Does the VM1000 Output Serial Data?

[N733JJ]

My builders log show I installed EPROM B0001 4002 and Interface S/N 75211 in May 2002. I took a look yesterday to refresh my memory. The small circuit board is mounted external to the CPU and is connected to it via the ribbon cable that connects to the display, daisy chained like we used to do with hard drives on computers. There is an edge connector with two pins used to send the fuel flow to my Garmin 300XL serial input. It was difficult to get pictures but I will try and upload what I got later today.

Scott

[N733JJ]

I checked my builders log and it shows that in May 202, I installed EPROM B0001 4002 and I/O Interface SN 75211. There is a small circuit board external to the CPU and is connected to the CPU via the ribbon cable that also connects to the display. Daisy chained in the same manner as multiple hard drives in a PC. There are two wires coming out of an edge connector that go to the serial input of my Garmin 300XL.

It was tough to get pictures but I will up load one as soon as I figure out to do that here.

Scott

[N733JJ]

[N733JJ]

Guess the Flicker account didn't transfer the image.
I don't use any other photo sharing sites so we are out of luck. If you would like, I can e-mail what I got.

Scott

[Glas467]

Scott,

Yes please email to me at mooney37v@juno.com

Reggie

[Glas467]

Many thanks to Scott for getting me some pictures of his installation.

Scott has a screw terminal type DPU with a later version serial connector type PC I/O board. The I/O board does indeed support RS-232 fuel flow output from the DPU to an external GPS.

Many thanks to Scott for adding to the VMS knowledge base ... that's the good news.

Bad news is the serial type I/O boards seem to be pretty rare compared to the non serial type.

But at least we all now know that with a RS-232 capable external board, all the VM1000s old and newer style can send fuel flow data out to external units.

Reggie

[walkman]

Originally Posted by erikpmort

I would LOVE to see a manufacturer produce a replacement for the vm1000 that can use its existing probes-- there are a lot of rv flying with these and they are better than steam but still missing a lot of data logging, and other features... I don't find mine very user friendly at all and would love a drop in replacement....

You could probably whip up something pretty easily with an Arduino. A raspberry pi or a beagle bone would work too, but would probably be overkill. However they both have USB, whereas you'd need a shield for the arduino.

SD cards don't work reliably at 5v, you'd need the 3.3v variety of arduino. I went through a few before I figured that out

[Glas467]

As a follow up, Scott found some documentation that came with his I/O board outlining requirements for RS232 out, it appears that the system software must be "RS232 capable" on the EPROM. So the solution may not be as plug and play as we had hoped.

Reggie