donahuedc said:
Well, my check just went out in the mail yesterday. We'll have: Dynon D180, Dynon D100, Pma8000B, Garmin 327, Garmin SL30, Air gizmo dock with Garmin 296 to later upgrade, and a trutrak digiflight II VSG. Hope we have better luck than Robby.
I don't in any way mean this as a flame to anyone, but the above is a perfect example of what you should and could easily do yourself. Here's essentially what you're paying for:
Dynon D180 & D100....prefab cables are available directly from Dynon...and not too expensive. You hook up one power, one ground each, run the ONE wire to the Txpdr and route the wire to your remote mag...plug in the engine sensor harness which you have to do anyway and you're done there.
Garmin 327 - Power Wire, Ground Wire and a whopping total of ONE wire to your Dynon (which comes with the pre-made dynon harness).
Garmin 296/396 - Cable available from Sporty's for a few bucks...includes the ONE wire you need to hook to your pre-fab TruTrak harness which already has that wire on it anyway.
Now, the only thing with much wiring at all is the PMA & SL-30. If you bought these avionics new this should already be done for you, but if not here's the scoop.
Total of FOUR wires from the SL-30 to the PMA (plus the Power & Ground on the radio) and the SL-30 counts for about 7-8 wires. (even if you hook up the nav via RS-232, that's only TWO more wires - just use a twisted pair or something...).
From the PMA you'll have 4 leads (2 headset & 2 mic leads). 2 PTT leads and then any inputs that you'd have to hook up anyway (like aux music, etc..).
That's it! In totality you should have about $370 in the prefab harnesses, another $50 in your own wire & jacks and a few hours of work and you'd be done.
Not slamming the approach stuff at all...normally I find their work top notch and yes we've occasionally used it when a customer requires it. Plus, they are now another "MinnesOta" company so they can't be all bad
Just my 2 cents, but some of this wiring stuff isn't really as bad as people might lead you to believe. Yes you need decent tooling, but it doesn't need to cost thousands of $$'s. Sure, in my shop we have a lot of high end tooling, but before I had the avionics shop I built 2 RV's without spending a ton on tooling. Just be carefull, follow the instructions and you'll be fine.
Lastly, if you buy your avionics right - they should be mostly pre-wired for you anyway.
Cheers,
Stein.
RV6 Flyin
RV7 Waitin on finish kit - and money for engine/avionics!