Flight recorder teardown

[mikeselectricstuff]

[Astroplio]

Awesome! You are a man of many talents! 

[amyk]

Great teardown as always! What year was it from?

I think the 2 processors are in a redundant configuration. All the C7 at the end of the ROMs are RST 0 instructions, so if for any reason execution goes into that space it resets instead of hanging. (Unused code filled with 76 - halt, is not uncommon in consumer applications.)

The external belted motor was a little odd, since that opening seems like an obvious way for heat and contaminants to enter the inner protected enclosure.

[madires]

The intro is great! :-)

Any survivors?

[Bored@Work]

The external belted motor was a little odd, since that opening seems like an obvious way for heat and contaminants to enter the inner protected enclosure.

Maybe they kill two birds with one stone with that opening. Driving the tape, and having an opening to compensate for pressure changes. Changes during flight, but of course also if the thing gets grilled. You can't have it sealed, otherwise the pressure might get to high.

[Mashpriborintorg]

I have some blackboxes, including one with a quite similar ultrasonic beacon. Both sides unscrew exactly the same way, but the electronics in it are even more potted and seemed totally impossible to remove from the metal housing, at least at the first glance...  but I will try again to extract the module the same way you did, because mine is potted with clear resin and may reveal its secrets without making further damages.

[gxti]

Wonder if there are any solid-state recorders approved for use yet. A lot less delicate than tape, especially in a fire, and at a tiny fraction of the space.

[mikeselectricstuff]

I'm sure I've seen one on a TV programme a few years ago with a big board full of TSOP flash chips - wouldn't surprise me if they are now using commercial SSDs.
A lot of airlines are also now streaming near-live data in realtime for performance monitoring and fault anticipation, so recorders are likely to become less important in future, but probably still essential for those last moments.

[pickle9000]

I have seen solid state recorders on "Mayday, Aircrash Investigations". In one of the episodes they showed a part or the computer maintenance recorder being polled for information as well (it's completely unprotected).

Season 12 started a couple weeks ago.

[firewalker]

Very good! I was expecting that one for a while!!!

Alexander.

[Chasm]

As far as I can tell from the TV and a friend working as avionics tech on Airbus flight recorders for the large airliners don't change size, they rather store more data. Both more channels and for a longer time.
I suppose that the next big step would be to combine data and voice recorders into one device, and then have two of those for redundancy. That way you just have to recover one of them to get the full data set.

[T4P]

Wonder if there are any solid-state recorders approved for use yet. A lot less delicate than tape, especially in a fire, and at a tiny fraction of the space.

Been some time already.

I have seen solid state recorders on "Mayday, Aircrash Investigations". In one of the episodes they showed a part or the computer maintenance recorder being polled for information as well (it's completely unprotected).

Season 12 started a couple weeks ago.

I watched every single episode  Got hooked on it last year

[Wartex]

I'm sure I've seen one on a TV programme a few years ago with a big board full of TSOP flash chips - wouldn't surprise me if they are now using commercial SSDs.
A lot of airlines are also now streaming near-live data in realtime for performance monitoring and fault anticipation, so recorders are likely to become less important in future, but probably still essential for those last moments.

I have one in my laptop, it's made by SuperTalent http://www.supertalent.com/applications/applications_military.php

It's standard SATA 120 GB SLC drive, MSRP is $3200 on release date, now is $1600 I believe.

[T4P]

It's standard SATA 120 GB SLC drive, MSRP is $3200 on release date, now is $1600 I believe.

What's your average speed in CrystalDiskMark?

 Definitely faster than MLC fo' sho'