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Worlds best panel, well I think so.

P

petersb

Well Known Member
IMG_0224.JPG


Ok, be gentle.

Design thoughts, GRT HXr primary instrument and associated Samsung Tablet directly in front of pilot.

ASI , I find the EFIS type ASI difficult to read at a glance for slow flight, as in short field landings, prefer a needle.

GPS and radio stack within easy reach, these items are not adjusted much in flight, the radio can be controlled from the HXr.

Dynon D10A, happened to have one doing nothing in the hanger, nice completely independent backup.

EIS is duplicated on the HXr and is OK in front of the passenger, infact the passenger will have complete flight and engine info directly in front with the Dynon and EIS

There will be a 2 inch sub panel for switched and engine controls.

Master warning light and ELT can go above the GRT HXr.

There it is, perfection.

Operations will be day/night VFR

All comments welcome ........................... before I water jet the panel

Regards Peter
 
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Looks nice. The D10 should be excellent backup. Why the tablet and handheld GPS? The tablet can do both. The "Mini I Pad" should be available in October as one more option.
 
All right!

That should get you wherever you want to go in grand style. I like it! Very good job. Enjoy! :D
 
The tablet is designed to work with the GRT HXr as a secondary display plus input device.

The Garmin 495 I already had and works great to feed the GRT HXr.

GRT will only work with Android tablets

Peter
 
missing?

My question is, where is the cup holder? Except for the missing cup holder, I can't see anything that doesn't look as good as it gets. Nice job. Very nice. How about a link to the rest of your build photos?
 
Two thoughts for you.

1. The x96, while a great unit has a limited life expectancy at this point. You will find yourself replacing it within five years OR less.

2. The tablet is also a great device but the problem with some of these non-aviation devices is "planned obsolescence". It has been my experience that these devices (insert favorite brand name here) last about two years.

Thus, when designing your panel, make sure you plan to replace / upgrade these two units fairly easily. For example, I put a DB9 connector on the 496 cord. This allows for an easy upgrade without cutting into the wiring.
 
Switches and breakers?

EDIT - nevermind - just saw the comment about the 2" subpanel.

In that case - stick grip choice and clearance for the subpanel at full throw?
 
airguy said:
Switches and breakers?

EDIT - nevermind - just saw the comment about the 2" subpanel.

In that case - stick grip choice and clearance for the subpanel at full throw?
Click to expand...

Probably not an issue. I have my breakers and switches there and with the controls connected, there is no issue.
 
N941WR said:
Two thoughts for you.

1. The x96, while a great unit has a limited life expectancy at this point. You will find yourself replacing it within five years OR less.

2. The tablet is also a great device but the problem with some of these non-aviation devices is "planned obsolescence". It has been my experience that these devices (insert favorite brand name here) last about two years.

Thus, when designing your panel, make sure you plan to replace / upgrade these two units fairly easily. For example, I put a DB9 connector on the 496 cord. This allows for an easy upgrade without cutting into the wiring.
Click to expand...


The Samsung tablet will be surface mounted and has a WiFi connection to the GRT HXr, so future replacement is no problem.

The Garmin 495 so far has run for four years without a problem, fingers crossed. when it fails I will have a large hole when the airgizmo mount is removed, of course the HXr can have a GPS antenna attached and could replace the Garmin if necessary.

I was thinking of a similar wiring arrangement as used in the RV12. All avionics are plugged into a central hub, makes replacement very easy. Thinking of using automotive fuse block instead of breakers.

I local builder has rocker breakers, said he got them from a vendor at Osh, thought the name was Dan Tooney, not sure of the spelling, anyone know him ?

Peter
 
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RAM Mounts

In stead of mounting the tablet in the panel, why not move the GRT to center on the pilot center line, then use a RAM mount to mount the tablet somewhere? That give you the flexibility to upgrade and change the tablet as the hardware and your desires change.
 
Be careful and think of the depth of the map box an interference to the sub-panel structure. Don't ask me how I know.
Phelps
 
Dear Peter, since you are looking at the SL-40 and the GMA240, had you considered the PAR100EX? About the same price, you save panel space, get Bluetooth interconnectivity, and you get IntelliVox.

Mark Scheuer
PS Engineering, Inc.
 
This is personal to me to a extent so take it for what its worth. I would ditch the tablet. I Have tried a windows machine, Ipad2 and Ipad3 in the cockpit. With the tablet hard mounted your not going to be able to see it part of the time. The only real way to view a tablet is leave it loose so you can twist it to get a usable viewing angle. My Ipad is mounted on the right side of the cockpit in a Ram mount. I keep it for the info it can provide but have had to take it out of the mount at times. If your wearing sun glasses forget about it! I would think about a 696 in that spot and sell the 495. 696's are really getting cheap.

George
 
sailvi767 said:
This is personal to me to a extent so take it for what its worth. I would ditch the tablet. I Have tried a windows machine, Ipad2 and Ipad3 in the cockpit. With the tablet hard mounted your not going to be able to see it part of the time. The only real way to view a tablet is leave it loose so you can twist it to get a usable viewing angle. My Ipad is mounted on the right side of the cockpit in a Ram mount. I keep it for the info it can provide but have had to take it out of the mount at times. If your wearing sun glasses forget about it! I would think about a 696 in that spot and sell the 495. 696's are really getting cheap.

George
Click to expand...

I agree...Ditch the 495 and the tablet and put back in another more modern aviation portable GPS.

While tablets have there place for handheld flight planning, on the ground weather, backups for plates and charts, and entertainment, their use in the bubble canopy cockpit is limited by the poor sunlight readability of the screens. Panel mounting one makes it very difficult to read a significant part of the time.

I would also ditch the map box. I wish I had never wasted my time putting one in my existing panel.

Weather?
Traffic?
Do you really need that audio panel? Think hard about Mark's suggestion above.
Will you fit under the panel with that extension added to the bottom? Keep in mind that you WILL spend many hours upside down on your back up under there working. It is inevitable!
Are you thinking far enough ahead to the ADS-B out mandate?

Some people remote mount the EIS box to save panel space, you could do that and move the items over to get the EFIS more centered on the pilot. Or put it where the map box is.
 
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Looking good Peter! Sounds as though you have given it a lot of thought and might have to give it a bit MORE thought. :D.

I suspect that is why you posted as well. Some good suggestions have already been given but I would second what Brantel said....plan to work upside down underneath that panel for repairs and or replacement. I'm just a buyer and I have to do my own repairs and such under the panel. There is no way the local avionics tech is going to crawl under there and decipher my problems, especially since he is aging and not physically capable of doing so. Try to plan accordingly. None of us are getting any younger. :)
 
Give the vertical power products some thought for your electrical buss seeing how the GRT Horizon would be able to display the status of your electrical system. I started off with fuses first and then switced over - could have saved some dollars. You guys make me have panel envy.
 
Jim P said:
In stead of mounting the tablet in the panel, why not move the GRT to center on the pilot center line, then use a RAM mount to mount the tablet somewhere? That give you the flexibility to upgrade and change the tablet as the hardware and your desires change.
Click to expand...

+1

Tablet dimensions have a nasty habit of changing...the replacement only needs to be 0.5" wider and it will interfere with other items on the panel. Personally I'd just get a knee board for the tablet.
 
Chuck the tablet, obsolete yesterday, terrible view-ability in an RV. In it's place position the D-10A and the 495 where you look directly at them. That's plenty of backup, and you don't want to be twisting your head sideways when the chips are down; it's a vertigo thing. Try to keep all your functions in the panel without dangling additions. You're knees will thank you. Keep the map box. I make mine 2" higher than standard and position where you put yours. I put a second standard sized one in the upper baggage bulkhead. Storage for small stuff is good (check trends in cars).

John Siebold
 
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You must be reading my mind. This was a similar layout I came up with after they announced the HXr. I need an IFR layout with redundancy so I was planning to put the D10A and ILS indicator where you have the tablet. In the radio stack I was contemplating a SL 30 nav/com and GNC 300XL for GPS/ILS capability as well as dual com radios. In addition in the radio stack would go a GTX 327 transponder, a PM 6000M audio panel, and a Trio Pro Pilot auto pilot. The EIS would go in a similar location as yours and the tablet on a detachable mount on the co-pilot side as well so I can remove it and use it in hand, lap or on the mount for visibility. I was also anticipating having the HXr setup with its own GPS antenna as well. If I use a VPX sport powering all the systems just a few switches and annunciators would be needed above the HXr. Of course a battery backup would be included into the system. I do like your setup for a VFR machine with the exception of the fixed tablet. Add some GRT servos a GPS antenna to the HXr and you would have an excellent cross country VFR. How tall is the panel you have without the sub panel?
 
Gee..This thing has way more than I have in my IFR 7!

I think if I had one functionality that is really useful is TCAS (can't remember if you have that or not)

its pretty but remember you are primarilly looking out the window..:)

Frank
 
tablets

I agree with the sentiments that say tablets are not bright enough....
Airliner screens are super bright and expensive and under certain lighting
conditions, older screens can be hard to read.
There was optimism that the iPad3 was going to be brighter.... apparently
its not.
 
My personal experience is that my iPhone and iPad are orders of magnitude more readable in the cockpit than my Garmin Aera.

My suggestion would be to swap the D10 and the tablet. The D10 is a "backup" anyway, so swapping it will put it closer to you, but still more central "just in case". It would also allow you to move the radio stack a little further left so it's more central too (so both seats can reach it). The tablet will be able to duplicate a lot of the info on the HXr, if I understand correctly, so give your passenger (or right-seat pilot) more to look at. You can probably put engine info on that display too, so the EIS is also redundant. Remote mount it behind the panel and clean it up even further.

Also, mount the tablet on the face of the panel, not integrated into the panel. RAM mount, or something you make yourself. Not integrating it fully allows you to ugprade it later if (no, *when*) it either dies or becomes obsolete. A RAM mount would let you swivel it to avoid sunshots.

Oh, a side benefit of the tablet on the right... When your non-aviation-interested passenger gets bored on a long flight, pivot it horizontally for the in-flight movie. :)
 
Lot of weight... and you have more duplication than necessary.

It is a beautiful panel.... but not for VFR DAY NIGHT.... just a little overkill. Wire it up for IFR... but KISS it right now. You can always add.... weight.
 
Tru track Gemini

I too am thinking of upgrading my panel to the HXR 10 inch. Right now I have three backup instruments, airspeed, altitude and tru track adi. I was looking at tru tracks Gemini as replacement for all three.
 
Map Box

Id drop the map box if I had it to do over. I had to trim an fiberglass the snot out of it to make it fit placed in the same spot as yours. the back of the map box will hit the longeron.
 
Sol Computer Pixel Qi has a sunlight readable tablet out!
Another option is get a second 10.4 HXr at $3,600 then get rid of the garmin and Dynon.
Also why not go with GRT remote radios, intercom & xpnd. That way you also get rid of the radio stack!
I also recomend using VP-X for circuit protection.
 
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