got me a 396, now what do I need

[dan]

Ok, I have more time...waiting for the boss to finish her hair. So yeah, you can imagine I'll be waiting a little while...

Here's the info I got from Matt Burch at Garmin regarding the wiring harness ALARM and VOICE circuits:

The alarm pin will pull down to ground whenever a message tone sounds on the
unit, in conjunction with a message like "Arriving At Destination". Since we
share hardware with the marine flavor unit (376C) and the mariners like to
wire message annunicators all over their boats (so they can get a heads up
belowdecks when the GPS is telling them to change course) we get this pin
for free. I don't know how useful it is for an aviation application though.

For the audio output, don't use the audio +/- wires in the power/data cable.
These have speaker-level voltages and are designed to drive the external
talkbox for car use
(http://shop.garmin.com/accessory.jsp...0%2D10512%2D00). For your
application, you'll want to use the 1/8" stereo jack on the back of the unit
for your audio output. It is a standard pinout stereo headphone jack, so you
can wire it to your audio panel the same way as your aux Walkman/iPod/Roady
hookup.

I agree 100% with what he said. You guys who are trying to split warning and XM audio, rest assured you'll see a warning/popup on screen even if intercom or radio chatter "overrides" the audio warning from the 396.

[aadamson]

Originally Posted by dan

Guys, I mean this in the nicest way, but RTFM. I had the same questions originally and talked to Garmin to find out the details. I gotta run...I could spend all day typing the manual and posting to this forum, but I have an RV-7 full of gas that needs to be flown to Vegas RIGHT NOW...back online from Mandalay Bay later tonight...

Hey Dan, even the "nicest way" wasn't very nice... Especially after I had just spent all morning RTFM. As you know, there is no documentation *in* the manual about the audio, it's levels, whether Alarms/Alerts are mixed with XM audio, and what comes out where, etc... As a matter of fact, it doesn't even talk about the 1/8 stereo jack except to show you where on the back of the unit it is. Even you, it appears, had to send Garmin an email to ask!

So, let's see if I can help everyone as your request wouldn't.

The Voice+ and Voice- pins are "amplified audio" pins, they will be matched for a 4 or 8 ohm speaker and will drive probably 1W (+/-) of audio. Something an audio panel does *not* want. These will also NOT be stereo (don't see a L/R/Shield do ya )

The 1/8 stereo jack is a "headphones audio" jack and will be driving mv of audio level, something an audiopanel *does* want to see. And it will be stereo

I can't really tell much about the "alarm" pin, it's noted in the interconnection drawing, but nothing else. From Dan's second message, it appears that it "goes to ground" when an alarm/alert message occurs on the screen, and some of those also generate an audio tone/message.

Open questions for those using one.

a) when the alarm/alert tones or messages come out and XM music is playing, do the alarm/alert tones blank the XM music, or are they mixed?

b) has anyone enabled the alarm pin and what did you use it for?

I can now understand why people are putting the 396 on the ADF or other selector on their audio panel. If the warning tones also come out the music output, then if you use an audio panel that has built in muting, if a Comm radio goes active, you'd mute the 396 and also the 396 warning alerts if you connect them only to the "music input" on your audio panel. .... Garmin to the rescue again. Darn it.

Note for those using the 396 in a portable mode, there is a website that talks about removing the magnets from the XM puck so it doesn't mess up your compasses

Sorry, Dan, but I really didn't appreciate that comment, even with the "caveot".

[dan]

In Vegas now...have time to reply then I gotta head out and win some gas $$$ at the poker table...

Sorry if my "RTFM" comment offended you, it was a short comment when I was pressed for time but didn't want to leave a question unanswered. Could have just left it alone.

I totally agree that the manual itself leaves you high and dry. But I guess my point was that I don't want to be the one to play "tech support". I suppose we should put pressure on Garmin to put out a better manual that covers these things.

My subsequent post should cover it for now?

[aadamson]

Dan,

Thanks for taking a minute.... have to understand where I was coming from... I knew what the manual said, and you obviously had a unit, so I was looking for "customer feedback". I don't need technical support from you, just was curious of your "use learnings". Getting an "RTFM" wasn't even close to what was expected, especially when the manual doesn't have *any* of the information.

Thats all... NO harm, no foul. Oh, and don't even think about getting Garmin to change the manual, it just won't happen. I own a G1000 and know personally the Product Manager at Garmin who has responsibility for the G1000 and I can't get any simple things from them.

But, I did have a thought about some of this.

Goes like this...Let's assume that you can turn off the "alert/alarms" audio prompts from coming out with the XM Music. Now if we can do that, We could also design a little widget that triggered beeps, boops, tones, whatever based upon that "alarm pin" going active low. This would allow you to put the music to the music input and use an audio panel that had build in muting. Then you could take the output of the little widget and put it into an "unswitched" audio port on the audio panel. This would at least give you audio warnings when something triggered on the screen that would not mute.

This isn't a perfect solution tho as you loose all the nice voice audio from the 396 doing it this way.... Hmm, I wonder if you can select which audio path the tones go out. If you could make the audio alarms go out the speaker outs only, then you could have your cake and eat it too..... Hmmm, guess I need to go look at the manual again... Would be simple enough making a widget to convert from powered speaker audio to low level audio to match the audio panel inputs. Ya don't need stereo for the alarm audio so it could go to an unswitched audio input.

UPDATE: You can turn on and off alarm/alerts audio, but you *can't* select for them to only go out one audio path or the other (speaker level or headphone level). Bummer, that one feature would solve this once and for all.

[mburch]

Guys,

I'm no hardware engineer, but they tell me that the audio wires in the power connector are for the speaker only and will make your audio panel unhappy. However, I have heard of cases where people have connected the audio wires from the power cable to an audio panel through a resistor and had good results. If you want to be safe, use the 1/8" stereo connector and you should be fine.

The terrain and traffic warnings will interrupt the XM music output, or you can turn them off. You can also choose a higher audio volume to use for the warning messages versus the music. In my RV-9A, I ran the audio output into an unmuted input on my intercom, and set the music to a low level and the terrain warnings to a high level. It gets your attention.

An alternative would be to run the stereo music output to a muted input on your audio panel, and bring the audio wires from the power connector to an unmuted input. The warning messages will come out of both outputs but the music will only come out of the stereo jack. Important: Check with the manufacturer of your audio equipment before doing this! This may only work with some models. I haven't verified it myself.

mcb

P.S. Great to see all the RV hats and shirts at Sun-n-Fun... you guys were having fun while I was busy working, dang...

[aadamson]

I as well, will be using a 396 in my panel. This audio thing has had me thinking all day. I think I've figured out a way to do it.

First the assumptions.

a) you want to input the audio from the 396 into a stereo audio panel that might have built in muting
b) you still want to get the "cautionary warnings" from the 396 all the time, not muted
c) your audio panel support music inputs and unswitched audio inputs

Ok, so I think this will work, but will require some testing to see if there are delays or buffering that might be needed.

If you connect the 1/8 stereo jack to the music input on your audio panel, you'll have XM music that can be muted if your audio panel supports that. But you still want the "warning alert/alarms" to not be muted. This is a problem currently because they both come from the same connection on the 396.

So, we take the "alarm" pin coming out of the back of the 396 and we simply use it as a "electronic switch" control signal. When there is no alarm, the audio path via the 1/8 jack is run to the music input on the audio panel and in stereo. When there is an Alarm, we use the alarm pin going low to switch the 1/8 audio (right channel) to an unswitched audio input to the audio panel.

You have your cake and eat it too.... What I don't know is if there are "delays" when the alarm pin goes low such that it might cut off the audio or part of it during a switch between the music input and an unswitched input.

This all just means a little circuit will need to be designed that can switch the audio coming out of the 1/8 stereo jack between music input and unswitch audio based upon the alarm pin state. If done with the right parts, this could happen fast enough that you don't loose any of the warning tone/voice, and the soft mute recovery should protect the switch back to music.

I think I'll go talk to my partner the electronics/cellular engineer ....

[Scott Will]

Thanks for the spirited conversation guys. I'm just happy exploring my new GPS.

One of the reasons I chose the 396 over the 396 (weather considerations aside temporarily) is that it has the terrain "pull up" alarms available by audio. It's my understanding that comes from the 1/8 jack. I planned on taking this to my unswitch audio on my GMA-340.

But I'll be very interested in making full use of my audio panel and 396. Keep the ideas coming.

Thanks again.

PS - I debated about whether getting WX on the 396 or my GRT EFIS. They offer it for $1500 for the privielege on having it on your big display. They both can do terrain as well. But the GRT is lacking the warnings that the 396 provides. I like the 396's map and it will serve as nav backup as well as a backup for the autopilot. Plus I can do all my flight planning wherever I want to.

[aadamson]

Scott,

Anytime you wanna talk airplanes. Just let me know, I'm in ATL as well.

Ok, so let me see if I understood your last post. You got the 396 for the warnings, and for the weather. You are *not* going to put weather on the GRT right? (good idea btw, as the GRT's 400x240 resolution is less than the 396's and the 396 has 256 colors, not sure what the GRT has).

Here is the problem with what you suggested with putting the audio into an unswitched audio input on your audio panel.

a) the unswitched inputs are mono only so you won't have stereo sound no XM music
b) if you are going to get XM Weather, for 6.95/mo you also get music
c) If you use the 1/8 jack, it has *both* the alerts *and* the XM music on it
d) if you put both on the unswitched audio, you will have NO automatic way to turn them off when you want to listen to the comm radio, they will be permanently mixed in the audio panel and you won't have the ability to turn off the 396's audio without pushing buttons on the 396.

So you see why I spent some time in thinking about this today... If you want to do what you are suggesting and you still are ok with loosing stereo, put it into the ADF input and not the unswitched audio, at least you can then turn it off by pressing one button on the Audio panel.

By doing what I last suggested in my post above, you can have the best of all worlds, tho it will require a circuit to be designed and wired up. Music on the music inputs so they auto mute if you have that feature in your audio panel, and alarms/alerts on an unswitched audio path so they always work no matter what switches are set on the audio panel.

Hope that helps. Drop me a private email and I'll exchange phone numbers if you want to talk live about this.

[Scott Will]

Alan...

thanks for thinking of the possibilities. what I meant from taking the audio from the 1/8 jack was just the terrain and other warnings only. I hadn't thought about the music part of the equation. I picked up a Delphi Roady a while ago but my latest thinking was just to do mp3 on the dedicated music input. We'll see. I like the fact that you can get Wx and music on the 396 in one unit. Makes for a cleaner panel.

BTW, have to give kudos to Dan's latest entertainment article in kitplanes... maybe I should just my subscription money to you Dan!

What I did so far from my GMA-340 was to take the music and unswitched audio inputs to a terminal block so I can make whatever connections I want in the future. Good idea, Dan.

[mburch]

Slow down and read, guys... The alarm pin is for marine use. It's not used in aviation mode.

mcb