The D10A EFIS runs a different software version than I had on the D10 model. The new software had some changes in the serial data format, which meant I needed to modify my data recording script. It took some head scratching, but I upgraded the Perl script to work with the new format. I also cleaned up a few niggling missing features in the script for the EIS 4000 Engine Monitor. So now I have working scripts for the EFIS and Grand Rapids EIS 4000 Engine Monitor.
Why write my own data recording programs, when Grand Rapids provides one, and the EFIS data can simply be recorded with a terminal program? Well, the Grand Rapids program only works on Windows, the EFIS data comes out with the data fields all jammed together and neither program lets you select the data rate you want (the EIS records one record per second, and the EFIS spits out 64 records per second). And, the biggest stumbling block is that if you record data from two or more devices, you need some way to do a time synchronization on the data from the two devices. I.e., if you are looking at a data record on one device, how do you know which data record from another device comes from the same time? I ended up writing my own Perl scripts to address these issues.
My scripts take the data stream from the devices, grabs a record at the desired interval, decodes it, converts it to the desired units, adds the high resolution computer time to the record and writes it to disk. The resulting file can be opened in a spreadsheet program.
I'll release my scripts on this web site soon. I just need to clean up the documentation to reflect the changes I've made.
Mike K. had noted that I was working on data recording scripts, so he offered to help out. He eventually sent me a script that will record data from my EFIS and Engine Monitor. And Thursday he sent me a version that will record data from the Garmin GNS430. His script is much more polished than mine. it has a Graphical User Interface, puts the data from all devices in one file, and it uses a lot less CPU time. I'll use his scripts, assuming he gets the timing bug fixed. I updated Mike's script to work with the D10A data format, and yesterday I did a test recording data from the EFIS, Engine Monitor and GPS, all at the same time. It worked! Mike has some timing issues to sort out before I can use his script, but he'll get there.
