt muffin fans side by side toward the front of the unit and then cut a round exhaust exit hole near the back of the unit. I installed a plastic baffle to direct the air over the battery and up and over the board.
I installed a miniature mechanical temperature snap button type thermostat that activated at 100 degrees. I found a tap point on the board where the 5 volts comes in from the USB charger connection and wired it direct to the thermostat. I always run the unit plugged into the Ships power (via the lighter jack) so the fans do not run from the battery output, that way I isolated the fans from the Lithium power source - safety issue.
I cleaned and painted the case with Kyrlon plastic fusion paint a brilliant white color.
The overheating problem is gone. I was concerned that the magnetic fields from the muffin fans might degrade the radio(s) reception but I have not seen the issue when the fans turn on.
I just upgraded to the new version of Foreflight (version 6) and now... we have motion capability for the radar images.. Very nice.
Wanted to add weather to the Foreflight and bought the Stratus 1 from Sportys before the Stratus 2 came out.
Observation - The unit works pretty good, the GPS is consistently 1 meter accuracy. The weather reception is good at altitude on the East Coast and South. The downside is the radar images are coarse when zoomed out, the updates are often very old, especially the visibilities, winds, TAF, etc and sometimes certain data is just missing.
The unit itself is black plastic and unfortunately, works best (reception) when sitting on the dash board. If there is any Sun at all, the unit overheats, gives you the "I'm to hot" message on the Foreflight. The unit does have an external ADS antenna port but does NOT have a remote GPS antenna option so placing it under a seat or in a side pouch is not an option because the GPS degrades or does not work.
Being really annoyed, I vented to Sportys and Appareo and got the obligatory "gosh, we are sorry but the new one is much better, pony up $ 900"
So, I decided to apply some of the money Mom and Dad spent sending me to Engineering School to fix the design deficiencies.. The unit was unusable so didn't have much to loose.
I disassembled the unit and found a single board with the GPS antenna, ADS-B antenna and Wi-Fi antenna with a Lithium battery underneath.
There was room beside the battery so I decided to install two miniature 5 volt muffin fans side by side toward the front of the unit and then cut a round exhaust exit hole near the back of the unit. I installed a plastic baffle to direct the air over the battery and up and over the board.
I installed a miniature mechanical temperature snap button type thermostat that activated at 100 degrees. I found a tap point on the board where the 5 volts comes in from the USB charger connection and wired it direct to the thermostat. I always run the unit plugged into the Ships power (via the lighter jack) so the fans do not run from the battery output, that way I isolated the fans from the Lithium power source - safety issue.
I cleaned and painted the case with Kyrlon plastic fusion paint a brilliant white color.
The overheating problem is gone. I was concerned that the magnetic fields from the muffin fans might degrade the radio(s) reception but I have not seen the issue when the fans turn on.
I just upgraded to the new version of Foreflight (version 6) and now... we have motion capability for the radar images.. Very nice.
