Announce elapsed flight-time

Why?

Since most of us are already using capacity-sensors to make sure we do’t over-discharge our batteries the timer in the traditional fashion is losing it’s meaning. So let’s make better use of it.

A member of helifreak-forum asked for exactly this, a way to announce the flight time in steps, so in my example we’ll announce the flight time every minute, starting from one minute.

How the timer works in Jeti

The timer in Jeti is divided to three possible configurations, “Beep1” “Beep2” and “Voice”, it is of course only the voice we are interested in. We can adjust every one of those three, but we can’t (at the moment) add more of configurations. So we need to think a bit.

The best in the way this small modification is done is that it does not interfere with original “countdown”-timer’s announcements. Well, actually it does a bit but that does not matter.

Here it goes.

How-to

Connect Your Jeti to computer, go to folder “Config” and (IMPORTANT) make a backup of file “TimerV.json” somwehere on Your computer. Do NOT edit that backup file. Justin case, You know.

Open the file in text-editor of Your choice (NOT Wordpad or Word, i Use Notepad++) and You’ll see this:

{"Time":-300,"Type":2,"File":"5min.wav"},
{"Time":-240,"Type":2,"File":"4min.wav"},
{"Time":-180,"Type":2,"File":"3min.wav"},
{"Time":-120,"Type":2,"File":"2min.wav"},
{"Time":-60,"Type":2,"File":"1min.wav"},
{"Time":-50,"Type":2,"File":"50sec.wav"},
{"Time":-40,"Type":2,"File":"40sec.wav"},
{"Time":-30,"Type":2,"File":"30sec.wav"},
{"Time":-20,"Type":2,"File":"20sec.wav"},
{"Time":-10,"Type":2,"File":"10.wav"},
{"Time":-9,"Type":2,"File":"9.wav"},
{"Time":-8,"Type":2,"File":"8.wav"},
{"Time":-7,"Type":2,"File":"7.wav"},
{"Time":-6,"Type":2,"File":"6.wav"},
{"Time":-5,"Type":2,"File":"5.wav"},
{"Time":-4,"Type":2,"File":"4.wav"},
{"Time":-3,"Type":2,"File":"3.wav"},
{"Time":-2,"Type":2,"File":"2.wav"},
{"Time":-1,"Type":2,"File":"1.wav"},
{"Time":0,"Type":1,"Freq":5000,"Cnt":1,"Length":1000}

What we see here is the configuration of timer announcements. More info on Jeti’s pages http://www.jetimodel.com/en/Format-of-Timers-sound-notification/

What we need to do is to add announcement’s for every minute on the “positive” side, meaning “one minute after timer started”. So we need to add following lines:

{"Time":60,"Type":2,"File":"1min.wav"},
{"Time":120,"Type":2,"File":"2min.wav"},
{"Time":180,"Type":2,"File":"3min.wav"},
{"Time":240,"Type":2,"File":"4min.wav"},
{"Time":300,"Type":2,"File":"5min.wav"},
{"Time":360,"Type":2,"File":"6min.wav"},
{"Time":420,"Type":2,"File":"7min.wav"},
{"Time":480,"Type":2,"File":"8min.wav"},
{"Time":540,"Type":2,"File":"9min.wav"},
{"Time":600,"Type":2,"File":"10min.wav"}

First line reads “60 seconds after start play file 1min.wav” and so on.

After editing the TimerV.json should look like this:

{"Time":-300,"Type":2,"File":"5min.wav"},
{"Time":-240,"Type":2,"File":"4min.wav"},
{"Time":-180,"Type":2,"File":"3min.wav"},
{"Time":-120,"Type":2,"File":"2min.wav"},
{"Time":-60,"Type":2,"File":"1min.wav"},
{"Time":-50,"Type":2,"File":"50sec.wav"},
{"Time":-40,"Type":2,"File":"40sec.wav"},
{"Time":-30,"Type":2,"File":"30sec.wav"},
{"Time":-20,"Type":2,"File":"20sec.wav"},
{"Time":-10,"Type":2,"File":"10.wav"},
{"Time":-9,"Type":2,"File":"9.wav"},
{"Time":-8,"Type":2,"File":"8.wav"},
{"Time":-7,"Type":2,"File":"7.wav"},
{"Time":-6,"Type":2,"File":"6.wav"},
{"Time":-5,"Type":2,"File":"5.wav"},
{"Time":-4,"Type":2,"File":"4.wav"},
{"Time":-3,"Type":2,"File":"3.wav"},
{"Time":-2,"Type":2,"File":"2.wav"},
{"Time":-1,"Type":2,"File":"1.wav"},
{"Time":0,"Type":1,"Freq":5000,"Cnt":1,"Length":1000},
{"Time":60,"Type":2,"File":"1min.wav"},
{"Time":120,"Type":2,"File":"2min.wav"},
{"Time":180,"Type":2,"File":"3min.wav"},
{"Time":240,"Type":2,"File":"4min.wav"},
{"Time":300,"Type":2,"File":"5min.wav"},
{"Time":360,"Type":2,"File":"6min.wav"},
{"Time":420,"Type":2,"File":"7min.wav"},
{"Time":480,"Type":2,"File":"8min.wav"},
{"Time":540,"Type":2,"File":"9min.wav"},
{"Time":600,"Type":2,"File":"10min.wav"}

IMPORTANT: In original file there is no comma “,” after the line “{“Time”:0,”Type”:1,”Freq”:5000,”Cnt”:1,”Length”:1000}” this means it’s the last line. After modification it is not the last line so You need to add that comma there. In complete file only the last line have to be without the comma in the end.

The times are freely adjustable, if You wan’t to have announcement’s made from let’s say 5 minutes forward just start to add from line with Time:300 , the time is always in seconds.

NOTE: From original Jeti has voice only to 5min.wav so if You need to have more time or special times You need to make those wav-files Yourself. Copy the files to “Audio/en” -folder on Your Jeti.

How to properly save the new file and use it

You can’t just save the file and expect it to work. It does not. This is a system-file so a few tricks need to be done after editing the file and saving it to Your “Config” -directory

  • On Your computer right-click on Jeti-drive and select “Eject”
  • On Your Jeti choose “ESC” on USB-connection
  • Unplug USB-cable from Jeti
  • Shutdown Jeti
  • Start Jeti

Timer-configuration on Jeti

Timer-configuration itself is easy. Type is “Free-Running” (“Standard” if You wan’t to use automatci reset), Report-type is “Voice” and start & stop according Your usual way. One to automate this is found in my blog here.

timer

That’s all folks! Now go out and fly!

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