Temperature Sensing

ChrisOlson · December 12, 2018, 4:20pm

I use that sensor on piston helicopters with the rpm hooked to the magneto primary and the temp sensors for engine temp and OAT. It does not work with Mission Planner directly but it does work with FrSky telemetry and the temp sensors can be used to sense temperature of anything you want to attach the sensor to. The temp sensors are thermistors. I have several custom Lua Scripts I have written for helicopters that displays combined FrSky sensor telemetry with ArduPilot telemetry using a C&T telemetry cable hooked to the SmartPort on the receiver. Since the script is open source it could be modified for anything. This is the one that uses the SP-RPM sensor

github.com

ChristopherOlson/OpenTx/blob/master/TaranisX9D/SCRIPTS/TELEMETRY/SP-RPM.lua

-- License https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html
-- copyright Chris Olson
-- OpenTX custom telemetry screen for ArduPilot piston helicopters
-- This script for Taranis X9D and OpenTX2.2 and later
-- THIS SCRIPT combines ArduPilot Sport telemetry with FrSky SPort
-- script ver 1.2
-- Place lua file on SD card in /SCRIPTS/TELEMETRY/
--
-- Note this script uses Timer1 in the radio to display TTE
-- (Total Time Engine) hrs. It should be configured to activate
-- when Throttle Hold is released and be set to be persistent with only
-- manual reset.
--
-- The script uses Timer2 for a flight time timer. It should be
-- configured to activate when Throttle Hold is released and set
-- to be persistent, but with a reset switch to reset it per flight.

-- //////// USER CONFIGURATIONS ////////
-- Sensors configuration
--  Detect sensors from OpenTX TELEMETRY screen

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I don’t know of any external temp sensors that work with ArduPilot at this time, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t any. Just that I don’t know about them if there is.

This is an example of what the script shows on the RC screen, in this case with one of the sensors replaced with a thermocouple for the EGT on a turbine engine, with the engine running at flight idle power on the ground:

100_0023

There is some things where RC telemetry is better than MavLink, as RC telemetry is virtually real-time and there is latency in MavLink packets with modem radios. So I consider RC telemetry to be a useful tool to use along with the ground station. The RC can display some things the ground stations cannot.