Real benefit to linking -530W to -430W (crosstalk)?

[Banjo33]

I have a 530/430 and am currently running an RS232 to the 530 for engine monitors. While port 3 is currently OFF (on both), to my surprise I discovered port 3 already has wires routed and I found they go to my 430. “Crosstalk” isn’t enabled, so I don’t know what I’m missing functionality-wise. Looks like flight plan sharing...anything else useful? I usually run my flight plans and approaches on the -530 and usually have an airfield waypoint or Navaid up on the -430.

I guess I could always enable crosstalk for now and later on, if I need another RS232 to the 530 or 430, disable it then. I was going to go ahead and wire in all 5 ports on the -530 (as spares for later), but found that I can’t wire in port 5 as it feeds off a separate connector that I don’t have installed. So these engine monitors will occupy my last free RS232 port on the 530.

thoughts?

 

[GMascelli]

The real benefit is adding the flight stream to the 530/430 for easy IFR flight planning and amending routes.

To answer your question I had my 530/430 cross fed in my Debonair along with the flight stream 210, loved the ease of having the flight plan available for back up on the 430.

 

[Jesse Saint]

It’s easy enough to add that extra connector to the 530 for serial port 5. I’ve never used the cross feed, so I can’t tell the benefits.

 

[Banjo33]

It’s easy enough to add that extra connector to the 530 for serial port 5. I’ve never used the cross feed, so I can’t tell the benefits.

I’m certain it’s not as difficult as tracing those two already installed wires was. My arm looks like a cat got ahold of it after digging around underneath my panel, lol. You can be sure I labeled every pertinent wire; I’m not going through that again (willingly)!

 

[NordicDave]

Cross-wiring is a nice feature as it will take the data from one GPS and feed it to the other. There’s also some benefit of entering the flight plan on one display and modifying it on the other while in flight especially IFR. If you have a fuel flow or fuel totalizer capability or other data sources feeding the Gps that will also be displayed across both units. If you don’t have a fuel totalizer and must enter the data on fuel, that value will also be sent to the second Gps.
If someone were flying hard IFR it’s nice to have the flight plans and data automatically sync so one unit can take over from the other.

Adding a Flight Stream 210 is absolutely worth every penny. I hardly ever touch my 430 W except to change radio frequencies and a few other miscellaneous tasks. Flight plans are developed in ForeFlight and with one button push sent to the Gps. Victor airways can also be loaded to a 430/530 from ForeFlight. The number of waypoints in a 430/530 is limited, so within ForeFlight there’s a feature to limit Victor airways displayed to only those that are turns. This way Long Victor airways can be loaded into the 430/530.

Also the FS210 has an internal AHRS that will drive synthetic vision on ForeFlight and it’s very accurate.

 

[frfly172]

I prefer to use both units individually,but that’s just me.

 

[Martin Pauly]

When I had a 530W and 430W, they were connected and configured to cross-fill from the 530 to the 430. I made all flight plan edits on the 530 with the bigger screen, but most of the time the 530 showed a map and the 430 showed a list of the next few waypoints coming up. That way I had a graphical and textual portrayal of the flight plan.

For any what-if games, I could run those on the 430 because it was programmed to NOT cross-fill back to the 530.

Overall, I found the cross-fill very useful.