Teach me about audio panels

[carusoam]

Let’s see if we can clear up @Tahir K’s question....

It may be something like this...

1) Many a Mooney has at least a pair of sonalerts... one for GU landing prevention... the other a stall warning...

2) The GU warning is a pair of switches, gear location, and throttle location... the wrong combination of the two switches closes a circuit to allow the sonalert to sound.

3) When these switch combos allow electricity to flow/Voltage to appear... it would be nice to send the electrons/voltage to the multi-talented PMA450B...
 

Picking up where Tahir left off...

What is involved with getting the PMA450B to add its voice messages, GU and Stall, without altering the installed sonalert equipment...

 

PP guessing about what others may be thinking... Certainly what I would have in mind...

and looking to learn more about the multi talented PMA450B...

Best regards,

-a-

[Vance Harral]

4 hours ago, Mscheuer said:

Sure would appreciate it if you could point me to the manual that indicates replacing something.

From the PMA450b installation manual at http://www.ps-engineering.com/docs/PMA450B_IM.pdf, page 2-9, section 2.6.2.1: "Message 1 will play as long as the trigger is active, but cease when the stimulus is removed, and is suitable to replace a Sonalert Piezoelectric buzzer."

I'm sure whoever wrote that phrase didn't mean to imply the aural alert can replace a factory-installed Sonalert on a type certificated aircraft.  But customers who are inexperienced with such details might interpret it that way.

Edited September 15, 2020 by Vance Harral

[Mscheuer]

Well....I had no idea that was in there. That is very wrong. Can’t replace Sonalerts, flightmate is a supplement.

I’ll get that corrected right away!

Thanks for taking the time to help, really appreciate that!

Mark

[jcovington]

On 9/14/2020 at 4:40 PM, Vance Harral said:

Whether you already have a Sonalert installed or not, understand that a Sonalert is just a piezo buzzer - an electrical device that makes an audible sound when a DC voltage is applied across its terminals.  It does not generate an electrical audio signal and therefore cannot be wired to an audio panel.  In fact, there is no "output" from a Sonalert other than air pressure waves that stimulate your eardrum.  So if you want your audio panel to make voice announcements about gear warnings, stall warnings, etc, you'll need something like an Electronics International AV-17 Voice or Aircraft Components Voice Alert 2040.  Those devices take a simple trigger input (typically a terminal being pulled from floating to ground), and produce an audio electrical signal as output, which can be wired to an unswitched input of an audio panel.  One method of hooking up a voice annunciator's input trigger is to wire it to one of the terminals of an existing Sonalert, which may be why you heard of Sonalerts being involved in voice annunciator warnings.  But you need more gizmos than just the Sonalert itself.

I am sure that Vance is correct on the older models of the Mooney aircraft. Somewhere in the product line the boxes that drive the Sonalerts have an audio out that can be connected to an audio panel. In my 1996 Mooney MSE the Stall/Gear Warning box drives a speaker and has an audio out that is connected to the audio panel. The Bendix King AP disconnect box KAA15 also has an audio output. Trust me, you may not be able to hear the Sonalerts but when they are piped into the audio panel they are hard to miss. Just ask my wife.

The attached drawing shows the connections to the PMA450B in my aircraft. I know this also works with the KMA24 and 8000BT panels as I had those before. The drawing is very busy as the audio panel connects to just about everything in the aircraft. About halfway down the sheet on P1-31 and P1-32 the stock Mooney Stall/Gear Warning audio is connected. At the bottom of the drawing at P2-15 and P2-14 the BK KAA15 AP warning is connected.

Jim

PMA450B Schematic.pdf

Edited September 16, 2020 by jcovington
1996 J models use a speaker for the Stall/Gear warning instead of a Sonalert

[Tahir K]

16 hours ago, jcovington said:

I am sure that Vance is correct on the older models of the Mooney aircraft. Somewhere in the product line the boxes that drive the Sonalerts have an audio out that can be connected to an audio panel. In my 1996 Mooney MSE the Stall/Gear Warning box drives the Sonalert and is connected to the audio panel. The Bendix King AP disconnect box KAA15 also has an audio output. Trust me, you may not be able to hear the Sonalerts but when they are piped into the audio panel they are hard to miss. Just ask my wife.

The attached drawing shows the connections to the PMA450B in my aircraft. I know this also works with the KMA24 and 8000BT panels as I had those before. The drawing is very busy as the audio panel connects to just about everything in the aircraft. About halfway down the sheet on P1-31 and P1-32 the stock Mooney Stall/Gear Warning audio is connected. At the bottom of the drawing at P2-15 and P2-14 the BK KAA15 AP warning is connected.

Jim

PMA450B Schematic.pdf 205.18 kB · 4 downloads

This is kind of what I was trying to get at. I appreciate @Vance Harral doing a good job of explaining the functionality of Sonalerts. The reason I brought all this up regarding the PMA450B is because on their website, they talk about what Flightmate can do. 

http://www.ps-engineering.com/flightmate.shtml

"With four discrete inputs, devices such as Sonalerts, engine instruments, or other devices that provide a discrete output when a preset condition has occurred, the pilot will hear in their own words, what the exact nature of the condition is."

My question may not have made sense because I didn't understand the entire functionality of Sonalerts. All I read was that you could use a Sonalert to trigger a custom audio message using Flightmate in the PMA450B. Preferably, I would like to be able to do that with the gear. For those familiar with the G1000 system, anytime the throttle is pulled all the way back and the gear is not locked down, then an audible "check gear" warning continuously plays unless you address the warning and turn it off. From my understanding, there is possibly a way to do this with the PMA450B and get that alert through the audio panel. How to actually do this is what I was trying to get to the bottom of before my plane goes in for upgrades. 

 

This is a page from the manual that talks about how you can choose to acknowledge certain alerts which can be useful to turn of the alert when the gear is in its respective position. 

 

 

 

[jcovington]

8 hours ago, Tahir K said:

This is kind of what I was trying to get at. I appreciate @Vance Harral doing a good job of explaining the functionality of Sonalerts. The reason I brought all this up regarding the PMA450B is because on their website, they talk about what Flightmate can do. 

The answer to your question is that it is highly likely that you can do what you want. I say highly likely instead of for certain because I don't have the wiring diagram for your plane. Originally, you said you wanted to replace your up/down lights with Sonalerts which as @Vance Harralpointed out you don't want to do. You want to connect to the gear warning system (I assume that your plane has one) then you can connect that to the PMA450B Flightmate system and get your voice warning in addition to the gear warning.

There are several possibilities on how you connect the gear warning system to the PMA450B. The good news is that the PMA450B has configuration options so should accommodate just about any gear warning interface. There might be some external circuitry required for signal conditioning but I doubt it. It should be fairly easy for the avionics tech to look at your airplane wiring diagram and the PMA450B installation manual and connect things together.

If you have a wiring diagram available for you plane that you can provide to me I'll be happy to look at it and tell you how to connect it for sure. I only have the M20J wiring information available.

Jim

[Vance Harral]

It's likely Tahir's '66 M20E is wired similarly to my '76 M20F.  If so, the attached schematic which depicts how we wired our gear warning system to an AV-17 voice annunciator may be of use.

In our airplane, the factory-installed, "old school", simple sonalert for the gear warning has one terminal tied to ground.  The other terminal is floating until both the "gear down" and "throttle low" logic switches close, at which point +12V is applied to the sonalert terminal, causing it to sound.  We attached an additional wire to that sonalert terminal to drive the AV-17 voice annunciator trigger input.

The AV-17 requires logic signals to be switched to ground to actuate warnings, so the additional complexity of an inverting circuit is required.  In contrast, the PMA450B has an active-high audio alert trigger input on pin J2-17, so the inverter would not be necessary if that input is used.  But as the attached schematic shows, we also added a voice trigger for the ram air warning light, which is also active high, and therefore required a second inverter.  Unless the PMA450B inputs are programmable, it appears only one of the trigger inputs is active high.

If you want a voice alert triggered by the stall warning, that sonalert is wired in such a way as to be active low.  No inverter required to connect to an active-low input.

In summary, and to repeat... the relationship of a old-school sonalert in a vintage Mooney to a voice annunicator such as the AV-17 or PMA450B, is just that the terminals of the sonalert provide a convenient location to connect to the trigger logic.  Based on jcovington's responses above, it looks like newer Mooneys have additional hardware/integrated sonalert devices that have their own audio out line.  But... and I'm guessing here... I think the only audio signal they output is a simple tone.  If you want an actual "Bitchin' Betty" voice alert that speaks English words, you need a box that synthesizes that... such as an AV-17, or the PMA450B itself.

system-p1.bmp

[jcovington]

21 minutes ago, Vance Harral said:

Unless the PMA450B inputs are programmable, it appears only one of the trigger inputs is active high.

Vance

I'll take a look at the diagram you have attached. I believe that we can say almost certainly that @takair will be able to connect the PMA450B to his stall and gear inputs since you were able to connect your AV-17. Sounds like they connect the same way. 

I spent some time yesterday looking at the connections to my M20J. It sounds like your system is similar to mine. A bit different as mine is low true. I have a diagram of the M20J to PMA450 connections I will upload when I get to a computer. 

The good news is that the PMA450 inputs are programmable. They can be active high or active low so should work with the older and newer systems. 

You are correct that the newer aircraft have just a tone generator that drives a speaker as well as outputs to an audio panel. No custom sounds as far as I can tell. 

Jim

[takair]

8 minutes ago, jcovington said:

Vance

I'll take a look at the diagram you have attached. I believe that we can say almost certainly that @takair will be able to connect the PMA450B to his stall and gear inputs since you were able to connect your AV-17. Sounds like they connect the same way. 

I spent some time yesterday looking at the connections to my M20J. It sounds like your system is similar to mine. A bit different as mine is low true. I have a diagram of the M20J to PMA450 connections I will upload when I get to a computer. 

The good news is that the PMA450 inputs are programmable. They can be active high or active low so should work with the older and newer systems. 

You are correct that the newer aircraft have just a tone generator that drives a speaker as well as outputs to an audio panel. No custom sounds as far as I can tell. 

Jim

Think you were referring to @Tahir K

[jcovington]

12 minutes ago, takair said:

Think you were referring to @Tahir K

You're correct. Thanks for correcting that. 

Jim

[Tahir K]

On 9/16/2020 at 9:02 AM, jcovington said:

The answer to your question is that it is highly likely that you can do what you want. I say highly likely instead of for certain because I don't have the wiring diagram for your plane. Originally, you said you wanted to replace your up/down lights with Sonalerts which as @Vance Harralpointed out you don't want to do. You want to connect to the gear warning system (I assume that your plane has one) then you can connect that to the PMA450B Flightmate system and get your voice warning in addition to the gear warning.

There are several possibilities on how you connect the gear warning system to the PMA450B. The good news is that the PMA450B has configuration options so should accommodate just about any gear warning interface. There might be some external circuitry required for signal conditioning but I doubt it. It should be fairly easy for the avionics tech to look at your airplane wiring diagram and the PMA450B installation manual and connect things together.

If you have a wiring diagram available for you plane that you can provide to me I'll be happy to look at it and tell you how to connect it for sure. I only have the M20J wiring information available.

Jim

 

19 hours ago, Vance Harral said:

It's likely Tahir's '66 M20E is wired similarly to my '76 M20F.  If so, the attached schematic which depicts how we wired our gear warning system to an AV-17 voice annunciator may be of use.

In our airplane, the factory-installed, "old school", simple sonalert for the gear warning has one terminal tied to ground.  The other terminal is floating until both the "gear down" and "throttle low" logic switches close, at which point +12V is applied to the sonalert terminal, causing it to sound.  We attached an additional wire to that sonalert terminal to drive the AV-17 voice annunciator trigger input.

The AV-17 requires logic signals to be switched to ground to actuate warnings, so the additional complexity of an inverting circuit is required.  In contrast, the PMA450B has an active-high audio alert trigger input on pin J2-17, so the inverter would not be necessary if that input is used.  But as the attached schematic shows, we also added a voice trigger for the ram air warning light, which is also active high, and therefore required a second inverter.  Unless the PMA450B inputs are programmable, it appears only one of the trigger inputs is active high.

If you want a voice alert triggered by the stall warning, that sonalert is wired in such a way as to be active low.  No inverter required to connect to an active-low input.

In summary, and to repeat... the relationship of a old-school sonalert in a vintage Mooney to a voice annunicator such as the AV-17 or PMA450B, is just that the terminals of the sonalert provide a convenient location to connect to the trigger logic.  Based on jcovington's responses above, it looks like newer Mooneys have additional hardware/integrated sonalert devices that have their own audio out line.  But... and I'm guessing here... I think the only audio signal they output is a simple tone.  If you want an actual "Bitchin' Betty" voice alert that speaks English words, you need a box that synthesizes that... such as an AV-17, or the PMA450B itself.

system-p1.bmp 385.06 kB · 5 downloads

 

Here's a picture of the electrical system in my airplane. However, I think the overall conclusion I understood is that it is possible to do the alerts with words using the PMA450B!

20200918_125131.pdf

[Vance Harral]

3 hours ago, Tahir K said:

I think the overall conclusion I understood is that it is possible to do the alerts with words using the PMA450B!

Concur.

[jcovington]

On 9/18/2020 at 12:57 PM, Tahir K said:

Here's a picture of the electrical system in my airplane. However, I think the overall conclusion I understood is that it is possible to do the alerts with words using the PMA450B!

I agree with @Vance Harral that the PMA450B voice alerts will work with your plane. For the gear warning I would connect at the Gear Warning Horn (wire 38 in the diagram). The signal will be high true so depending on the Alert Trigger you connect to you may have to change the setup configuration in the PMA450B. For the stall horn I would connect at the the Pre-Stall Warning Switch (wire 86 in the diagram). The stall warning is low true so may require configuration changes depending on the PMA450B connection.

Jim

 

Edited September 21, 2020 by jcovington
Remove incorrect M20J Flightmate drawing

[Mscheuer]

Just want to make a couple of points 

1) One cannot remove a Sonalert and replace with flightmate, flightmate is a supplement to the primary device

2) Only a positive voltage (12 or 28 volts DC) Sonalert will work with flightmate. This means if your Sonalert is grounded to activate, flightmate will not work.

Hope this helps.

Mark

[jcovington]

Just now, Mscheuer said:

Just want to make a couple of points 

1) One cannot remove a Sonalert and replace with flightmate, flightmate is a supplement to the primary device

2) Only a positive voltage (12 or 28 volts DC) Sonalert will work with flightmate. This means if your Sonalert is grounded to activate, flightmate will not work.

Hope this helps.

Mark

I am not sure I understand your second comment. In the 450A Set Up Guide you provided me a couple of years ago it says in section 3.9:

3.9 Flightmate® discrete inputs
Flightmate offers four alerts triggered by external inputs. Flightmate MUST be enabled in the installation setup mode to ensure standard PMA450A backward compatibility with the GMA340.
Each of the four discrete inputs has three states. OFF (ignored), Rise (Active high), and Fall (Active low).

Doesn't the Fall (Active Low) allow the Flightmate to be turned on with a ground? If I misreading that information that then @Tahir K may require external conditioning to invert the signal.

Jim

[Mscheuer]

Hi Jim:

First, you may or may not have flightmate(R), it was something that we added just before we announced the PMA450B in July 2019. What is your serial number?

Reviewing section 3.9 from the installation manual for the PMA450A that has flightmate(R) reads:

3.9 flightmate® (Part Number 050-450-0103, -0104, -0202 & -0204 ONLY) is an audio storage system with four audio messages that can be activated by external triggers, and acknowledged if desired. flightmate MUST be activated from the installer setup menu. Contact your PS Engineering installing dealer for information. When triggered, the recorded audio will play in the pilot’s headset. Alert #1 has been designed as a priority alert nd will continue to play until the trigger has cleared. Alert 2, 3 and 4 can be stopped if the “Acknowledge” button is pushed while the audio is playing.

Only input number 1 (pin J2 17) is designed for a Sonalert input.

Input 2, 3, and 4 can be triggered by either a rising or falling edge.

The PMA450B has additional capability such as a one shot alert for inputs 2, 3, and 4

Sorry for the confusion.

Mark

[jcovington]

4 minutes ago, Mscheuer said:

Hi Jim:

First, you may or may not have flightmate(R), it was something that we added just before we announced the PMA450B in July 2019. What is your serial number?

Reviewing section 3.9 from the installation manual for the PMA450A that has flightmate(R) reads:

3.9 flightmate® (Part Number 050-450-0103, -0104, -0202 & -0204 ONLY) is an audio storage system with four audio messages that can be activated by external triggers, and acknowledged if desired. flightmate MUST be activated from the installer setup menu. Contact your PS Engineering installing dealer for information. When triggered, the recorded audio will play in the pilot’s headset. Alert #1 has been designed as a priority alert nd will continue to play until the trigger has cleared. Alert 2, 3 and 4 can be stopped if the “Acknowledge” button is pushed while the audio is playing.

Only input number 1 (pin J2 17) is designed for a Sonalert input.

Input 2, 3, and 4 can be triggered by either a rising or falling edge.

The PMA450B has additional capability such as a one shot alert for inputs 2, 3, and 4

Sorry for the confusion.

Mark

Mark

I have a PMA450B so I should have Flightmate. I have the PMA450A setup guide because of a question that I asked you at one of the AOPA fly-ins in the fall of 2018 (I think). I wanted to change my squelch setting and you provided that manual so that I could make the adjustment. I assumed (probably shouldn't do that) it was the latest that was available and applied to the B version.

Sounds like the information I was using was out of date. @Tahir K will need to pick the PMA450B input that works for his Sonalert or will need some simple external conditioning to invert the signal.

Thanks for the clarification.

Jim

[Mscheuer]

Correct, perfect!

Thank you!