Last Friday I received the balance of my avionics from Stein. This was the stuff that I used Oshkosh to make my decisions. The Garmin GDU-375 (ultimately becoming a G3X one day), Garmin GDL-39 for ADS-B traffic and weather, Garmin SL-40 Comm, PS Engineering PAR100EX Comm/Intercomm/Audio Panel and lastly, a GPS antenna for the GDL-39. This finishes off my avionics procurement...essentially a deluxe VFR platform that can easily be transitioned to IFR later.
So, of course, you can guess what I was doing last weekend...playing with shiny new avionics! Or I should say mounting them in my panel. I haven't fired anything up yet.
The box of goodies from SteinAir...
Stein is great about throwing in a t-shirt and key chain, complimentary. You might say, well, you just spend thousands of dollars with them...isn't that the least they can do? And yes, that's true...but do you know how many free t-shirts I have received from other vendors?? Only Aerosport power...you would think Van's would give you something don't you? Anyway, its a nice gesture and appreciated. SteinAir's customer service is second to none and I'm a fan.
Also notice the blue zip ties...these are special high temp tfezel versions for the FWF. Kinda pricy, but I know how regular zip ties can get brittle in a high temp environment.
This was a tough decision for ADS-B...Garmin or Dynon? I went with Garmin as you can see...I like this unit because I can hardwire it directly to my GDU-375 and it will also blue tooth to my iPad at the same time. Plus its $200 cheaper than Dynon's version...which isn't available just yet.
My PS Engineering PAR100EX...bottom box is the actual remote mounted Comm, made by MicroAir I believe?
GDU-375 box....
SL-40 Comm, this will be my primary Comm. I debated over Garmin and Icom...you can see who won. I just heard too many hokey things about the Icom. The Garmin is more expensive, but I wanted a good solid comm and I think this fits the bill. I'm not saying the Icom is a bad comm...but I think the Garmin is more robust...at a cost.
The cheap ($30) GPS antenna for the GDL-39...still not sure where I am going to mount this bugger?
Remote mounted Comm...I may mount this behind my baggage bulkhead...debating...
How they look stacked together.
Some final layout work...actually sitting in the cockpit seat...the Dynon is directly centered in my line of sight.
Lets cut some holes!
The corners of the Dynon are pretty square, but I wanted some radii on my corners to eliminate stress concentrations. This is one way to do it...be careful though, the Dynon bezel does not overlap very much top and bottom. You don't want your hole showing.
Skyview mounted...now for the Garmin...the mounting plate supplied by Garmin makes a good template for your hole.
And voila! We have and EFIS and a MFD mounted. I was surprised at how heavy this thing was getting once I mounted those two bad boys. Looking good though.
Moving on to the radio stack...this will be a little more difficult...and I am still in the middle of this process. More pics to come.
Over the weekend, I stopped by another builders (Lyn) project after the EAA Chap 301 bbq and was poking my head around his FWF work. I noticed that he safety wired his oil filler...and then realized, when Dad and I put it on...we didn't do that. So, I remedied this. Things like this are easy to miss if you've never done this before.
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