Time: 1 Hour
My new Garmin GTN-625xi arrived this week which is about two weeks earlier than Garmin said it would get here. I had already bought and installed the rack, backplate and wiring harness for this GPS several years ago while working on the panel and all my wiring. My original plane was to get the GTN-650 which includes the COM radio and VOR/ILS radio. I later decided that I would never need an ILS or VOR for my needs as RNAV approaches will suite all my missions. So the GTN-625 was a better choice as it has the same GPS but not the COM or VOR/ILS radios. The rack is the same for both units and the backplate is as well you just have less connectors. So when this is it arrived there really was t much to do except to slide it in the rack, tighten down the mounting mechanism and power it up. Well you also keep your fingers crossed that all the wiring you did several years ago was right! With the flick of the master battery and avionics switches the GTN popped to life. I had one small issue that revealed itself after power up…configuration module needs service.
I had no idea what that was so I went online to research it. Turns out there is this little device, looks like a very small motherboard, that has four wires/pins off of it that resides inside the back shell of the wiring harness connected to the backplate. so what does this module do…apparently it stores all your settings for the unit. That way if you remove the unit for service and it comes back in a factory setting mode you can restore all the settings. Well I didn’t know about this little device back when I installed the rack/backplate/wiring harness. Luckily for me I received a wiring harness/rack/backplate with the unit. I opened up the new backplate and removed the module and it’s four pins. I then opened up my harness and installed said module and pins. With the module in place and the harness reconnected I powered the GTN back up and boom the error was gone and all was right in the GPS world. It took about 15 minutes to configure both the GTN and the Dynon SkyView ARINC module to allow the two devices to talk to each other. I then put in a quick flight plan from our home C77 to Omaha OMA to see if it was depicted on the SkyView. There it was and the autopilot would fly it perfectly. I put in an approach, RNAV 14L, at OMA and it displayed all the points including the holding pattern. That was just a quick test to make sure it displayed correctly on the map. I have a lot to learn on how to properly operate this unit. What this GTN allows me to do is utilize the air traffic system under instrument flight rules, IFR, since this unit is certified by the FAA and enhances the missions I can fly tremendously.
A nice thing about Garmin is they have an iPad app that allows you to virtually do everything the real unit can do. That allows you to practice and work along side a Garmin instructor led online class.