Introducing the VPX

Those of you who pay attention know that I'm installing a Vertical Power system as the electrical backbone of my system. It eliminates circuit breakers and fuses and gives me much more flexibility than many "old-fashioned" electrical systems, even though I'm using the lower-end VP-50 unit. Then again, I'm building a simple airplane.

Now comes word that Vertical Power is unveiling the VPX, which is designed to work with EFIS systems.

Since I'm on the road, I haven't had a chance to jump into the system or its reason for being. I guess I can understand wanting every piece of information there is to know in a cockpit on one screen, but at some point I wonder how much information in one spot is too much?

It also appears to give you some flexibility to use your own switches, rather than the control unit that comes with, say, the VP-50.

Anyway, it's worth checking out:

The VP-X supports a single bus electrical architecture with a single or dual alternator configuration. It additionally supports the ability to measure the voltage on an aux battery. There are enough circuits to wire a typical RV (including the RV-10), Glastar, Lancair Legacy, Velocity, Cozy, or other 2 to 4 place aircraft.

The VP-X uses a third-party EFIS screen to display faults, flap and trim position, and individual electrical device status. You get the best of both worlds—ECBs are remotely mounted yet you can view their status and reset a fault from the EFIS screen. The VP-X is hidden from view and doesn’t take up any space on the panel. The screen below is an example of an electrical system display on the EFIS where you can view and control each electrical device.

VP-X Wiring from Vertical Power on Vimeo.

It's going for $1,800 and you can get all the details here. Vertical Power, by the way, probably has THE best manuals, Web pages, and information guides of any avionics company I've ever seen.