|
Douglas Brunner wrote:
"Chelton is willing to sell their Pinpoint AHRS for
$4,000 to D2 customers
Crossbow is willing to sell their
NAV425EX-100 for $2,800 to D2 customers
What are peoples thoughts on the comparison
between these two:
- Have the problems that Crossbow had previously
been fixed?
- Is this an apples to apples comparison - i.e. do
both include the same elements or is there a need to buy additional components
for one or the other?
- Is there a sense that one or the other is a
superior product?"
So far I've seen four reports from Pinpoint
users and all of them seem to be satisfied. I know of one Crossbow Nav420
installation in a Legacy with an Op Technologies EFIS and it's working
fine. I've corresponded with a Crossbow representative who said "we have
already upgraded about ½ of the NAV425s that were ever sold to D2A, and we have
no reports of any problems by customers who use an external, aviation grade GPS
antenna." The Nav42x series is a GPS augmented AHRS (unlike the more
expensive Crossbow 500 which is purely inertial). I can't tell from
Pinpoint's single page web site if their unit is GPS augmented or entirely
inertial.
There are some differences in configuration.
The Nav42x series has an integrated WAAS compatible GPS. It's not clear to
me if the GPS in the Pinpoint is standard or an option but I do know several
customers opted for the external Freeflight GPS (WAAS compatible) instead of
using Pinpoint's internal GPS. Pinpoint uses a remote mounted
magnetometer, the Nav42x has in internal magnetometer. Probably
the most significant configuration difference is Pinpoint has an
integrated ADC, the Nav42x does not so you'd have to add the ADC
function to a Crossbow installation.
Tom Gourley
|