Electronic idea exploration

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I’ve installed aftermarket heat tee’s in my RV10. This was done to allow Colleen and I to be able to fly in the same plane comfortably. Colleen is a freeze baby, and I am not. Since I was installing one in the front, I figured I’d install one in the back as well. I do have a 3rd tee valve, and I’m considering using it in the rear heat system to be able to divert heat to either the stock location in the foot wells, or up to a vent that would be installed in the rear of the arm rest console pointed at chest level for the rear passengers. We’ll see how things lay out for that last idea.

I’m planning on controlling these tee valves with RC servos, via knobs on the panel and on the back of the arm rest console. I’m also planning on putting servos on the main heat valves on the firewall that control the amount of heat that’s allowed in.

Furthermore, I’m going to be installing an Aerosport Naca vent controller, to control the amount of air flow to the overhead console. That’s another servo, and another knob.

Ultimatly, the layout would have 3 knobs for the front passengers (Heat amount, Heat Left/right, and Overhead flow) and 3 knobs for the rear passengers (Heat amount, heat left/right, heat feet or chest).

In looking for servo controllers, I learned more about a microcontroller system called an Arduino. It’s a small, cheap, fairly easily programmable microchip that can be programmed to do all sorts of things (google it… you’d be amazed), but one of the most basic things it can do is control an RC servo with a simple potentiometer.

Sounds like a fun project. I picked up an Arduino starter kit from Amazon (PRIME BABY!!!) for like $45 and gave it a shot.

Setting up the arduino to control servos worked like a charm. But since we’ve got a programmable microcontroller in charge of what the servos do, we can do some interesting things. The first thing I thought about was programming in a switch that would override the rear controls, and make the rear vents do the same thing the front vents are doing… basically a child lock like in a minivan. The nice thing about this is if we’re flying around with a kid in the back, and I want to adjust the temp for the entire plane, I can flip the override, and now the back controls are inactive, and the front knobs control everything.

Since the Arduino is really quite powerful, depending on my time and skill, I may even try to add a temperature sensor and an LCD display and attempt to program it to work as a simple automatic climate control system, where you set the desired temperature, and the system adds heat or outside air as needed. That might be a bit too ambitious, but we’ll see!

I’m not going to be counting tonight’s tinkering as hours towards the plane, as I see it as more of a learning experience. These experiences will eventually go into creating a working part for the plane, but we’re not there yet.