jthocker
Well Known Member
I'm just finishing up my third G3X install in the last 14 months. Something came up that hadn't been an issue in the 2 previous planes.
This particular RV7A has a rudder bottom mounted Whelen Nav/strobe light. When running the magnetic interference check I found that it failed when the nav lights were turned on. This hadn't happened on the previous RV8's with magnetometers mounted in roughly the same place. (RV7A on the aft deck, the 8's mounted just fwd of the same last bulkhead). The 8's both had wingtip mounted Nav/Strobe combo's with integral white aft facing lights(No tail lights).
A friend had an uninstalled Whelen LED tail light combo, so I tried that and ran the mag interference test. It passed with flying colors.
The wires run in the center of the fuselage bottom to the tail, and are probably 18 inches from the magnetometer. This is a big no no in the install manual, but it would be hard find a perfect place. If left alone the heading slews 2 degrees when the nav lights are turned on. This could be zeroed out in the calibration mode if done with the lights on, so not to big a deal. Or just live with it, and calibrate with them off. The other option would be to replace the tail light with an LED version.
Hope this helps those planning a G3X system.
This particular RV7A has a rudder bottom mounted Whelen Nav/strobe light. When running the magnetic interference check I found that it failed when the nav lights were turned on. This hadn't happened on the previous RV8's with magnetometers mounted in roughly the same place. (RV7A on the aft deck, the 8's mounted just fwd of the same last bulkhead). The 8's both had wingtip mounted Nav/Strobe combo's with integral white aft facing lights(No tail lights).
A friend had an uninstalled Whelen LED tail light combo, so I tried that and ran the mag interference test. It passed with flying colors.
The wires run in the center of the fuselage bottom to the tail, and are probably 18 inches from the magnetometer. This is a big no no in the install manual, but it would be hard find a perfect place. If left alone the heading slews 2 degrees when the nav lights are turned on. This could be zeroed out in the calibration mode if done with the lights on, so not to big a deal. Or just live with it, and calibrate with them off. The other option would be to replace the tail light with an LED version.
Hope this helps those planning a G3X system.
