Garmin G900X Installation

[Marc Ausman]

The VP-200 can be installed along with the Garmin G900X panel. Below is an example of how this can be done in an RV-10 or Lancair IV-P. The G900X can be purchased without an engine monitor built in. The eng mon functions are displayed on the VP-200, and the data comes in from an EIS or MVP-50. You can do some interesting things with the VP-200 that are difficult or impractical with standard electrical wiring. Read below.



The G900X has two power inputs on the various boxes that comprise the system, allowing you to run power from redundant power sources. However, even with a dual bus architecture, most avionics shops run only a single power input into each box. That's because adding the extra switches and breakers for this introduces a lot of additional complexity and takes up a lot of space on the panel. If you run both power inputs through the same switch you now have a single point of failure for both power busses. Adding two switches or relays for each box becomes impractical.

However, the VP-200 Duo allows you to run a power wire from each Control Unit into each of the G900 boxes. And it adds no more complexity to the panel, only a single wire more to each box. Also, the pilot interface is the same as well. For example, the PFD circuit is configured so that when it turns on, it turns on a power pin on Control Unit #1 and also Control Unit #2 at the same time. The pins on each Control Unit turn on and off together, and the circuit protection is built in. So as far as we can tell, the VP-200 Duo is the only practical way to get redundant power to the G900 system.