I fly an LS8-18. I started with a C302 and now have an S80. I have a mechanical vario on the TE probe and the C302/S80 were/are set-up with electronic compensation. This way the two systems are independent.

The key was determining how to use the static ports. The aircraft manual states that the nose ports are for the airspeed indicator and the tailboom ports are for the vario. I tried using just the nose ports, linking the nose and tailboom ports together, and using just the tailboom ports. For my plane, using just the tailboom ports works extremely well.

I am still working out the problems causes by the S80 resetting itself to the factory settings during the software update. It took my a full flying season to understand the instrument and address all the settings needed to get the instrument to work the way I wanted it to. Unfortunately, I had not completed a detailed list of all the settings. My first flight after completing the update was a mess because the factory setting for the vario is to use the TE probe and I am set-up for electronic compensation. The flight wasn't ruined by the wrong compensation because I had my mechanical vario on the TE probe. It was ruined by me trying to reset the instrument while flying. It would be very nice if LX Nav would do two things for S80 users. First, allow system updates without changing all the settings. Second, provide a detailed list of all the settings with spaces for you to enter your personal settings and create the list in the same order in which one finds the settings while scrolling through the pages. Something like an Excel Spreadsheet.