Thoughts on panel upgrade?

On Thursday, February 2, 2017 at 7:10:02 PM UTC-8, Paul wrote:
On Thursday, February 2, 2017 at 12:34:18 PM UTC-6, John Wells wrote:
Hi Paul,

Is that a Mini Nimbus? (Or maybe a Standard Cirrus?). Either way, I've just redone my panel on my 1978 Mini Nimbus, and decided to DIY an openvario (www.openvario.org). It runs XCSOAR and integrates nicely with my existing lxnav S7 and FLARM.

Before and after pic he

http://i.imgur.com/LIAgqt2.jpg


I also took the opportunity to clean up all the rats nest of wiring and pneumatics, and made each individual piece of equipment switchable between battery A & B in-flight (without interruption) using a MOSFET switching circuit.

All DIY, other than the pre-fabricated panel blank (not strictly necessary, but the old one was aluminium and I wanted to make it safer)... oh and I bought a FlarmView.

None of this is necessary of course, but you can achieve a lot with a limited budget and some perseverance.

Nice panel, John! I've spoken with a few people about openvario, and gave it a lot of thought. Stefan (stefly.aero) sells a very reasonably priced openvario kit, of which I'm sure you're aware, but others might not be. He has a very nice stick controller for openvario... it'd go real well with your setup!

My glider is a Discus, BTW. I'm going to get the panel painted, put it back together, and fly the **** out of it this summer. I'm pretty new to this stuff, and I'm sure I'll be able to make a more educated decision about panel upgrades next winter. There's so much to consider, with transponders, Flarm, varios, etc. There's also this Kraco 8-track player that I'd like to install, but I'm not sure if I can get it to work with my bluetooth subwoofer! ;-)

Kraco 8-tracks are a bit of a pain, you might look into the Panasonics.
Weight and balance can be a problem, plus the tapes don't easily fit out the vent window where you will feel they need to go.
A friend had overheating problems with his Open Vario. Look into that before starting the project (next year).
Jim