Stay away from Garmin if you can IMO. G1000, G3X (certified), problems, problems, problems (quality vise). Other stuff might not necessarily be better, but at least it’s cheaper and you aren’t tied in with Garmin for everything else.
dublinpilot wrote:
More realistically, I’d probably need to pay someone else to do it.
Sounds expensive 
and not so much homebuilt. The problem with that is to find a (certified) guy willing to work on “non-standard” equipment. If you know someone who knows this stuff and has worked on non certified things, that will be fine. But autopilot isn’t exactly rocket science, you should be able to do that yourself just fine. You will perhaps need to tune it anyway at some point.
The best, and by far, is the Garmin stuff
there is a caveat to that: the G1000, G3000, G5000 are superb units indeed and priced accordingly
Garmin is a smart publicly traded company and they would not let the cheap stuff undercut the premium boxes
But in a few years time avionics will change again. And Garmin let us down with its G1000. Good kit but the supposedly line replacement units suddenly were not available anymore or were unable to keep up. So you are either stuck in the past or need to spend a fortune ripping the old stuff out and putting new stuff in.
Dan IIRC the ball/arrow head is at the top on the G1000 also.
Dan wrote:
Of course we can see the ball on the Dynon… the problem is (as with many other things in this display…) it ain’t standard. Would you know of any other display steam/glass just now off hand, where the stupid ball is on top of the horizon?
IIRC Garmin G1000 doesn’t have a ball to display slip or skid, nor does Avidyne on the 5000EX – they have 2 triangles which move apart from each other – these are positioned just underneath the compass Arc – but even so they’re still at the top of screen / on top of the horizon. Whilst on the subject – what bugged me when flying an Avidyne system is that those two triangles are often too small to read accurately hence you could be inadvertently slipping / skidding the turn.
I have a slip/skid indicator on my GRT EFIS, but I heard that it’s not as responsive as a “real” one, so I installed one like this one:
https://www.winter-instruments.de/querneigungsmesser—-bank-indicators
It’s the one I use when flying, not the one on the EFIS.
@dublinpilot – Colm, if you’re looking for a very cheap solution I would just keep the D100 and add the SV32 servos for roll and pitch and a an AP disconnect/CWS button on the stick (I think the SV32 are about 1500 EUR each). Just check with Dynon. You can control the AP direct in the D100 EFIS menu. You can program it to engage with the CWS button (hold the button for two seconds and AP engages in ALT/HDG hold mode. I have this setup in my Europa and it works to my satisfaction.
Installation/wiring comes on top in anyway of course but it couldn’t get cheaper than that for sure.
If the plane has a Dynon EFIS system already, the price will be the cost of two servos and a button panel… look at Mendelssohn for prices – I recommend them as their tech support is excellent. If you’re starting from scratch, I recommend a Garmin based system as the GFC500 will absolutely sh*t on any other AP you’ve used before – it’s a seriously impressive bit of kit. I went for Garmin as I dislike the Dynon servo design, as the Garmin uses a proper clutch to disconnect the servo/deal with over torque whereas the Dynon servo uses a pin which snaps when too much torque is applied.
Of course if you’re using someone else to install an AP then this will vary costs somewhat…. One of the main cost savings of a home built IME is that one is expected to do maintenance themselves
IO390 wrote:
I went for Garmin as I dislike the Dynon servo design, as the Garmin uses a proper clutch to disconnect the servo/deal with over torque whereas the Dynon servo uses a pin which snaps when too much torque is applied.
that was one of the reasons I’ve chosen Dynon. If for whatever reason the servo goes nuts, one just brakes the safety pin. Period. No need to fight the clutch for the rest of the flight.
A shear pin is dumb. The clutch will work unless maintenance has been terrible, and you can and should preflight that clutch on every startup (in reality I think most pilots don’t know about it).
IO390 wrote:
If the plane has a Dynon EFIS system already, the price will be the cost of two servos and a button panel…
As I wrote – no button panel needed if not for own preference. The AP can be commanded via the D100 device itself. Works fine for me.
