Dugaru
Well Known Member
Hi all. Recently did this upgrade and thought I would post about the experience, since I frequently made use of some older posts here on the same topic that were quite helpful.
Background: When I bought it, my 2007 RV-9A had a Horizon WS with the ARINC module mounted to the back of the display, the separate GRT AHRS unit buried in the panel in a sort of "mummy in the pyramid" location, and the GRT analog magnetometer mounted in the tail.
When the AHRS developed the leans and couldn't be brought back to life via troubleshooting suggested by GRT, I decided to upgrade all of it. I was far too late for a discount on this upgrade that they offered some years back, but I took advantage of a smaller discount offered at Sun-N-Fun if memory serves.
At GRT's suggestion, I first removed the AHRS and sent it to them so that they could upgrade it to their new Adaptive AHRS. When that was ready, they sent the new/upgraded Adaptive AHRS, the new Horizon EX, and the new digital magnetometer. They didn't charge me until the stuff shipped to me, which I thought was a very customer-friendly practice.
At the recommendation of basically everyone everywhere, I also saved my settings from the old WS onto a USB thumb drive. Very important (see below).
All the gear arrived together, nicely packaged from GRT.
AHRS: I installed the AHRS first. This was a plug and play replacement all the way; the only challenge was the location of the unit. (Note to builders: make this stuff easy to get to.
). Once the new Adaptive AHRS was online, the old Horizon WS functioned perfectly, as its upgraded software recognized the Adaptive AHRS with no difficulty.
MAGNETOMETER: At this point the old magnetometer also appeared to be functioning as usual, but in retrospect I'm not sure that was the case. (Whoever pointed that out to me here, I think you were right). Didn't matter much as I quickly swapped the old analog one out for the new digital one.
It was easy to get to the unit under the tail fairing, and the module was the same size as the old one. The install required a bit of re-wiring however. The newer digital magnetometer has a male connector (the analog had a female), and the digital uses only three wires - power, ground, and serial output. The old analog one had a female connector and used more wires (I think there were six total).
GRT support told me which wires went where, and I was off to SteinAir for D-sub parts, tools, and tutorial videos. Really happy with the service and resources from SteinAir. Everything about my first D-sub connector construction went fine. I used the same brass mounting hardware as before, and was able to calibrate the magnetometer quickly using the straightforward procedure published by GRT. Although people wondered why I was driving around in circles on the ramp....
EFIS. The EFIS replacement was definitely not plug and play, but it was certainly doable, even with my limited skills.
First, I discovered that although it fits in the same hole in the panel, the Horizon EX unit uses four #4 mounting screws, which are in different locations than the four #6 mounting screws used by the old Horizon WS. So I got the new mounting holes located and drilled.
Next, I realized that to truly replace the ILS/VOR navigation indicators from my old WS setup, I actually would need to get an ARINC module from GRT, since the EX does not come with an ARINC module to replace the one that had been stuck on the back of my WS (and which had used the 9-pin D-sub connector "C").
I decided not to go that route at this point, however, since (a) I've got a G5 and Garmin Autopilot integrated with my Garmin 430W, giving me all the required nav indications, and (b) even without the ARINC module, the EX would continue to display GPS course information from the 430W, and that's mostly what I use anyway.
So, I only connected the old 25-pin D-sub connectors "A" and "B" to the new EX. I then connected the USB cable (which runs from a port on the panel to the back of the EFIS). That was the same as with the old WS. Finally, I plugged in the GPS receiver/antenna that came with the EX, having run that through a grommet to a suitable spot on top of the panel. The WS did not have an equivalent unit.
I fired it up, loaded up my settings file from the WS (a huge time saver!!!) and basically things seemed to work okay. The new screen was gloriously bright and clear compared to the old one, the synthetic vision was cool, and the ability to see an attitude display along with full engine "gauges" was awesome.
But one mystery remained: where were my elevator and aileron trim indicators? They no longer showed up on the screen. GRT support explained that the WS had used analog inputs on B connector pins 14-17, while the EX uses B connector pins 18-21 for analog inputs. So they figured the EX just wasn't seeing any signal from my trim systems.
So, given the difficulties of modifying the old B connector that was already installed behind the panel (and given that I haven't yet mastered de-pinning D-sub connectors....), I built a short adapter cable that routed the old 14-17 wires to the 18-21 pin positions. With no schematic from the original builder, I then guessed that 14 and 15 (now 18 and 19) had been elevator trim and aileron trim, respectively, and I modified the settings accordingly. Turns out I was right - with the adapter cable in place, the trim indicators showed up and were easily calibrated using the settings menu on the EX (thanks again to instructions from GRT).
There were a few more settings to be tweaked (e.g. I had to scale the engine % power reading, after inputting the required data from the GRT website). But so far so good.
Overall:
- A little more wiring work than I anticipated, but it was a learning experience.
- Great support from GRT. Their tech support was unfailingly helpful and available. Would not hesitate to buy from them again.
- Really, really like the new Horizon EX EFIS and the capabilities of the Adaptive AHRS. Still playing around with cool stuff like AOA calculated by that box.
- SteinAir's videos must be good if I was able to follow them successfully (I'm no natural at this stuff).
- I'm in no hurry to get behind the panel again (note to builders: make your avionics easy to get to.), but maybe someday I'll add the ARINC, wire in weather & traffic, audio alerts, etc.
I hope this info proves helpful to someone.
Background: When I bought it, my 2007 RV-9A had a Horizon WS with the ARINC module mounted to the back of the display, the separate GRT AHRS unit buried in the panel in a sort of "mummy in the pyramid" location, and the GRT analog magnetometer mounted in the tail.
When the AHRS developed the leans and couldn't be brought back to life via troubleshooting suggested by GRT, I decided to upgrade all of it. I was far too late for a discount on this upgrade that they offered some years back, but I took advantage of a smaller discount offered at Sun-N-Fun if memory serves.
At GRT's suggestion, I first removed the AHRS and sent it to them so that they could upgrade it to their new Adaptive AHRS. When that was ready, they sent the new/upgraded Adaptive AHRS, the new Horizon EX, and the new digital magnetometer. They didn't charge me until the stuff shipped to me, which I thought was a very customer-friendly practice.
At the recommendation of basically everyone everywhere, I also saved my settings from the old WS onto a USB thumb drive. Very important (see below).
All the gear arrived together, nicely packaged from GRT.
AHRS: I installed the AHRS first. This was a plug and play replacement all the way; the only challenge was the location of the unit. (Note to builders: make this stuff easy to get to.
). Once the new Adaptive AHRS was online, the old Horizon WS functioned perfectly, as its upgraded software recognized the Adaptive AHRS with no difficulty. MAGNETOMETER: At this point the old magnetometer also appeared to be functioning as usual, but in retrospect I'm not sure that was the case. (Whoever pointed that out to me here, I think you were right). Didn't matter much as I quickly swapped the old analog one out for the new digital one.
It was easy to get to the unit under the tail fairing, and the module was the same size as the old one. The install required a bit of re-wiring however. The newer digital magnetometer has a male connector (the analog had a female), and the digital uses only three wires - power, ground, and serial output. The old analog one had a female connector and used more wires (I think there were six total).
GRT support told me which wires went where, and I was off to SteinAir for D-sub parts, tools, and tutorial videos. Really happy with the service and resources from SteinAir. Everything about my first D-sub connector construction went fine. I used the same brass mounting hardware as before, and was able to calibrate the magnetometer quickly using the straightforward procedure published by GRT. Although people wondered why I was driving around in circles on the ramp....
EFIS. The EFIS replacement was definitely not plug and play, but it was certainly doable, even with my limited skills.
First, I discovered that although it fits in the same hole in the panel, the Horizon EX unit uses four #4 mounting screws, which are in different locations than the four #6 mounting screws used by the old Horizon WS. So I got the new mounting holes located and drilled.
Next, I realized that to truly replace the ILS/VOR navigation indicators from my old WS setup, I actually would need to get an ARINC module from GRT, since the EX does not come with an ARINC module to replace the one that had been stuck on the back of my WS (and which had used the 9-pin D-sub connector "C").
I decided not to go that route at this point, however, since (a) I've got a G5 and Garmin Autopilot integrated with my Garmin 430W, giving me all the required nav indications, and (b) even without the ARINC module, the EX would continue to display GPS course information from the 430W, and that's mostly what I use anyway.
So, I only connected the old 25-pin D-sub connectors "A" and "B" to the new EX. I then connected the USB cable (which runs from a port on the panel to the back of the EFIS). That was the same as with the old WS. Finally, I plugged in the GPS receiver/antenna that came with the EX, having run that through a grommet to a suitable spot on top of the panel. The WS did not have an equivalent unit.
I fired it up, loaded up my settings file from the WS (a huge time saver!!!) and basically things seemed to work okay. The new screen was gloriously bright and clear compared to the old one, the synthetic vision was cool, and the ability to see an attitude display along with full engine "gauges" was awesome.
But one mystery remained: where were my elevator and aileron trim indicators? They no longer showed up on the screen. GRT support explained that the WS had used analog inputs on B connector pins 14-17, while the EX uses B connector pins 18-21 for analog inputs. So they figured the EX just wasn't seeing any signal from my trim systems.
So, given the difficulties of modifying the old B connector that was already installed behind the panel (and given that I haven't yet mastered de-pinning D-sub connectors....), I built a short adapter cable that routed the old 14-17 wires to the 18-21 pin positions. With no schematic from the original builder, I then guessed that 14 and 15 (now 18 and 19) had been elevator trim and aileron trim, respectively, and I modified the settings accordingly. Turns out I was right - with the adapter cable in place, the trim indicators showed up and were easily calibrated using the settings menu on the EX (thanks again to instructions from GRT).
There were a few more settings to be tweaked (e.g. I had to scale the engine % power reading, after inputting the required data from the GRT website). But so far so good.
Overall:
- A little more wiring work than I anticipated, but it was a learning experience.
- Great support from GRT. Their tech support was unfailingly helpful and available. Would not hesitate to buy from them again.
- Really, really like the new Horizon EX EFIS and the capabilities of the Adaptive AHRS. Still playing around with cool stuff like AOA calculated by that box.
- SteinAir's videos must be good if I was able to follow them successfully (I'm no natural at this stuff).
- I'm in no hurry to get behind the panel again (note to builders: make your avionics easy to get to.
), but maybe someday I'll add the ARINC, wire in weather & traffic, audio alerts, etc.I hope this info proves helpful to someone.
