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Just took my Mini-AP for a flight

Posted: Mon Dec 05, 2016 1:54 am
by recapen
Nice piece of equipment!
Originally intended to replace the Century NSD1000 after its gyro went toes up - I'll be able to use it to transition to glass panel with the Flight Director.
It is currently hooked up with the Magnetometer, ARINC box to my 420W(with Aviation data through a serial port) and serial port to my SL-30.

A few of questions for those of you that have been flying for a while...:

I'm thinking about using the internal GPS as the primary and re-purposing the serial port for ADSB. Jeff mentioned that I might get some confusing indications - but my GPS antennas are about a foot apart - fore and aft...within the defined error radius. Anyone else doing this? Any positive or negative consequences?

When I have the brightness turned up anything over 8 or so, the screen flickers and it looks like there's some burn-in background. Anyone else seen this?

The ARINC output to my S-Tec-30 Autopilot is slow to react and doesn't send a full-roll signal - is there a gain that can be increased to get a better turn rate closer to standard?

Thanks for your help in advance!

Ralph Capen

Re: Just took my Mini-AP for a flight

Posted: Mon Dec 05, 2016 3:20 am
by Bobturner
I don't understand exactly what you're proposing, but: (1) I think the two GPS antennas are too close together, and (2) you may not use the internal GPS to drive ADSB-out data, you need the Garmin, and it has to have the latest software which outputs ADSB+ format, and your ADSB transmitter has to be able to read that format.

Re: Just took my Mini-AP for a flight

Posted: Mon Dec 05, 2016 3:42 pm
by recapen
Thanks Bob...My intent is to continue to use the 420W to drive the ADSB+ output as you have described....using the internal GPS for the Mini-AP will allow me to use the serial port from the 420W to get ADSB data from the NavWorx box. Both GPS units seem to work fine - even with the antenna proximity.

Re: Just took my Mini-AP for a flight

Posted: Wed Dec 07, 2016 1:58 pm
by recapen
I got responses from Jeff on my other questions about flicker/burn-in and Autopilot roll rate....
The flicker/burn-in are known issues without an ongoing resolution other than replacing the screen if it gets really bad.
For the Autopilot roll rate, I'll do a bunch of 180 degree turns with the AutoPilot controlled by the HSI Heading bug and see if it comes up to a standard rate.

I'm going to do some configuration testing to see if I can optimize it for my preferences with the serial port limitation...more on that later!

Re: Just took my Mini-AP for a flight

Posted: Sat Dec 10, 2016 7:41 pm
by recapen
Did a bunch of 180's using the Heading-bug of the Mini-AP running my S-Tec-30...

For the first 150 degrees of the turn, I get a standard rate according to the Turn coordinator on the panel. For the next 10 degrees or so it is half-rate at best - the rest of the turn takes waaay to long to complete from a standards perspective.

With the 420W as my external (GPS1) providing input for ARINC and Serial Aviation data - is there a way to get the internal GPS to serve as the primary? Do you need to configure the internal as GPS1? I'll try that on the next flight - unless someone has specific config info.