DigiFlight 11 VSVG talking to AF3500 EFIS

[Dave Cogan]

I'm running the DigiFlight 11 VSVG, Garmin GNS430 and the Advanced Flight Systems AF3500 EFIS.

If I feed a flight plan from one waypoint to another waypoint into the 430 the autopilot follows that GPS track perfectly from waypoint to waypoint. Which means the 430 is talking to the AP.

Here is my problem. The EFIS is not talking to the Autopilot.
For example, I should be able to dial up a heading on the heading bug on the EFIS and the autopilot should react to that bug change and turn the aircraft.
I should be able to dial up an assigned altidude on the EFIS alt bug and the autopilot should respond by leveling off at that bugged height.
I have to manually set the rate of climb or descent and manually level it off at the assigned altitude when flying on AP.

I have tried the EFIS in Flight Director mode and every other operating mode I can think of.

Firstly, If the EFIS, AP and 430 are wired correctly should I be getting the above working?

Secondly, Do you think we have wired something wrong?
My engineer that wired the whole plane suggested he tested every bit of his wiring when we were running the last version 5.09.32 and ARINC version 2.5.
He tried different setting changes on the 430 and still no luck.

Thirdly, are we trying to do stuff that can't be done with that brand of EFIS yet? I know someone else with the same AP but different brand EFIS and his does all of the above fine.

EFIS
AF3500
AF-3000 Firmware V3.6
ARINC Software Version V3.6
Operating System 6-2-50 MV10

It's a real pain flying IMC and the radar controller gives you a vector and I have to firstly bug the EFIS heading bug then manually turn the knob on the AP to correspond to the heading I want the AP to roll the aircraft out to.

[TrutrakTech]

Hi Dave,

First, you have all good equipment. So let's look at the details of the installation.

Do you have a switch that switches the ARINC source between the 430 and the AFS? If not, this could be your problem. You can't feed two separate ARINC sources to the AP at the same time, they have to be switched so that only one is being input at a time.

Next, to control the AP from the AFS EFIS, you have to put the AP in GPSS and GPSV modes. This is the only time it will follow the bug commands from the EFIS.

Lastly, I'm not sure if there are some settings that need to be adjusted in the AFS EFIS system. It may not be set to the right ARINC output type.

Let me know what you find out and any other questions you have. Thanks!