Placement 10 inch screens and radio/ap/audio panels RV 7

Hi! I am trying to sort out placement for the different instruments/panels for my RV-7. The idea is two Garmin 10.6 inch EFIS, one G5, radio, a/p and audio panels. All Garmin. Transponder will be a remote. No steam gauges. I am leaning on having one EFIS in front of each seat, the G5 and radio/audio/autopilot panels in between. One option might be to mount the G5 left of left EFIS, if there is rom for that.
But I read in a post somewhere that it is better to have the G3X?s together if the airplane mostly is flown from the left seat. This is most likely to be the case, so this might be an option. But then the radio/audio panels will be rather far away. And where can I put the a/p panel?
The radio and a/p can as I understand it be set from the EFIS, so this might not be an issue for the radio op. But it seems easier to use the panel for inputs to the a/p. I have tried to search the forum for advise, but not with success. I will also try to fit a quadrant between the seats, are there any manufactures for those?

What I did...

This is what I did for my panel and quadrant. I love this setup, and having the second panel in front of the copilot seat is nice for them and not a far reach for me.

In the center stack from top to bottom is the G5 and an O2 sensor, then GTN650, GTR200, GMA245, and GMC307.

Standard

There seems to be a garmin G3x standard panel becoming apparent to me. The center stack is the GTN650, audio panel and ap control head, switches on the bottom and g5 on the left. The GTN 650 has only a few places it can go because it is so long. There is a thread on here with a bunch of panels by walt and friends that are really nice..

My current set up is a 3 screen G3X:



A nice one I installed with 2 10" screens:

Given that I'm ignorant of constraints due to space available behind the panel... but here's what I've come to like after 200+ hours in the RV-9A, lots of that IFR:
* The right hand screen is not totally readable from the left seat. Only the left half is all that readable. No big loss, because few if any of the MFD (MultiFunction Display, meaning not flight instruments) give much useful information when displayed full screen instead of half screen;
* That said, the left half of the right screen is plenty readable from the left seat. No need to give up the center stack;
* Audio panel at the top of the stack dates back to the days before flip-flop radios. To switch comms, you turned off one audio, turned on the other, and flipped the transmitter switch. Since this was done a lot, it made sense for the audio panel to be at the top. Nowadays, with flip-flop radios, I virtually never touch the audio panel in flight, especially since the GTN650 (and others) will decode the Morse ID for you. The audio panel does not earn its way into prime space. If you fuss with it a lot for audio, that's another story;
* I think that the autopilot control earns top billing at the top of the stack;
* I'd put a GTN650 under it... or a GTN750, even better. If you're VFR, then you don't need the fancy GPS;
* You can set the autopilot from the PFD, but when you want to set the autopilot, you generally want to set it now, not fuss with the touch screen. By the way, the Electronic Stability Protection (if that's its proper name) is only settable from the touch screen;
* As for quadrants, I find that space between the seats is useful for water bottles and such, as the RV-7/9 fuselage is not all that wide. The best thing I did for accessing things in flight was making a shelf for the baggage compartment. Real simple -- a U shaped channel horizontally across the rear bulkhead, and a sheet of thin plywood with a stiffener across the bottom that reaches right up to the side rails;
* Make sure that you have lotsa slack (service loops) in your wiring harnesses for the inevitable changes;
* My transponder was jumpered to turn on whenever power is applied, and the installer didn't ask me. Since I don't have a radio master, this is a PITA;
* Everybody seems to do their own thing these days, but there's still lots of value in standardization to the degree possible. There have been experimentals lost due to bad cockpit design...

Good luck!

Ed

Throttle quadrants

If you click on the first link below you will find that Aircraft Spruce stock a wide selection from different manufacturers. I have the P/N: CMCT2L (Aircraft Spruce P/N: 05-00699) fitted to my RV-7A and I am happy with it. For a CSU configuration the 3 lever version is CMCT3L (P/N: 05-00701).

As my quadrant is attached to the instrument panel I had to manufacture brackets to attach the quadrant, plus a fitting to locate and hold my throttle and mixture cables in place so they were secure and at the right distance from the quadrant. Click on the second link below to view the Van's RV-10 quadrant to see how they have designed the support structure for the quadrant and cables. This is similar to my design.

https://www.aircraftspruce.com/categories/aircraft_parts/ap/menus/ap/controls_quadrants.html

https://shop.vansaircraft.com/cgi-b...0-474-216&browse=controls&product=10-quadrant

Cheers,

Thank you guys!
A lot of wisdom here on VAF.
I will not install a 650 now as it will only be VFR for me, but you never know. So it was a useful remark regarding the space required behind the panel for a 650. It also seems, as John mentions, as there is a more or less standard setup when it comes to 10-inch EFIS.

I have also been into Walt?s solution with 2 portrait 7-inch screens adjacent to each other and one on the right side, but did not quite see the large advantage compared with double 10 inch. But it is probably me as a novice not seeing the whole picture? I have also been thinking of where to put the iPad, but there is obviously not any problem having it to the left.

Regarding quadrant, thanks Gordon for the links! I am also interested if there are any companies who manufactures the console. I have heard of one firm, but they do apparently not manufacture quadrant casings any more. It seems to be a too complicated thing to manufacture myself.

Ed?s remarks also makes a lot of sense to me. I actually was not aware of that the flip flop minimized use of the panel.
/Conny