LUA and Sim Innovations

[RayS]

I've been working with the Avidyne EX5000 gauge from Sim Innovations and I have to say, that if you need a gauge, gauges, or gauge suite this is the way to go.

Even if you don't see the gauge you need, or the gauge you need is listed as a 'proof of concept' on the website, I'd still entertain using Sim Innovations.

I didn't know a thing about LUA (and have never really heard of it until last week) but after going through the Avidyne code and adding some features to it, I'm becoming more comfortable with using it. And if a gauge needs tweaking, it's fairly simple to do so.

Case in point: The SI Avidyne gauge was hard-coded to a window size of 1000 x 740. I needed to set the window size to 1024x768. I thought it was a simple task but with EVERYTHING hard-coded, all the elements were off, so I added scaling code to each element and it all works now.

Next is to fix the compass section in the lower window and add NAV1/2 capabilities.

For me it would be difficult but... I can steal LUA code from another SI guage (The Beech 1900 6-pack specifically written for the Carenado Beech 1900) and plug the code into the Avidyne.

There's a tremendous amount of customization available and a lot of gauge choices.. I've researched a lot of different offerings, and none offer the flexibility of SI.

While there's no Avidyne MFD available, programming one should be straightforward because SI offers 'Map' functions, which include various maps from Streetview.com with NAVAID overlays.

My apologies if this seemed more like a commercial for SI. I usually don't do this but at a price point below $30 US, you can't go wrong.
https://www.siminnovations.com/software/air-manager/instruments

[iwik]

Thanks Ray,
Have been wanting a gauge suite but what I had read seemed iffy.
Think I will invest in this.
les

[RayS]

Holy Crap!

I've been adding to the "Proof of Concept" Avidyne gauge and it took me a whole 10 minutes to add flight director bars! (Luckily, no soldering was involved...)

https://www.siminnovations.com/software/air-manager/instruments

SimInnovations... gotta do it! :-)

It took me longer to create the FD png image files than to program them...

Next up is the lower NAV window...