Connecting EDM 900 to an IFD 540

I recently installed an EDM 900 in my 172 along with Cíes fuel senders. I had my avionics shop “connect” the EDM to my 540 to get fuel flow info. I’m still not showing fuel information. When the 540 boots up, the first screen is a fuel management page with fields for fuel added and fuel remaining. This has always appeared since the 540 was installed a couple of years ago. Is there something The avionics shop or I have to turn on for the fuel info to be displayed? Also, what needs to be turned on to receive wind info on the 540? I have Aspen MAX PFD & MFD’s and a Garmin (sorry!) 345 transponder for ADSB-in and out. Thanks for any help.

Thank you, Skitheo! I’ll show this to my avionics shop later this morning.

Theo, between bad weather and scheduling, I haven’t been able to get to the avionics shop to find out. However, when I cut and pasted your response above to the owner, his answer was “At least he didn’t call me an idiot!” I’m assuming that meant your solution will work. I’ll keep you posted. Thanks again.

Well, the weather and scheduling issues finally cleared and I took the plane to the Avionics shop. Unfortunately, setting the fuel to “SHADIN-FADC” didn’t solve the fuel problem. All the other settings were correct. Likewise, no joy with the wind info. I’m not overly concerned about the wind info since I display a wind vector and speed on the Aspen. However, I will pursue the the fuel info display with Avidyne (hello Avisteve?) to see if I can resolve it. Again Theo, thanks for your help.

I'm not familiar with the 900, but I have had a JPI 700 working with my IFDs for over 5 years without any issue. I would be very surprised if JPI changed their config parameters from the 900 to the 700, but stranger things have happened. Here is the correct configuration when connecting a JPI 700/800 to an IFD. This is from JPI and it works for the IFD just like the GNS with GPS-C=6 and IFD RS232 serial in as Shadin-FADEC. The Avidyne AUX Fuel Management screen is fully populated and updated. I use it on every flight when leaning and recording remaining fuel on shutdown. What is your setting on the JPI 900? The 900 UG has a table on p53 showing the same GPS-C values as below, so they should still work. Since the 900 wiring is different than the 700/800, I suggest you look for the problem on the JPI side rather than the Avidyne side.

The JPI site has some information on the difference between Shadin-fuel and Shadin-FADC formats.

Edited by dmtidler - 16 Aug 2021 at 12:58pm

I went to the airport yesterday hoping (convinced!) that changing the GPS-C setting in the EDM 900 from default to #6 would solve the data transfer issue. Wrong! Turns out the 900 had already been set to #6. I looked thru the config tab in maintenance mode on the 540 to see if I could find other settings that were incorrect (as if I would know) but didn’t see any obvious errors. Guess I need to find a way to verify the EDM 900 is putting out the data and both the 900 and the 540 plugs are pinned correctly. What a royal pain! So much for technology making life easier! ;-)

Chris,

Thanks for letting us know Robert…. a lot of investigation leading to a simple solution! Confirms that it pays to check the fundamental basics first before looking for a complicated problem.