3 ms·

I've wanted to add such an indicator to my car's dash (I already added a boat compass, which I find quite useful and aesthetic). Unfortunately, electronic indic

I've wanted to add such an indicator to my car's dash (I already added a boat compass, which I find quite useful and aesthetic). Unfortunately, electronic indicators of any kind are much more rare than vacuum powered ones or all-glass cockpits.

Onavo 2y ago
What you need my friend is a ring-laser gyro.
dumbo-octopus 2y ago
Boat compass on the dash is awesome, I might have to borrow that. Any issue with interference from the vehicle itself?
- Scene_Cast2 2y ago
  Yeah. My compass (a Ritchie) has two axis calibration at the bottom; I ended up maxing out one of the axes (so it's still a bit off). Also, it tends to shift by a decent amount when the car is pointing up or down steep hills.
bigiain 2y ago
I am currently pondering the idea of building a modern electronics "replica" one of these, with 3d printed sphere halves containing stepper motors, magnetic rotary encoders, and a 6dof compass/gyro imu. If you put an Arduino or ESP32 inside to drive those, you could have simple slip rings that only needed to supply power through the roll and pitch axes. (Only pondering though, I have had the same idle thoughts about making my own Russian Soyuz mechanical navigation instrument too from this other writeup of Ken's https://www.righto.com/2023/01/inside-globus-ink-mechanical-navigation.html https://www.righto.com/2023/01/inside-globus-ink-mechanical-... but somehow the idea of making replica soviet vintage tech isn't as appealing as it was a few years back...)
- lttlrck 2y ago
  That would be a wonderful project. It'd be cool (albeit inefficient) if there were a way to use induction and remove the slip rings altogether.
t0mas88 2y ago
That's because vacuum powered is the traditional way in small aircraft and the modern replacements are all-glass based on AHRS. The number of planes without a vacuum system but with electrical mechanical attitude indicators is quite small. Your best bet are electric mechanical backup instruments used on earlier installations of the all-glass G1000. Take a look at Diamond DA40 and DA42 for electrical backup attitude indicators, but for example their next models (DA50 and DA62) use all-glass backup instruments.

Onavo 2y ago

What you need my friend is a ring-laser gyro.

dumbo-octopus 2y ago

Boat compass on the dash is awesome, I might have to borrow that. Any issue with interference from the vehicle itself?

Scene_Cast2 2y ago
Yeah. My compass (a Ritchie) has two axis calibration at the bottom; I ended up maxing out one of the axes (so it's still a bit off). Also, it tends to shift by a decent amount when the car is pointing up or down steep hills.

bigiain 2y ago

I am currently pondering the idea of building a modern electronics "replica" one of these, with 3d printed sphere halves containing stepper motors, magnetic rotary encoders, and a 6dof compass/gyro imu. If you put an Arduino or ESP32 inside to drive those, you could have simple slip rings that only needed to supply power through the roll and pitch axes. (Only pondering though, I have had the same idle thoughts about making my own Russian Soyuz mechanical navigation instrument too from this other writeup of Ken's https://www.righto.com/2023/01/inside-globus-ink-mechanical-navigation.html https://www.righto.com/2023/01/inside-globus-ink-mechanical-... but somehow the idea of making replica soviet vintage tech isn't as appealing as it was a few years back...)

lttlrck 2y ago
That would be a wonderful project. It'd be cool (albeit inefficient) if there were a way to use induction and remove the slip rings altogether.

t0mas88 2y ago

That's because vacuum powered is the traditional way in small aircraft and the modern replacements are all-glass based on AHRS. The number of planes without a vacuum system but with electrical mechanical attitude indicators is quite small. Your best bet are electric mechanical backup instruments used on earlier installations of the all-glass G1000. Take a look at Diamond DA40 and DA42 for electrical backup attitude indicators, but for example their next models (DA50 and DA62) use all-glass backup instruments.