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  #41  
Old 10-24-2011, 09:52 PM
smoothy58 smoothy58 is offline
 
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: East Central Florida
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Rainier-
Any update on when iEFIS will be available for purchase? When we spoke at OSH, the predicted price point was quite impressive and,as you mentioned, could fluctuate with the exchange rate. Is release still going to take place this year?
Thanks.
Gerry Peterson
Merritt Island, FL
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  #42  
Old 10-25-2011, 03:04 AM
Rainier Lamers Rainier Lamers is offline
 
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First units will be ready this year still but main production will only be on-line in February. We got our main holiday season coming up and that means from December to middle of January all our contract manufacturers close down.

Exchange rate looks good from a USD/South African Rand point of view so it does look like we will be able to fulfil our target price promise.

Rainier

Quote:
Originally Posted by smoothy58 View Post
Rainier-
Any update on when iEFIS will be available for purchase? When we spoke at OSH, the predicted price point was quite impressive and,as you mentioned, could fluctuate with the exchange rate. Is release still going to take place this year?
Thanks.
Gerry Peterson
Merritt Island, FL
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  #43  
Old 10-25-2011, 04:08 AM
smoothy58 smoothy58 is offline
 
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Thanks Rainier
Looking forward to the formal iEFIS release!

Gerry
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  #44  
Old 10-25-2011, 07:16 AM
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miyu1975 miyu1975 is offline
 
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Location: Indianapolis, IN
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Rainier, I don't recall reading this but will the iEfis support Vertical Power VP-X when it is released?
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RV7 N612RA, flying since july 2012
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  #45  
Old 10-25-2011, 08:12 AM
Rainier Lamers Rainier Lamers is offline
 
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The iEFIS supports everything that out current line of EFIS systems support and everything in addition that may be added will be ported to the existing systems were this is technically possible and makes sense.

The only item that will not be supported is the Trio servo. There is a technical reason for this, nothing else, it would have made things more complex to include support for this. Currently we have a box called the "COM extender" which on the face of it is 4 x serial ports but it includes a fair portion of the Trio servo interface as well. The iEFIS does not support the COM extender as it provides 6 serial ports as standard but it does not include the Trio servo interface part which was ditched in order to simplify matters.
This means that the iEFIS supports MGL servos via CAN bus only.

Rainier

Quote:
Originally Posted by miyu1975 View Post
Rainier, I don't recall reading this but will the iEfis support Vertical Power VP-X when it is released?
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  #46  
Old 10-25-2011, 06:55 PM
turneraero turneraero is offline
 
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Posts: 41
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Rainier,

Just would like an update on the progress of the transponder you are developing. So far I have a complete MGL panel and would sure hate to ruin it with another manufacturers instrument next to my V10 comm.

Thanks so much

Jerry
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  #47  
Old 10-26-2011, 05:10 AM
Rainier Lamers Rainier Lamers is offline
 
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The transponder development is only now starting in ernest (pretty much a paper project up to now with the exception of some hardware we showed at Oshkosh). We had to get the V6 radio out of the way first - and that has now been done.

I am uncertain about the time frame as this is our first TSO'd project involving about everything that can entail and there are still quite a few unknowns. If it where not for the bureaucracy we'd have it done in a few months I'm sure (transponders are not that complicated) but now we have red tape involved and lots of moneys need to be paid to various outside companies to pave the way. We will see what happens...

Rainier

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Originally Posted by turneraero View Post
Rainier,

Just would like an update on the progress of the transponder you are developing. So far I have a complete MGL panel and would sure hate to ruin it with another manufacturers instrument next to my V10 comm.

Thanks so much

Jerry
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  #48  
Old 10-26-2011, 03:26 PM
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DCat22 DCat22 is offline
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rainier Lamers View Post
The transponder development is only now starting in ernest (pretty much a paper project up to now with the exception of some hardware we showed at Oshkosh). We had to get the V6 radio out of the way first - and that has now been done.

I am uncertain about the time frame as this is our first TSO'd project involving about everything that can entail and there are still quite a few unknowns. If it where not for the bureaucracy we'd have it done in a few months I'm sure (transponders are not that complicated) but now we have red tape involved and lots of moneys need to be paid to various outside companies to pave the way. We will see what happens...

Rainier
Maybe that will pave the way for ADS-B stuff?
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  #49  
Old 11-16-2011, 07:59 AM
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miyu1975 miyu1975 is offline
 
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hello Rainier, would love to hear, if you have any, updates on iEfis Explorer.
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RV7 N612RA, flying since july 2012
E-170/175
RV10 Tail Kit complete, Wings 90%, fuse on order
Acro Sport 2, building
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  #50  
Old 11-16-2011, 09:14 AM
Rainier Lamers Rainier Lamers is offline
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by miyu1975 View Post
hello Rainier, would love to hear, if you have any, updates on iEfis Explorer.
Today we submitted the Explorer for production together with the iBOX so the hardware is now frozen. This leaves me with a lot of software to do. While the Explorer will start shipping with the G2 CPU, the software has started changing quite a bit with respect to the user interface and is deviating from the original intent which saw the touch screen used in a secondary way. Like many, I believed that a touch screen would not be a great solution in an aircraft. Seems I'm wrong (and sometimes that is a good thing).
So the touch screen is becoming the primary user interface while the buttons and knobs are becomming secondary - but still very useful to target certain functions real quick.

Environmental tests have been completed and all looks good (would breeze though DO160).

Much of the software development is around the user interface but also certain changes to the way our screens etc work - don't worry, you can still do your own screens just as before, it's just a bit different now. In the main, the "info" sections are gone to simplify things while more screens are now available with some dedicated ones (this is new).
Then of course there is the iBOX, the central node of the iEFIS World and that is quite complete now with all the tricky stuff done but some holes still need filling (more like small potholes now).
The hardware for the Wireless access point (Wifi) is finished but I have not done the software for this yet. Hardware for the FAA certified GPS has also arrived so I need to get my head around that soon.
New RDAC XF (required for the iEFIS) is finished and has been submitted for production. This will replace our RDAC XB and RDAC XD also for the other EFIS systems. Updates for SP-6 and SP-7 are finished (these need to "talk" CAN, other than that they are still compatible).
Soooo... that means things are pretty well on track. MGL is shutting down for the annual holiday on the 16th of December to early in January but our contract manufacturers only reopen middle January. Taking all this into consideration we should be able to ship the first Explorer iEFIS units in March.

The 7" and 10.4" iEFIS units should follow relatively soon after that, we are now finalizing the molds for these. Software and most of the hardware is identical for these units to the 8.5" Explorer so that should go fast.

That leaves the G3 cpu. While I developed a prototype G3, I will not be using it and instead use a different processor - things are moving incredibly fast with new processors being released by various manufacturers almost every other week - pushing boundaries faster than ever while simplifying the hardware. Good news is however that the G3 will be able to be used in existing Odyssey and Voyager.
What's different with the G3 ? Around 10-30 times the performance of a G2 (depending on which of two current CPU choices I end up with) plus a departure from the current software framework. It's going Linux. Partly this is forced due to unavailability of technical documentation for the embedded GPUs and the need to use pre-made device drivers for these things.
However, that means OpenGL and this also means a real path opens for "open source" for those that want to spin their own EFISs (and why not ?)
Good news is that our current EFIS software is fully and quite easily ported to Linux as I am in fact already using the GNU assembler and linker in Embedded Pascal.

So, that is where we are at...

Rainier
CEO MGL Avionics
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