This is Bob Lund's RV-8 that I'm helping wire. Panel was done by Aerotronics. So we got it installed today and got the battery connected so we were able to turn the master on, avionics master, activated the start relay and got the starter-engaged light to come on. One wire at a time, lots more to do!
Pat, yes, it's just to make sure the relay disengages. Stuck relays are not good in this situation.
Brother P-Touch? I'm almost ready to go this route, as Stein's printer that does white on clear decals is T.U. with a now indefinite replacement time, and my local print shop can't do white ink.
I have a few more phone calls to make including an avionics shop at Twin Lakes to see if maybe silkscreening is within my budget, but I'm thinking a little lowering of expectations and a trip to Office Max might put me out of my misery and back on the road to a finished panel upgrade.
Your labels look like something I could go for, Walt. I see a little background carrier visible but not too bad. What are they? Did you clear-coat?
-Stormy
Our latest RV8 panel upgrade..
G3X, dual ADAHRS, GMC305, Auto Pilot, GTN650, GTR200, GMA240, AOA, Heated Pitot, GRT Mini X.
Complete electrical system re-wire including new switches and breakers and B&C back up alternator.
Panel CNC by Stein.
+1 for the P-Touch. Many different label colors available too. The graphics software that comes with it is the key to custom labels. Here is silver material against my matt gray/silver cabin color;
I've adopted the theory that instead of printing on clear and hoping that it isn't recognized as a label I would print a "Placard" and flaunt it being a label
Colojo-Any idea where the drink holder came from?
Mark, has the VP-X, representing years of engineering effort, been relegated to an "etc, etc." in the equipment list?
How are you handling Audio switching with 2 COM Radios and a NAV radio with no audio panel?
Rob Hickman
N402RH RV-10
Oh yeah...forgot about all the "stuff" behind the panel! Yep, VPX Pro back there along with about every box Dynon sells and a Byonics MicroTrak APRS transmitter.
OK, I gotta ask-----------I'd love to change my VFR panel to an IFR panel. But I don't know if I can afford it or not. Lots of these panels I'm seeing on other guys airplanes are $35000 or more. I've got an 8. If I upgraded, not to one of these super duper $35000 + panels, but not a chincy one either, just something decent-----what kind of bucks might I be looking at? I'd need IFR primary, IFR redundancy, and an auto pilot at least. And I didn't build the airplane either ie, I'd have to have the panel cut and all the wiring done for me. Personally, I'm very IFR qualified, but my plane is not.
Don - there are lots of ways to approach this question, but without knowing what you've currently got installed it's hard to take a guess at final cost.
Assuming you've got a steam gauge six pack, I would recommend, right out of the gate, that you consider going with an EFIS as your starting point. Why? Because an EFIS can economically replace a lot of expensive IFR NAV indicators. Keep some of your 6-pack instruments as backups to the glass. Put your primary navigation radio in the pilot's primary field of view so its on-screen display (if so equipped) can be used as the backup navigation indicator.
Just as a rough indicator, we upgraded our panel from a solid VFR panel to a reasonably equipped IFR panel. Total cost is around $15K. This includes a gently-used Garmin GPS WAAS navigator, a current-production GRT EFIS and the very capable TruTrak autopilot.
I chose to go with another EFIS as our backup, allowing us to punt all the steam gauges, but with a cost of another $1500 or so. I also chose to install ADS-B-OUT capability via a Mode S/ES transponder - this was a zero-dollar trade from our pre-existing transponder - your mileage will vary on this one, depending on which transponder you currently have. The last upgrade will be installation of a 978 UAT ADS-B-IN receiver which will talk to both the EFIS and an android-based tablet in the cockpit. For all these extra bells and whistles we will have spent an extra $2-3K.
Total, all in, we'll be well under $20K invested in upgrading from steam to glass, going full IFR and achieving full ADS-B compliance.
You can do it for a lot less if you want to stick with legacy VOR/ILS radios and steam gauges, but you'll sacrifice the approaches that a good GPS navigator makes available to you. By sticking with steam gauges you're sacrificing the outstanding situational awareness that comes with a glass cockpit and you'll not get the greatly enhanced reliability of glass versus that old vacuum pump that you just know is going to go "Tango Uniform" when you're in the soup. I ran this calculation six ways from Sunday and just could not beat the value proposition of installing an all-glass cockpit and feeding it with a GPS WAAS navigator.
Here is my first fire-up of the G3X panel in my RV-8A. I had two immediate issues: one was a network error caused by connecting the shield ground of each device on the Canbus to its backshell, and the other was forgetting install the jumper defining which GDU was the PFD (it's the right one.) Had to call Garmin to get the resolution on the first error, I figured out the second. The Garmin guy seemed to know right away what the problem was - you only connect the shield grounds to the connector backshells at the beginning and end of the physical bus. Otherwise, you just connect the shield grounds together along the chain. The photo shows the screens before the fixes were applied.
Any chance you'd have a photo with a little more light in the panel itself? Looks cool and would be interested in seeing it all! Also, what's behind the panel and in the plane equipment-wise like for radios etc? Any photos from behind the panel on how you fit it all in?
Thanks!
Here is my first fire-up of the G3X panel in my RV-8A. I had two immediate issues: one was a network error caused by connecting the shield ground of each device on the Canbus to its backshell, and the other was forgetting install the jumper defining which GDU was the PFD (it's the right one.) Had to call Garmin to get the resolution on the first error, I figured out the second. The Garmin guy seemed to know right away what the problem was - you only connect the shield grounds to the connector backshells at the beginning and end of the physical bus. Otherwise, you just connect the shield grounds together along the chain. The photo shows the screens before the fixes were applied.
Hello Charley,
That is a really great looking dual display G3X Touch installation in your RV-8A! You are going to really enjoy flying with this system and using this autopilot.
While it is true that we generally recommend only connecting the CAN bus shield to the connector back shells at just the extreme ends of the CAN bus, we have no evidence whatsoever that connecting the shield at each CAN device back shell will not work just as well. We have done it both ways, and both work fine.
We apologize that you were given information to the contrary. Perhaps there was another wiring change made along the way that explains the resolution of this issue.
Just having two displays on the CAN bus wanting to be MFD1 (before you jumpered a display to be PFD1) would make things pretty unhappy and may have been the only problem.
Thanks,
Steve
Yea, I was thinking that. I assumed that it was a combination of issues that was causing the network error. The first thing I did was disconnect the shield grounds on the intermediate devices on the Canbus. That did not correct the issue entirely - the "PFD" still reported the network error (I *think* in was cleared on the MFD.) It also was complaining about not having a GPS attached (which I later changed in the configuration process.) I built the harness over the winter, so I decided to go back over the connector pins - that's when I discovered the omission of the jumper grounding pin 10. After making that connection, every was working.
Since I temporarily removed the shield grounds, should I reconnect them to see what happens?
After reviewing revision T - and noticing that my backup serial line from the GSU 25 would not configure - I think I made another mistake by connecting it to a regular RS232 line rather than to connector P4601...
Has anyone installed a radio stack on the left, 10" Skyview in the center and a 7" Skyview on the right side of an -8 panel? I'm wondering if there is enough room?
Thanks, Andy. I think the most challenging part was the blasted labels!