So, I got my GI-275s in and my plane FINALLY back.

I found a picture @asicer !! huzzah!

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It just looks so much "cleaner" and professionally done. We pay so much to fly, there's something to be said for the tight fit-n-finish look

To give credit where credit is due, this is from Steinair and it's $79... an incredible TINY price to pay considering the cost of two G5s and all the installation that goes along with it. I don't know why it doesn't just come standard with the kit, or why not everyone does this

https://www.steinair.com/product/g5-flush-mount-bracket-dual/
 
Why are avionics shops so bad with quality control and customer service? I feel like it’s because they have a year backlogs and just don’t give a ****. When my plane got out of a big avionics upgrade, it looked like ****. I was shaking because I was so ****ed and just wanted to get the plane out of their hands immediately. Widows were gouged, tip tank was not reinstalled correctly, defrost hoses not reinstalled, glareshield under light LED went missing, NAV lights and overhead lights were switching on with the master (a bare wire was laying across all the terminals behind the switches), did not remove old DME equipment even though they did the W&B with it removed, did not install the provided Nu-lite for the tip tank gauge, etc etc. All said and done it was $2600 in repairs that my A&P found. I sent the bill to the avionics shop which was paid. When I watch my video from picking it up, I still get ****ed.
 
My reason for going with the GI-275s was pretty simple. I have an original Piper Altimac IIIc autopilot which is just a rebranded Century III. This autopilot requires input from the AI for pitch information and heading bug input from the HI. The G5 can replace the HI and provide heading input but they cannot replace the AI. So, if I went with G5s I'd have to retain the old vacuum system and gyro. The GI-275 is advertised by Garmin as being compatible with legacy autopilots and clearly it is but from the perspective of the pilot owner new to "modern" avionics I feel like that should come with a huge *

To me, coming from an IT background, compatible means I can either directly plug something in, configure, and expect it to work. Maybe I have to buy an adapter from the manufacturer... but they provide a means. From what I got from the techs Garmin only provides enough specs to build your own circuit box... of course you can buy a box from Deklin that's pre-built as we uncovered but still. I think compatible should have a * by it.

I will say that I do prefer the clean look of the 275s, they look like they were meant to be there rather than something that was just tacked on. Would I have paid the extra for them over the G5s just for that? Likely not.

I've had a few people suggest "just get a new autopilot". If all those people would like to pool their money and buy me one I'll start the gofundme. The one I have works just fine for my purposes and for the installed price I don't really feel like the functionality difference would be worth it. Really this whole thing started with a dying vacuum HI and me wanting something more reliable that wouldn't precess and quickly evolved into just ditching all the vacuum stuff for something I could be more confident in when in IMC.

Anyway, the good news is I spent some quality time with it today. Had to run the battery drain test on the other 275 but that cleared the Xed out the remaining battery caution. My A&P had just enough time to pull it into the shop and take some covers off, hopefully he'll find a short in the fuel sender wire tomorrow and I'll be ready to start shooting practice approaches and get used to the new setup.
 
cowman said:
I have an original Piper Altimac IIIc autopilot which is just a rebranded Century III.
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Does the GI275 add anything new to the IIIc besides GPSS? IAS climbs? Altitude pre-select/capture? VNAV?
 
Gmonnig said:
Why are avionics shops so bad with quality control and customer service? I feel like it’s because they have a year backlogs and just don’t give a ****. When my plane got out of a big avionics upgrade, it looked like ****. I was shaking because I was so ****ed and just wanted to get the plane out of their hands immediately. Widows were gouged, tip tank was not reinstalled correctly, defrost hoses not reinstalled, glareshield under light LED went missing, NAV lights and overhead lights were switching on with the master (a bare wire was laying across all the terminals behind the switches), did not remove old DME equipment even though they did the W&B with it removed, did not install the provided Nu-lite for the tip tank gauge, etc etc. All said and done it was $2600 in repairs that my A&P found. I sent the bill to the avionics shop which was paid. When I watch my video from picking it up, I still get ****ed.
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Well when I think of my regular maintenance/upgrades I have a good A&P on my home field. If I didn't even in my po-dunk rural part of the country there are still 2 others I know of without looking within an hour's drive or less. I see the same mechanic all the time, he knows me and my plane. I can drop in and chat, ask questions, look stuff over, etc and we have a good working relationship. I see him every year for my annual and I go back to him throughout the year for little(or occasionally not as little) issues. If he's giving me bad service I'll have plenty of opportunity to figure that out and go elsewhere.

Compare that to avionics- I know of 3 shops "near" me and all are over 2hrs on the road to get to. I see them in theory once every two years but really less than that because my A&P often gets batches of transponder checks lined up and gets a traveling avionics tech to come to us and do them all in a day. Then how often do we really get avionics work? Even after an install that goes 100% to plan and is perfectly satisfactory how likely are you to go back and drop and another stack of AMUs anytime soon? I think between that and being such a niche specialty we end up kinda taking what we can get.

I will say though just in fairness to this shop, I think they honestly tried and just didn't realize the complexity of coupling this autopilot when they bid on it. I haven't gotten the final bill yet but have been assured I won't be paying more than the quoted labor(thank god) and the guy I talked to was always very friendly and apologetic about the situation despite not updating me as often as I'd have liked. My impression when I was there was the tech was possibly new to this type of system or just inexperienced in general but that's just from an hour or so of watching them troubleshoot.
 
asicer said:
Does the GI275 add anything new to the IIIc besides GPSS? IAS climbs? Altitude pre-select/capture? VNAV?
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Not that I'm aware of, but I've got under an hour with this setup and I'm still reading the manual/messing with it. If someone more familiar with these knows otherwise by all means tell me how. My usual operating procedure is to hand fly until leveled out and on course then engage the AP. I hand fly approaches for the most part, except when I need to take my attention away to consult a chart or if I'm being given vectors.

My first priority after having everything 100% is to shoot some practice approaches and let the AP do a couple to see how it performs.
 
I have to clear the shop of responsibility on the fuel gauge. Wire was grounded out inside the wing where they wouldn’t have been poking, probably a coincidence.
 
cowman said:
I have to clear the shop of responsibility on the fuel gauge. Wire was grounded out inside the wing where they wouldn’t have been poking, probably a coincidence.
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Maybe, maybe not. Which wing had the fluxgate compass for the old HSI?
 
As an added bonus, the 275 provides a gateway to allow you to push your ForeFlight or Garmin Pilot plans to your 430 or 650 without having to buy a $1500 FlightStream.
 
WDD said:
As an added bonus, the 275 provides a gateway to allow you to push your ForeFlight or Garmin Pilot plans to your 430 or 650 without having to buy a $1500 FlightStream.
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What about a Garmin 175? Can the 275 do the same for the 175?

TIA
 
Probably. I just enough of a curious geek to read up on these things to see that the 275 has built in connectivity that the G5 doesn’t. And reading other posts here I see that not having to buy a separate flight stream is one of the benefits over G5
 
Gary Ward said:
What about a Garmin 175? Can the 275 do the same for the 175?

TIA
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The GPS 175 includes wireless connectivity without any additional equipment. No flight stream or GI 275 required
 
Wow. Even better! I wonder why they didn’t build that into the GTN xi?
 
Gmonnig said:
Why are avionics shops so bad with quality control and customer service? I feel like it’s because they have a year backlogs and just don’t give a ****. When my plane got out of a big avionics upgrade, it looked like ****. I was shaking because I was so ****ed and just wanted to get the plane out of their hands immediately. Widows were gouged, tip tank was not reinstalled correctly, defrost hoses not reinstalled, glareshield under light LED went missing, NAV lights and overhead lights were switching on with the master (a bare wire was laying across all the terminals behind the switches), did not remove old DME equipment even though they did the W&B with it removed, did not install the provided Nu-lite for the tip tank gauge, etc etc. All said and done it was $2600 in repairs that my A&P found. I sent the bill to the avionics shop which was paid. When I watch my video from picking it up, I still get ****ed.
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Ugh. This reminds me of a vacationer breaking down on a road in the middle of nowhere that finds the nearest “garage” with two good ‘ol boys that fix you right up. “Listen mister, it runs again, right? Hit the road before the price goes up”.
 
So today I took it out and did some real flying in decent weather. Altitude hold needs some work, it over corrects and sets up an autopilot induced oscillation. Battery warnings went away on charge but I still have a ! caution and a yellow TER warning. I'm wondering if I need to buy and update a terrain database on the device to get rid of that last warning and caution.
 
JOhnH said:
Maybe its because I only have one G5 and it is the only one that sticks out from the panel. It just looks awkward to me.
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That prevented me from installing a G5 in 2017 when I added my GTN 650 — I decided to go with a mechanical CDI instead. If the round GI-275 had been available back then, I might have gone for it, but in a panel full of round gauges, the the square G5 sticking out on top looks awful; flush-mounted, only slightly less so (to my personal taste).

I don't see most of my paint job when I'm flying (aside from the wingtops and cowl cover), and I rarely glance at the carpets or upholstery, but the panel is right there in front of me 100% of the time, so I care about what it looks like.
 
cowman said:
So today I took it out and did some real flying in decent weather. Altitude hold needs some work, it over corrects and sets up an autopilot induced oscillation. Battery warnings went away on charge but I still have a ! caution and a yellow TER warning. I'm wondering if I need to buy and update a terrain database on the device to get rid of that last warning and caution.
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Would you mind revealing the steps you took (or where they are published) to get rid of the Battery warning? Mine has that too and the "ter" warning:mad:
 
Captain Sweet T said:
Would you mind revealing the steps you took (or where they are published) to get rid of the Battery warning? Mine has that too and the "ter" warning:mad:
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You have to do a battery rundown test. This involves starting a test in the menus that will run your backup battery flat… it will take a good 1-2 hours to run.

Hold down the button on the unit while powering it on to get into the configuration menu. From there I don’t remember exactly where it is, I think under a test or maintenance menu but you should find a battery test option in there somewhere. Follow the instructions on screen, it basically will give you a list of things to confirm and then you can start the test, you’ll turn the power off and it will sit there until it drains the battery down to 0. Once it finishes it powers off and will be done.

Next time you power it on your battery indicator will be red, eventually going to yellow and disappearing as it recharges. IIRC you’re supposed to do this yearly.
 
I'm aimed at this exact upgrade when my HSI finally croaks, due to the Century III integration. How has the autopilot interface been?
 
schmookeeg said:
I'm aimed at this exact upgrade when my HSI finally croaks, due to the Century III integration. How has the autopilot interface been?
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This shop had quite a bit of difficulty with the interface. Much of that would have been avoided if they knew a company called Deklin made an interface box hey could use rather than trying to roll their own.

It’s tracking a course fine but I’m having issues with the altitude hold porpoising. Going back Mon, hopefully they can sort it out.
 
cowman said:
This shop had quite a bit of difficulty with the interface. Much of that would have been avoided if they knew a company called Deklin made an interface box hey could use rather than trying to roll their own.

It’s tracking a course fine but I’m having issues with the altitude hold porpoising. Going back Mon, hopefully they can sort it out.
Click to expand...

Thanks for taking the teething pains that will benefit us latecomers :D
 
Took it back up to the shop today. They were able to address all the concerns except an issue with altitude hold on the autopilot which is starting to look like a problem with the AP it’s self more than the install.

Basically when altitude hold is engaged, it over corrects and oscillates +\- 50’ off set altitude…. but only sometimes. I need to take it back up in smooth air and try again. Some things were adjusted and tested. It still doesn’t seem right but it’s hard to tell in the bumpy conditions found on the way home- primary suspect right now is the barometric sensor or connection to it.

This whole thing has been frustrating but every impression I get from the shop is they’re trying to make it right and we made good progress as evidenced by this error message free picture.
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Looks good! I had the maintenance shop deliver my Conquest after 5 months of the quoted 2 month SID inspection. Of course the price was significantly higher than the original quote. Several things had to be replaced or repaired beyond the original scope of work. I was ok with that, we negotiated a lower price and everyone was happy. I jump in to fly it to the paint shop and the engines are both idling too low, below the green arc! Not the end of the world, but in cruise the throttles wouldn’t go to max power!:eek: Keep in mind they flew 4-5 hours on test flights and 2 1/2 hours to my home field! How did they not notice the power issue?? Anyway, I’ve just come to expect issues after maintenance! I’m glad you got yours straightened out!
 
We still have some slight oscillation in altitude hold mode, they're working on it.
 
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