Altair Glide Computer and Navigation System Owner's Manual download pdf (Page 20)

3 INSTALLATION AND MAINTENANCE

3.5 Power supply

A voltage supply with a current limiting safety device must be secured, to cut the power

in the event of an overload in the voltage supply. The safety device must be marked

clearly, e.g. ALTAIR/VEGA. The best option is to use a resettable device such as a circuit

breaker, however a slow-blow fuse is acceptable. Depending on the cross section, we

recommend a 2.5-5A CB.

Ensure the power wires and circuit breakers have low resistance otherwise the higher current drains

of Altair will result in wasted battery power.

The power supply is connected at Port A. If Altair is used with Vega, the supplied Vega-Altair

cable conveniently passes power from Altair to Vega and no further wiring is required. Otherwise,

a special cable may need to be fabricated. When Vega is connected to FLARM, Vega supplies

power to the FLARM unit.

Altair supplies power only to Vega and FLARM; all other peripherals need their own power

supply.

Take care that the power supplied has the correct polarity, otherwise damage to the

device may occur.

It is recommended that the aircraft has a second or third battery installed with individual switches

or a crossover switch, in order to provide a degree of redundancy to the system.

3.6 Serial peripherals

In typical installations, Altair needs to be plugged into an external GPS source.

Integration with external serial devices requires a special cable to connect Altair’s Port A (DB15

connector at X1), to what is usually an RJ45 IGC standard plug for glider instruments. A standard

cable is supplied with Altair enabling it to be connected to two external devices. The connectors

are described in Appendix D.

Some intelligent variometers, such as Vega, have a serial pass-through. This means that a GPS

device such as FLARM can be connected to the variometer, then the variometer connected to

Altair.

3.7 Example installations

System diagrams of a minimal and fully-optioned installation are presented in the following Figures.

Peripherals can typically be added after the initial installation; though this may require changing the

main power/data cable.

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Altair Glide Computer and Navigation System Owner's Manual Page 20