F

femski

I'm New Here
Folks,

I am thinking of a stack consisting of Garmin GNC-300XL GPS, SL30 Nav/Comm and a 496 moving map. I was wondering:

1. Will 496 get Flight plan information from 300XL or do I have to program both ?
2. I am thinking of using a common indicator KI209A. Can SL30 be paired with KI209A ? It seems yes. I know 300XL can be.
3. Can SL30 get remote frequencies from 300XL ? I know 496 can feed it to SL30.

thanks for your help,

-Sanjay
 
a similar panel

Sanjay,
I'm planning a similar panel with 300XL, SL30, but with an Anywhere Map SST. Unfortunately, I don't have any answers to your questions, but have similar ones myself. I will forward any information I come across relating to this configuration. (Anyway Map SST provides some EFB functions and has geo-referenced approach plates - aicraft overlaid on appr plate.)
-Jeff
 
femski said:
1. Will 496 get Flight plan information from 300XL or do I have to program both ?
2. I am thinking of using a common indicator KI209A. Can SL30 be paired with KI209A ? It seems yes. I know 300XL can be.
3. Can SL30 get remote frequencies from 300XL ? I know 496 can feed it to SL30.
Click to expand...

1. The 496 should be able to listen to flight plan data coming from the 300XL.
2. Don't know about this one, sorry.
3. I don't think the 300XL can output comm frequency data to the SL30, since it predates the Garmin/Apollo merger. However the 496 will still work for this, as you know.

good luck,
mcb
 
Thanks Matt.

I checked SL30 Installation manual and it does have wiring diagram for KI209A. So it should work. I assume 300XL will work with 496 since even GX60 does. I now have to find a DME feed for SL30 - don't think 300XL can do that (GX60 does).

One of rationale of having 496 is to feed remote frequencies into SL30. BTW, is it legal in certified plane ?

Only other question I have is will 496 someday display ADS-B weather from a source like NavWorx or a future Garmin portable ADS-B receiver ? Then I don't have to subscribe to XM. That will be another reason to have 496. Or may be they will come out with a hybrid product for that.

-Sanjay
 
You will lose some functionality of the SL30 VOR operation by using the KI209A indicator. The details are in the installation manual, but were not obvious on my first reading. I installed a KI209A initially, but changed it out for the Garmin unit and was much happier.

Stan
 
There are some weird things about using King CDI's with the SL30 that may limit your options as to how it will work and could prevent you from being able to use the standby monitoring functions of the SL30 when you want to monitor the standby VOR.

If you have a CDI that has a built in converter like some of the King units, you will loose the back course capability, standby NAV monitoring and all internal OBS functions on the SL30.

Not sure what EFIS your planning but it can also impact how well your EFIS can integrate with the SL30.
 
I guess my questions would be:

Why the 300XL? It's sort of kinda outdated by a good bit now and doesn't do that much when it comes to interfacing with much of anything (including the SL30).

Second, the King indicators are just not a great fit...the Mid Continent MD's are a much better choice.

I'm just curious as to why the 300XL and a 496. The 496 is a much better GPS (albeit not certified), but if you're going to spend the money for the 300XL and a 496 and an SL-30, a 430W is an easy decision in my opinion. I can point you to a number of customers whom I suggested the same thing to and who still insisted on the 300XL. After some period of flying most call me back an tell me they wished they would have just bought a 430 to begin with and "why didn't I tell them not to buy a 300XL"!

To be fair, I'm a big Garmin fan but not a big 150/250/300XL fan at all...it's just a weird fit with most modern EFISes and such. I'd just as puzzled by a 300XL+SL30+SST....but that's my 2 cents!

If it were me, and I were building an RV10 with EFISes in them, I'd do some hard studying on this combo along with whatever EFISes you choose as to what it'll do for you. I don't know if you're using EFISes or not (because you mention the King indicator)...but it should be a serious consideration.

Cheers,
Stein
 
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budgetary for me

... backup & budgetary for me. 300xl+sl30+handheld is "3" navs in different boxes and potentially different power supplies, and "2+" comms whereas the 430 is a single box. plus, i already have a 300xl. this is an inexpensive way to get a comm and gps, and use a very capable handheld for SA, nav, and efb. certainly, the 430 is a tremendous piece of gear, but it is also $4500 used, nonwaas. not chump change for those on a budget. further, a 300xl in familiar hands is a capable piece of gear. it is easy to overbuild a panel these days. and by that i mean to overspend a particular budget.
300xl+sl30+496/ anywheremap sst would be a quite capable nav system, and let that frame an afs3500 and a dynon d6 for a backup, and i'll fly it ifr all day long. (with the sport aoa and at least a wing leveler).
... just another way to skin the cat.
 
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Hi folks !

I finally bought a plane. So I am thinking of installing that SL30 I had in mind. In the meantime Aera is out so I will go with that - since you can dial frequencies from Aera into SL30. No other GPS in panel planned for now.

Back to question about DME for SL30 - since SL30 has only one serial port, if I dedicate this to connect it to Aera I loose connectivity to DME, right ? Can I at least get remote DME to display the distance with output from SL30 ? ie SL30 gets input form Aera for frequencies but outputs to DME for distance measuring.

How about Aera sending frequencies to SL30 and being coupled to an autopilot at the same time ? Is that possible ?

thanks,

-Sanjay
 
femski said:
Back to question about DME for SL30 - since SL30 has only one serial port, if I dedicate this to connect it to Aera I loose connectivity to DME, right ? Can I at least get remote DME to display the distance with output from SL30 ? ie SL30 gets input form Aera for frequencies but outputs to DME for distance measuring.

How about Aera sending frequencies to SL30 and being coupled to an autopilot at the same time ? Is that possible ?
Click to expand...

Sanjay,

I don't have a lot of really detailed knowledge about the aera family, but since those products have similar I/O capability to the x96 products I'm more familiar with, I think I can answer. None of the Garmin handheld products will output DME distance to an SL30 navcom. But, you can drive an SL30 and an autopilot from a single serial port on the Garmin unit if you split the output line and set the format to one of the ones that includes "NMEA & VHF Out".

good luck,
mcb
 
496 will be closing out

I was talking to the Garmin rep when I was at AOPA Summit in Tampa last month. He said that the reason they were discontinuing the 296 and 396 series was that they had lost their supply line for the screens so they were shifting their production to concentrate on the 496 line. He said that when the current supply of those screens are gone, they are gone. He predicted that would be in less than a year. If you want a 496, get it now. I personally LOVE my 696. It took a little of panel work to find a place for it but the big new bright screen is fantastic. When I complete my panel upgrade to Trutrak glass it will have it's own Airgizmos home.

Bill Near
 
Replacement for 300XL

Stein I agree with you about the 430 being good. But Why doesn't Garmin come out with something better priced to replace the 300. Instead they went the other way with the 430W.
 
Thanks Matt. I checked the picture of Garmin Aviation Bare Wire in Aera manual and it does have split lines for serial output and input.

Does anyone know if SL30 serial port can be smilarily split into Data In (for Frequency input from Aera) and Data out for sending information to DME using DB30 serializer. I would think any serial line can be split like this.

Thanks.
 
BTW, I am no longer considering 300XL for my panel. Aera is enough. If anything it would be GX60 since it can help in both - autotuning of frequencies and DME for SL30. Plus it doubles up as a COMM.
 
femski said:
Does anyone know if SL30 serial port can be smilarily split into Data In (for Frequency input from Aera) and Data out for sending information to DME using DB30 serializer. I would think any serial line can be split like this.
Click to expand...

The general rule of thumb is that any serial output can be split (a limited number of times). However you can't take two serial lines and splice them together into one input.

The other caveat is that each device that is receiving data must be configurable to the same baud rate, etc. For example, I have my Dynon D-10A acting as my altitude encoder. I have a GTX-320A which only does gray code so I use Dynon's serial->gray code converter. Well, it just so happens that the encoder input for my GX-50 is the same format as the input required for the Dynon converter. Therefore I split the encoder output coming from the Dynon into the GX-50 and the converter, but I can only do this because they are expecting the same nmea sentence.
 
From my planning point of view (-7) and budget, have considered a GNC 300XL GPS/Comm when paired w/ EFIS will have the basic navigation needed w/ comm and the EFIS will provide a far superior mapping function. I could save substantial $ and also have IFR capability should I ever decide to advance my rating. Would also not be totally dependent on a single box but I don't know the capabilities of the 300XL in terms of IFR use.

My point being to get low cost, good function and less complexity.

Would like to have input on this plan; Pro or Con.

Glenn Wilkinson
 
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