DIAMOND J, INC. was incorporated in 1988 as an aircraft engine instrument manufacturer. In 1988 existing analog engine monitoring instrumentation was inadequate in accuracy and reliability.
Diamond J’s solution was to process the signals digitally and drive the pointers with digital stepper motors using microprocessors. Digital processing provides increased accuracy and improved reliability throughout the process. This system allows for several benefits not available before in monitoring engine parameters:
Increased MTBF over existing instrumentation by several magnitudes
No re-calibration or adjustment for the life of the instrument.
Modular design for commonality between instrument types and ease of maintenance.
A positive means of detecting a failure
High tolerance to aircraft voltage variations from low voltage at engine start to high voltage spikes.
Sunlight readability and easy to convert to NVG
Rugged design to meet environmental conditions of all types of helicopter and fixed wing aircraft.
The most important criteria reduces the cost of ownership over existing engine instrument technology.
Ease of scale expansion.
Provides an analog and digital presentation: Analog for rate of change and digital for high resolution (readability).
Exceedence monitoring recording and reporting.
The DJ team had observed that stepper motors were being used in the computer industry as a reliable and cost-effective solution for the precise positioning of components in plotters, printers and disk drives. The team reasoned that the reliability and accuracy of aircraft instrumentation could be greatly increased by a design based on a microprocessor-controlled stepper motor driving the pointer of the instrument. The simplicity of this design could reduce both the cost of operation and maintenance of an instrument.
In June of 1989, the first prototype instrument was successfully demonstrated aboard a Metroliner III at the AMR Eagle facilities in Nashville, TN. Since then, DIAMOND J, INC. has developed a full line of instruments that are being used by many satisfied customers on various fixed wing and rotor aircraft.