In the previous project, we saw a traffic display involved a far bit of hacking of the Pilotware unit. The downside of this is that it makes it difficult to keep the Pilotaware unit up to date.
The Pilotaware unit provides traffic information via a Wifi hotspot. The system provides an interface on port 2000 which provides FLARM and NMEA GPS information.
What we need is something lightweight, cheap with wifi and a display. Until recently this would have been an expensive development, but today we have the internet of things. Esspressif systems have made this extremely easy with a system of a chip, which includes WiFi, can easily be programmed in C++ using arduino compatible libraries …..and all for the price of a McDonalds! It should be possible to create a unit about the size a fag packet that you can stick the dashboard for very low cost.
All that is required is to connect the esp8266 serial peripheral interface to the display. In this case I used a wimo d1 mini board.
Next we need to connect to the PAW which is only a couple of lines of code, then connect to port 2000 and handle the data stream. Once that’s done we install some SPI display libraries and we can draw whatever we want on the screen.
I chose to depart from the TCAS display symbols because I’m not used to them and I found a ‘spaceship’ pointing towards me far easier to interpret than squares moving sideways. Other than that the large number indicates the level and I can display the reg or whatever with it.
Next Steps
- 3D printed case
- USB Rechargeable lithium battery – gives about 7 hours of use from a 1 hour charge.
- Battery level monitor
- If it can’t connect to PAW show a demo
- A funky start up screen
- Single button power on and off