The philosophy

Skyracer Avionics & Engineering started as a hobby project and turned into a company. It all began with a need of an interconnector between FLARM, Butterfly display, S10 and a transponder. None of the current splitters on the market filled the requirements, so the problem-solving and inventing began. Connecting avionics together can easily turn into a complicated feat, unless you got a structured hardware and a easy to follow manual.

The NMEA-splitter

The NMEA-splitter is a highly configurable hub for interconnecting devices such as Flight Recorders, FLARMs, PDA/PNA, displays, navigation/variometer systems. The splitter admits you to provide data from one source to multiple devices.

It´s sold as a ready device or a kit if you rather do the assembly yourself. In the manual you will find instructions of how to assemble and configure the splitter. Please find the manual here. 

The butterfly feeder

The idea behind the Butterfly feeder was brewed a few years during several close encounters with light sports aircrafts. Since most of them isn´t equipped with FLARM, the idea of presenting ADS-B traffic in the Butterfly display started to grow. After finding a miniature ADS-B receiver from Aerobits, a PCB-hat for a Raspberry Pi was created and soon the prototype was tested in the air.

This is one of the first prototypes where the Butterfly feeder is mounted on a Raspberry Pi zero.

The tests showed great potential however, two major points of improvement was identified. A Raspberry Pi is a excellent but very complicated piece of hardware. A more robust processor was needed and was found in the Micropythons PyBoard. The second thing the initial trials showed was that whenever the software failed due to a bug, the information to the FLARM display stopped. So the second iteration of the butterfly feeder is equipped with a hardware watch dog. If the microprocessor stops due to software or hardware issue, the Butterfly feeder will opt out and bypass the information. 

The schematic principles of the Butterfly Feeder.

Setting up a Raspberry Pi is a complex duty and a never ending source of … challenges. The PyBoard´s required level of knowledge is a fraction compared to a Raspberry Pi. 

From left, the first two are the main board of the Butterfly feeder. Next is a booted Butterfly feeder connected to a FLARM and to the right PyBoard and a OLED-display.

The Butterfly feeder is a open hardware and open source project where you can buy a kit for assembly, buy a completed and tested unit, or just buy the PCB. If you want to engineer the PCB yourself out of the proposed schematics, you are most welcome.

The Footwarm

When flying in the waves and during during spring the temperature can be a bit of an issue, especially for the feet. The Footwarm is a module designed to deliver pulse width modulated power for soles in order obtain a comfortable temperature. It´s using an ATtiny84 microcontroller and a MOSFET transistor is used for controlling the power and with two buttons you can select the desired power output. The ATtiny is programmed in Arduino and the source code is open and can be found here together with a manual: https://github.com/speedbird620/footwarm

The Footwarm is available as a kit for assembly or the PCB only if so desired. Please use the form below to let us know.

The Footwarm is designed for a variety of batteries and can be applied to most electrical soles.

About the company

Skyracer Avionics & Engineering was founded in early 2021 by Mikael Engström. Learning electronics in high school the DIY, creating and inventing has always been in progress and being introduced to internet of things in the mid 00-ies, the possibilities is only limited by the time available for inventing.

This website is under construction and will be updated along the way.