Avionics Professionals on Mooney Space

[ReconMax]

Do we have any Avionics professionals on Mooney Space? Any in the Central Texas area? I'd like to keep things in the family if possible. 

If not, can anyone recommend an avionics shop in the Central Texas area who can upgrade me from Flight Stream 210 to 510? Also, I'm probably going to be wanting to have some kind of a relationship with a local shop who can handle other upgrades and issues if they come up. Getting to anywhere around the Austin area is easy but further out is okay too.

 

 

[donkaye, MCFI]

1 hour ago, ReconMax said:

Do we have any Avionics professionals on Mooney Space? Any in the Central Texas area? I'd like to keep things in the family if possible. 

If not, can anyone recommend an avionics shop in the Central Texas area who can upgrade me from Flight Stream 210 to 510? Also, I'm probably going to be wanting to have some kind of a relationship with a local shop who can handle other upgrades and issues if they come up. Getting to anywhere around the Austin area is easy but further out is okay too.

 

 

Aren't you near Don Maxwell?.  They are also doing a lot of Avionics now.  Having said that, the FS 510 is basically plug and play.  You need to pair the Bluetooth and enable Database Sync, if you have multiple units that have Databases.

[ReconMax]

1 hour ago, donkaye said:

Aren't you near Don Maxwell?.  They are also doing a lot of Avionics now.  Having said that, the FS 510 is basically plug and play.  You need to pair the Bluetooth and enable Database Sync, if you have multiple units that have Databases.

Are you suggesting that I could just buy the card and do the configuration myself? I've seen I can just buy the card but from what I can tell, that's just for the experimental guys. From what I've read, GA guys need to go through a licensed shop. Am I wrong? 

As for Don Maxwell, I'm certainly not opposed to using him but he is a little far to drive if I have to leave the plane with him. Hence, the query about the Austin area. 

Thanks...

 

[kortopates]

8 minutes ago, ReconMax said:

Are you suggesting that I could just buy the card and do the configuration myself? I've seen I can just buy the card but from what I can tell, that's just for the experimental guys. From what I've read, GA guys need to go through a licensed shop. Am I wrong? 

As for Don Maxwell, I'm certainly not opposed to using him but he is a little far to drive if I have to leave the plane with him. Hence, the query about the Austin area. 

Thanks...

 

The FS-510 is owner uninstallable - which is probably a misnomer since you are just replacing the SD data card in your GTN with the FS-510. There was some configuration steps done on the GTN if I recall properly but most of the configuration steps where done on the iPad to set up the WiFI for database transfer and Bluetooth set up for inflight position, wx, ADHRS and flight plan transfer data. I did this years ago though don't recall much detail except that I ended up needing to get help from Garmin Tech support on the phone whom confirmed my first 510 card was not working properly and they sent a new one out to my dealer. The second one worked fine. There were a lot of failures in the early cards.   

I believe you're right that you still have to purchase it through a Garmin dealer. 

[ReconMax]

43 minutes ago, kortopates said:

The FS-510 is owner uninstallable - which is probably a misnomer since you are just replacing the SD data card in your GTN with the FS-510. There was some configuration steps done on the GTN if I recall properly but most of the configuration steps where done on the iPad to set up the WiFI for database transfer and Bluetooth set up for inflight position, wx, ADHRS and flight plan transfer data. I did this years ago though don't recall much detail except that I ended up needing to get help from Garmin Tech support on the phone whom confirmed my first 510 card was not working properly and they sent a new one out to my dealer. The second one worked fine. There were a lot of failures in the early cards.   

I believe you're right that you still have to purchase it through a Garmin dealer. 

On AircraftSpruce.com, they say;

Can only sell to experimental aircraft.
Certified aircraft must go to Part 145 Garmin shop to install.

Did your dealer just hand it over to you and say good luck? I'd like to have someone familiar with it and my equipment just do it for me. I bet the right person could do it in and hour. I can probably do it but I'll have to go through my "process". My "process" usually involves me reading the instruction until I think I understand, then proceeding with the task only to discover the instructions don't quite fit my situation. Then, I try to adjust and eventually get it done. Then later, I realize that something which previously worked no longer does. Then back to the books, more studying, a couple trips to the plane in the heat, sweating, some cursing, more research and then redo everything and eventually get it right.

The good part of that is, by the end of my process, I have a pretty good understanding of everything involved. And that's not nothing. 

Lol. I sound lazy don't I.  I'm really not, just very busy and I don't enjoy working on the plane. I just like flying it...

 

 

[LANCECASPER]

4 hours ago, ReconMax said:

Do we have any Avionics professionals on Mooney Space? Any in the Central Texas area? I'd like to keep things in the family if possible. 

If not, can anyone recommend an avionics shop in the Central Texas area who can upgrade me from Flight Stream 210 to 510? Also, I'm probably going to be wanting to have some kind of a relationship with a local shop who can handle other upgrades and issues if they come up. Getting to anywhere around the Austin area is easy but further out is okay too.

 

 

Call Matt Gordon at Central Texas Avionics in Georgetown (512-868-8484). They are awesome. They trouble-shot a couple problems for me on a previous airplane and were more than fair. They are a Garmin dealer

[carusoam]

@gsxrpilot has some good, hands on, central TX, avionics experience...
 

Best regards,

-a-

[kortopates]

1 hour ago, ReconMax said:

Did your dealer just hand it over to you and say good luck?

No, they handed it over with a 1 pager on set up instructions which was all I needed. I could have waited for them to install it in another week but as it turned out a week later I had a new good one installed rather than waiting for the shop to discover it wasn't good. But I wanted to fly it sooner with the card.

Obviously not everyone will feel as comfortable as I am in doing the install. But most anyone that is computer savvy won't have an issue.

Edited September 14, 2020 by kortopates

[Tahir K]

I'd be interested in purchasing the FS 210 if we can work out a deal. Located in the Dallas area. 

[ReconMax]

59 minutes ago, Tahir K said:

I'd be interested in purchasing the FS 210 if we can work out a deal. Located in the Dallas area. 

Hmmm, so, the 210 is no longer needed? I'll PM you. If I don't need it, I'll be glad to sell it to you reasonably...

[toto]

16 minutes ago, ReconMax said:

Hmmm, so, the 210 is no longer needed? I'll PM you. If I don't need it, I'll be glad to sell it to you reasonably...

The only thing the 210 has that the 510 doesn't have is a built-in AHRS.  If you aren't using that, then you shouldn't need the 210.

[kortopates]

11 minutes ago, ReconMax said:

Hmmm, so, the 210 is no longer needed? I'll PM you. If I don't need it, I'll be glad to sell it to you reasonably...

You probably won't need it or want it. The FS-510 does everything the 210 did and more with one exception. The 210 provides AHRS backup attitude information, that the 510 does not except indirectly. Many of us still get AHRS backup through the FS-510 from elsewhere. For example, my G500 provides the backup AHRS through my FS-510 and my GTX-345 also provides AHRS back up too. 

[ArtVandelay]

You probably won't need it or want it. The FS-510 does everything the 210 did and more with one exception. The 210 provides AHRS backup attitude information, that the 510 does not except indirectly. Many of us still get AHRS backup through the FS-510 from elsewhere. For example, my G500 provides the backup AHRS through my FS-510 and my GTX-345 also provides AHRS back up too. 

But if you have G3X, you’ll need the 210 I believe.

[donkaye, MCFI]

On 9/14/2020 at 2:31 PM, toto said:

The only thing the 210 has that the 510 doesn't have is a built-in AHRS.  If you aren't using that, then you shouldn't need the 210.

Since it was already installed, I kept the FS 210 and use it interchangeably with the FS 510 in flight.  When it comes to Database Concierge, it's less than a toss up as to its usefulness.  First, I've had problems with syncing from my 750 to the 650, so I need to take the 650 card home and transfer data to it from flygarmin.com.  Same goes for the G500TXi.  Database sync seems to work with it, but Flight Charts takes about an hour to transfer over, and while that can happen in flight, if the flight is less than an hour and the transfer is not completed, then you get to start over again.  That's unacceptable, so that card is also loaded from flygarmin.com, too.  When I've talked to Garmin Support about this, even they recommend just updating the cards separately.  Bottom line, you might as well do all cards separately rather than use the FS 510.

[ReconMax]

 

58 minutes ago, donkaye said:

Since it was already installed, I kept the FS 210 and use it interchangeably with the FS 510 in flight.  When it comes to Database Concierge, it's less than a toss up as to its usefulness.  First, I've had problems with syncing from my 750 to the 650, so I need to take the 650 card home and transfer data to it from flygarmin.com.  Same goes for the G500TXi.  Database sync seems work with it, but Flight Charts takes about an hour to transfer over, and while that can happen in flight, if the flight is less than an hour and the transfer is not completed, then you get to start over again.  That's unacceptable, so that card is also loaded from flygarmin.com, too.  When I've talked to Garmin Support about this,  even they recommend just updating the cards separately.  Bottom line, you might as well do al cards separately rather than use the FS 510.

Okay. Thanks. That's really good information. I hope I have a different experience though.

[kortopates]

Since it was already installed, I kept the FS 210 and use it interchangeably with the FS 510 in flight.  When it comes to Database Concierge, it's less than a toss up as to its usefulness.  First, I've had problems with syncing from my 750 to the 650, so I need to take the 650 card home and transfer data to it from flygarmin.com.  Same goes for the G500TXi.  Database sync seems to work with it, but Flight Charts takes about an hour to transfer over, and while that can happen in flight, if the flight is less than an hour and the transfer is not completed, then you get to start over again.  That's unacceptable, so that card is also loaded from flygarmin.com, too.  When I've talked to Garmin Support about this, even they recommend just updating the cards separately.  Bottom line, you might as well do all cards separately rather than use the FS 510.

Don, I have none of those DB concierge problems. But 2 differences, I am on Jepp charts and I only display the charts on the 750. Do the charts load quickly to 750 and just take a long time to stream to G500? I wonder if it’s do to more voluminous data of Garmin raster based charts versus Jepp smaller vectored based charts. I load all of the America’s charts onto the 750 in just a couple minutes - perhaps more than 2x the data of the US charts alone.

Never a problem with syncing with the 650 either.

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[donkaye, MCFI]

Thanks for the reply, Paul.  The Garmin Charts load within a couple of minutes to the 750 using Database Concierge.  The long Chart Streaming to the G500 isn't really a bug just a big file problem.  Garmin sort of solves the problem by streaming all the Charts in your flight plan if you use Database Sync and all the Charts haven't transferred over.  I choose just to update the G500 TXi from the Card and be done with it.  I'm also tired of trying to track down why there is either a delay or a hang in database transfer to the 650.  Updating the card only takes a couple of minutes at home.  The the new data transfer technology just isn't worth the trouble to me.