Super Magic 6 and Magic Dongle Availability

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Category: Magic Timers General Information

Published: Monday, 19 October 2020 01:45

Written by Administrator

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Super Magic 6 and the Magic Dongle.

The Magic Dongle and Super Magic 6 are available in limited distribution.  Super Magic 6 is a program to configure Magic Timers, it replaces Super Magic 4 on the Palm Pilot.  It runs on an Android Device such as mobile phone or tablet.  The Android devices must be Android version 4.4 or later (7 or later is better) and support BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy).  Super Magic 6 connects to the timer with a BLE connection.   Current Magic Timers do not have BLE connectivity. So, to program these timers you need a Magic Dongle.  This is a small, powered box that has a BLE radio and a Magic Timers serial connection.  To work with an existing Magic Timer you plug the Magic Dongle into the timer, turn of the power on both, scan for the Dongle or timer to connect t , then connect with Super Magic 6,  read and write the flight program on the timer, then disconnect from the Dongle.  The Dongle is a “Remove Before Flight” object.  One Dongle can be used to connect with many timers. There will be 2 versions of the Dongle.  The one that is  available now looks like:

This version can be powered from a USB source or from a single cell LiPo.  Because of special requirements in shipping LiPos by air we do not include the LiPo.  One that fits is the Hyperion G5 50C Max 1S 180 mAh with Ultra Micro connector.  The part number is HP-G550-0180S1UM.  The connector is a Molex Pico Blade 1.25mm. It is shown in the picture.  It measures  31 x 20 x 5.0mm . The Dongle comes with a 2.5mm to 2.5mm cable.  If you a have a Magic Timer with a different connector you should request the appropriate cable.  You can also request a cable with the Pico Blade connector to use with your own LiPo battery and/or a charge cable for the internal battery that plugs into the side of the dongle.  The Dongle has status LEDS that indicate the state of the BLE connection and actions between the Android devices, Dongle and timer.  The Dongle has Magic Timers supplied firmware and any upgrade to this can be loaded by the customer using a USB connection with a PC.

The switch on the Dongle is 3 way between the internal battery – off – USB Power. There is a reset/special action button accessible through a hole in the top.

At a later date there will Magic Timers that include their own BLE radio rendering the Dongle unnecessary for those timers. Those timers will probably include features not currently available in the current range of timers.  It is also possible that some future Magic Timers may still require the Dongle for new model timer for cost, weight or size reasons.

Some last words.  We produced the dongle to accommodate our existing customers, so to take advantage of Super Magic 6 on Android they would not have to replace their existing equipment.  The connection between the existing Magic Timers and the Palm Pilot used some very special features of the Palm hardware and to replicate this exactly  in the Dongle would have been prohibitively expensive and to change the firmware in the existing timers would have destroyed the whole objective of the exercise.  So a slight compromise was needed, this is invisible to you when working with Super Magic 6, the Magic Dongle and your existing timers.  We and a number of others have done extensive testing and it works well. There may be some cases where you encounter issues so you should report those but we have found that by resetting and restarting it will work OK.

Super Magic 4 as first written in 1995 and evolved over a number of years but has not been changed for over 15 years.  Super Magic 6 and been in testing for about a year and we plan a number of changes and improvements as time progresses and we release new timers and features.  To keep up with this we have newsletter that we email out. This uses the same service that is used to distribute SEN – SCAT (Southern California Aero Team) Electronic News. This is a newsletter about FAI Free Flight with about 1000 Subscribers world wide, there is no charge for SEN.  If you are already a SEN subscriber when you show interest in Super Magic 6 we will add you to the list.  Note that this is a special email not part of SEN.  If you are not a SEN Subscriber you can sign up at http://sen.faifreeflight.org/index.php/sign-up-for-email-sen  Note that checking the Magic Timers box on this will not automatically give you the special Super Magic 6 list.  If you have questions about this you can mail us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.