Adding a JPI 900 on the cheap

[skydvrboy]

Great responses and advice so far that I am very grateful for.  A couple more questions though if I may.  I see several of your panels have a left and right panel instead of one piece.  This makes a lot of sense to me, making it modular (left, center, & right), so I'll follow suit.

On 12/14/2018 at 8:34 PM, Marauder said:

 

I started my panel redesign just like you’re doing. I would take it one step further and find a CAD guy to do a mock up series and then cut new panels to accommodate the moves and changes and not leave your panel looking like a Frankenstein. I learned that lesson.

Can you elaborate on this?  I can certainly see the advantages of cutting a new panel for the left side especially, since I will be considering it done once the JPI is installed.  However, it seems it would be a nice to have rather than a need.  Does the panel have to come out to install the JPI 900 or could it be added without removing the panel?  Bottom line, what would the price delta be for cutting and installing a new left side panel in both parts and labor?  I could see how the upcharge for replacing the panel could be less than the hit one would take on the value for having a franken-panel.  As for the right side, I still have more I'd like to do to it, so I think cover plates would be the way to go until I'm ready to make the rest of the changes.

I'm also still unclear on what everything attaches to for support.  I'm pretty sure all the switches, gauges, warning lights, etc. just attach directly to the panel, correct?.  But what about the racking for the radio stack?  Does that also attach directly to the panel or is there some kind of support behind the panel for the radio racks? 

[Marauder]

Great responses and advice so far that I am very grateful for.  A couple more questions though if I may.  I see several of your panels have a left and right panel instead of one piece.  This makes a lot of sense to me, making it modular (left, center, & right), so I'll follow suit.
Can you elaborate on this?  I can certainly see the advantages of cutting a new panel for the left side especially, since I will be considering it done once the JPI is installed.  However, it seems it would be a nice to have rather than a need.  Does the panel have to come out to install the JPI 900 or could it be added without removing the panel?  Bottom line, what would the price delta be for cutting and installing a new left side panel in both parts and labor?  I could see how the upcharge for replacing the panel could be less than the hit one would take on the value for having a franken-panel.  As for the right side, I still have more I'd like to do to it, so I think cover plates would be the way to go until I'm ready to make the rest of the changes.

I'm also still unclear on what everything attaches to for support.  I'm pretty sure all the switches, gauges, warning lights, etc. just attach directly to the panel, correct?.  But what about the racking for the radio stack?  Does that also attach directly to the panel or is there some kind of support behind the panel for the radio racks? 

You can keep the panel you have and have someone paint or powder coat it to make it look better. Later, as you indicated, you can have a final panel cut to make everything look cleaner. I went through 3 phases of panel cleanup. The first was the initial upgrade to GPS, the Aspens and a couple of other changes. I had an 830 installed where the 900 is installed now, but I did not recess the 830 and it stuck out a bit. I will find some evolution pictures and post them so you can see.

Here is a picture of the radio stack from my plane. One thing that happens is over the years there is a lot of cutting of the rack to accommodate new radios. In my case, the rack was in bad shape and the radios were actually not being supported correctly. An honest shop will tell you the condition of the stack. Mine was completely rebuilt. I have a picture somewhere of a notch actually cut out of the rack structure by one shop to get something to fit.




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[Andy95W]

Like Chris said, you keep your panel- and in your case you DEFINITELY want to do so. Your airplane has been modified to have an M20J 201 style instrument panel which you should be very glad of. If you take a look at what your panel looked like out of the factory you’ll see why!

[Bob_Belville]

On 12/15/2018 at 11:14 PM, Jim Peace said:

with one engine and a thousand moving parts, I play FE more than anything else......

Well... we just returned from a wonderful weekend at KEDE with great Mooney owners and gracious hosts Mimi and Rob.

I paid special attention to what I actually play with while George has the plane during cruise.

It was not the EDM 930... though I did use the LOP Lean Find and tweaked the prop and the mixture while monitoring temps... I spent far more time using the GTN 750. Even though there was no weather to study I had traffic to monitor, destination AWOS to pull up, where would I put it if the engine were to let go, VOR checks... I changed some of the info being displayed, I tuned in the visual rwy 21 "approach", etc., etc.

Of course, I did scan the EDM regularly and I even looked out the window once in a while.

I remain convinced that Mooney was right 50 years ago to put the tach, MP Gauge, Fuel Pressure, etc. on the far right giving priority panel space to aviate and navigate.  

[jonhop]

5 hours ago, Bob_Belville said:

I even looked out the window once in a while

Pilots on and IFR flight plan are still responsible for see and avoid, so outside should be included in the primary scan per Rod Machado... Studying for the Instrument written and just learned that today. 

Edited December 18, 2018 by jonhop

[Jim Peace]

7 hours ago, Bob_Belville said:

Well... we just returned from a wonderful weekend at KEDE with great Mooney owners and gracious hosts Mimi and Rob.

I paid special attention to what I actually play with while George has the plane during cruise.

It was not the EDM 930... though I did use the LOP Lean Find and tweaked the prop and the mixture while monitoring temps... I spent far more time using the GTN 750. Even though there was no weather to study I had traffic to monitor, destination AWOS to pull up, where would I put it if the engine were to let go, VOR checks... I changed some of the info being displayed, I tuned in the visual rwy 21 "approach", etc., etc.

Of course, I did scan the EDM regularly and I even looked out the window once in a while.

I remain convinced that Mooney was right 50 years ago to put the tach, MP Gauge, Fuel Pressure, etc. on the far right giving priority panel space to aviate and navigate.  

Majority of my time in small planes is looking for traffic outside and on my GTN/iPad, and my oil pressure and temperature and a lot of other stuff on the JPI, nothing else really matters. 

[Bob_Belville]

9 hours ago, jonhop said:

Pilots on and IFR flight plan are still responsible for see and avoid, so outside should be included in the primary scan per Rod Machado... Studying for the Instrument written and just learned that today. 

 

7 hours ago, Jim Peace said:

Majority of my time in small planes is looking for traffic outside and on my GTN/iPad, and my oil pressure and temperature and a lot of other stuff on the JPI, nothing else really matters. 

"...even look out the window once in a while" should have come across as hyperbole... I need an icon I guess.  

[Steve W]

Here's an photo of my interim panel, as in until I have enough money to add G5s a GFC 500, maybe a G500Txi, etc etc...(heh)

 

 

[gsxrpilot]

3 minutes ago, Steve W said:

Here's an photo of my interim panel, as in until I have enough money to add G5s a GFC 500, maybe a G500Txi, etc etc...(heh)

 

 

Why not turn the EDM-900 horizontal? You've got the empty hole there.

Just stick an Aspen in there. You can sell the AI, the HSI, and the VOR head.

[Steve W]

3 minutes ago, gsxrpilot said:

Why not turn the EDM-900 horizontal? You've got the empty hole there.

Just stick an Aspen in there. You can sell the AI, the HSI, and the VOR head.

Horizontally it blocks the CDI even more and I'd have to relocate the Stormscope placard.  An Aspen doesn't get me any closer to being able to dump the KAP 150 in the ocean(er, sorry, sell to whoever needs parts) and replace it with an autopilot with electric pitch trim and can legally fly an ILS or LPV to minimums. 

[gsxrpilot]

Understood.

Panel looks great by the way.

[ArtVandelay]

Why not turn the EDM-900 horizontal? You've got the empty hole there.
Just stick an Aspen in there. You can sell the AI, the HSI, and the VOR head.

When horizontal, the 4 cylinders don’t make good use of screen area, it doesn’t look quite right, they always show 6 cylinders when horizontal.

[skydvrboy]

1 hour ago, Steve W said:

Here's an photo of my interim panel, as in until I have enough money to add G5s a GFC 500, maybe a G500Txi, etc etc...(heh)

That looks like exactly what I want to do with my panel.  Did you have the JPI installed by itself?  If so, how many AMU’s was the install cost?

@Marauder thanks for posting the pic of the racking. Looks like if I want to move the audio panel I’ll need to have the rack rebuilt.

@Andy95W I love the six (8) pack configuration. Are you recommending that I just put patches over the holes in my existing panel?

[Steve W]

23 minutes ago, skydvrboy said:

That looks like exactly what I want to do with my panel.  Did you have the JPI installed by itself?  If so, how many AMU’s was the install cost?

 

As you'll notice on the display there are many Xs, those are all the sensors on the engine that's not yet back from it's prop strike work. I figured while the engine was out I'd do all the work I could. So the wires are routed through the firewall, the OAT probe is replaced in the right wing, the fuel flow to GPS connection is made(I cheated and used the wires from the old fuel flow since some day I want all the wires cleaned up but I didn't want to try and get to the GPS tray to replace them now), the ammeter shunt is replaced. I'm hoping all the new sensors can just be attached as the engine is re-assembled and then the wrap up work with the A&P when it comes back to cut everything to length and connect it and hook in the MP sensor and calibrate the fuel levels. I'm expecting 10-20 hours of A&P time for supervision, wrap up and for him to do all the paperwork/etc. Hopefully some time next year I'll know how much it actually cost.

 

[Marauder]

When horizontal, the 4 cylinders don’t make good use of screen area, it doesn’t look quite right, they always show 6 cylinders when horizontal.

Not quite sure I follow you. What doesn’t look right when it is horizontal?




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[ArtVandelay]

 

Not quite sure I follow you. What doesn’t look right when it is horizontal?

The EGT,CHT looks squashed and there is blank areas left and right of them, compare with vertical:

[Marauder]

The EGT,CHT looks squashed and there is blank areas left and right of them, compare with vertical:

Funny you should mentioned squashed. When I was playing around with horizontal and vertical layouts before settling on horizontal, I thought the RPM and MP looked squashed and one of the reasons I went horizontal.

I know they can change the format. When mine went back for one of the repairs, I saw a different font layout. Wonder if they take feedback on this.

BTW - what’s going on with your one cylinder temp in the photo?


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[gsxrpilot]

For the 6-cylinder model, there is a major difference between the vertical and horizontal display. In the vertical mode (portrait) there isn't enough room to display EGT's per cylinder. The EGT's cycle through across the bottom of the display but aren't displayed above the vertical bar graph. Only the CHT's are displayed. Granted, actually EGT per cylinder isn't as critical as CHT, but one of the reasons I like the larger displays is that all data is on the screen at all times. I'm not watching the scroll at the bottom of the screen hoping to catch the data I'm looking for as it flashes on the screen.

I'm pretty sure that's only an issue with the 6-cylinder versions.

[Andy95W]

4 hours ago, skydvrboy said:

 

@Andy95W I love the six (8) pack configuration. Are you recommending that I just put patches over the holes in my existing panel?

Short term, yes.  Long term, your mechanic can just cut a new panel using your current panel as a template and maintain the mounting configuration and other pluses of your panel- which is going to look really nice after a little work, and even better with fresh metal and paint (eventually).

Good luck, enjoy the process!

[bill98]

Someone needs to do a panel upgrade and sell me their 900 

[ArtVandelay]

BTW - what’s going on with your one cylinder temp in the photo?

Long story, but I’m overhauling my engine as we speak.

[gsxrpilot]

9 hours ago, bill98 said:

Someone needs to do a panel upgrade and sell me their 900 

It's very telling that 700's and 830's are for sale all the time but 900's, 930's and MVP-50's aren't. Once you have one, you know why. 

Even the preeminent panel connoisseur, @donkaye, is keeping his MVP-50 while installing TXi glass. There's nothing quite like having a top shelf, primary, engine monitor, to provide peace of mind while extracting max performance and efficiency out of your engine.

[GLJA]

10 hours ago, bill98 said:

Someone needs to do a panel upgrade and sell me their 900 

I've got a new one, with all the probes, etc (except CiES) on a bench.... What's your bottom dollar?

[donkaye]

2 hours ago, gsxrpilot said:

It's very telling that 700's and 830's are for sale all the time but 900's, 930's and MVP-50's aren't. Once you have one, you know why. 

Even the preeminent panel connoisseur, @donkaye, is keeping his MVP-50 while installing TXi glass. There's nothing quite like having a top shelf, primary, engine monitor, to provide peace of mind while extracting max performance and efficiency out of your engine.

Even with the New, new  panel, I never gave a thought to go with the Garmin EIS.  Except for downloading to Garmin Pilot the MVP-50 does much more than the EIS.  And the new MPV-50 display really increases the resolution of the old display.  There are so many things I like about it.  One is particularly useful to me, and that is its dual fuel use registers.  One keeps track of total fuel used while the other resets at the end of each flight on shut down,  thereby showing fuel use on each trip without doing any calculations each time.  Another is simple setting for two fuel levels.  I have one for 100  gallons top off and the other for 89 gallons to the bottom of the neck.  I keep the Shading at the 89 gallon level, since the calibration was done for 89 gallons.  So the fuel tank level indicators on the MVP-50 (separate from the totalizer)  don't start going down until below 89 gallons where they will roughly agree with the Shading.  I recommend it above all other engine monitors.

[bill98]

On 12/19/2018 at 10:01 AM, GLJA said:

I've got a new one, with all the probes, etc (except CiES) on a bench.... What's your bottom dollar?

Anyone need A JPI EDM 830?

 

Trying to get myself a 900!