Era: setup, wiring and first flight

The Era is a standalone vario-navigation instrument in the standard 57 mm and 80 mm panel cutouts. This article covers what arrives in the box, how the instrument is installed and wired, what to configure before the first flight, and the settings that pilots most often get wrong.

It is written for the full Era; where the Era essential differs, that is called out. Both use the same hardware and the same interface — the essential simply has the IGC flight recorder and full TP/APT/TSK/Nearest navigation locked, and can be unlocked later on the hardware you already own.

What is in the box

Era 57 or Era 80
32 GB micro SD card
OAT probe with a 2.5 mm jack
Audio speaker with a 3.5 mm jack
Inputs interface with an RJ12 connector
40 cm CAN-BUS cable
Bluetooth/WiFi antenna with an SMA connector
GPS antenna with an SMA connector

If any of these is missing, stop and contact your dealer before cutting anything. The OAT probe and the GPS antenna in particular are not generic parts.

Panel and mechanical fit

	Era 57	Era 80
Cutout	57 mm	80 mm
Body	62 × 62 × 52 mm	82 × 82 × 52 mm
Display	2.5″ transflective	3.5″ transflective
Backup battery	up to 3 h	up to 3 h

The Era was designed as a drop-in replacement for older vario units, so in most gliders no new hole is needed. Behind the panel, allow for the 52 mm body plus the connectors and the bend radius of the cables — this is where installations get tight, not at the cutout.

Check clearance against the canopy frame before you tighten anything, and leave enough service loop that the instrument can be pulled forward far enough to reach its connectors without disconnecting them.

The ports on the back

SD card port
RJ45 CAN port
RJ12 USER port
RJ12 INPUTS port
RJ12 FLARM port
2.5 mm jack OAT port
3.5 mm jack AUDIO port
12 V power cable with connector
SMA connector for the Bluetooth/WiFi antenna
SMA connector for the GPS antenna

Every port is marked. Two rules save most of the support calls we get:

The RJ45 CAN port is not an Ethernet port. It carries the CAN bus that also powers the accessories. Do not patch it into anything that expects Ethernet.
The RJ12 ports are not interchangeable. FLARM, USER and INPUTS look identical and do different jobs.

Wiring

Power. The Era takes 12 V through its own supply cable. Fuse it at the battery end, size the fuse for the wire rather than for the instrument, and use a connector that locks. A voltage drop on a tired supply run is the single most common cause of "my instrument restarts when I transmit".

Accessories. The AHRS module, the LX Joy joystick and a flaps sensor all connect over the same CAN bus, and the bus carries both power and data — so an accessory needs one cable, not two. Devices are chained, and each physical end of the chain needs its 120 Ω termination. A chain with only one terminator works on the bench and produces intermittent faults in flight.

FLARM. Connect your FLARM unit to the RJ12 FLARM port. The Era then shows traffic on its own display; the FLARM installation itself — antenna placement, polarisation, range check — is a separate job and is worth doing properly.

Antennas. The GPS antenna needs a clear view upward, away from carbon. The Bluetooth/WiFi antenna should not be coiled up behind a metal panel. Both use SMA connectors and should be finger-tight plus a light nip — not torqued.

First power-up on the ground

Do this before the first flight, on a stationary aircraft, with the canopy open and a good view of the sky.

Let it acquire GPS. The first fix after a long storage period can take several minutes. Do not judge the antenna installation on the first cold start.
Set the pilot and glider. Name, glider type, competition ID and registration. These end up in the header of every IGC file.
Set the units. Speed, altitude, vario, distance, temperature and pressure — everything downstream reads better when this matches how you think.
Check the OAT probe. The outside air temperature should be plausible. A reading stuck at an extreme value usually means the jack is not fully seated.
Set the polar and the reference mass for your glider, and get into the habit of entering ballast honestly. The MacCready, speed-to-fly and final-glide calculations are only as good as the polar behind them.
Update the databases. Airspace, airports and turnpoints over WiFi. Airspace in particular changes on a 28-day international cycle and an out-of-date file is a warning system that is confidently wrong.
Check the backup battery state on the info page.

Flying it: the pages you will actually use

The interface is deliberately one rotary knob: turn to move between pages, push to select.

Main page — a 2- or 4-value layout of your choosing. Clock, outside air temperature, wind, battery and status icons are always visible. VAR marks whether you are in vario or speed-command mode.
Vario — the needle, on the largest transflective display in the class.
Thermal assistant — appears when you start circling. Follow the bigger red circles toward the core.
Task / navigation — turnpoints, airports, tasks and the nearest landable field, with airspace on every navigation page. (Era essential: Home navigation only.)
AHRS — appears automatically when the AHRS module is connected over CAN. No configuration, no extra wiring.
Quick setup — MacCready, bugs and ballast are one press of the VOL button away, so they can be set without leaving the flight.

The IGC flight recorder

The full Era has an IGC-approved recorder with ENL (engine noise level) built in; the optional MOP sensor covers JET and FES gliders whose powerplants a microphone cannot reliably convict. The Era essential keeps a logbook but has no IGC recorder.

For a badge or record claim:

Put the declaration into the instrument before takeoff. A task declared after landing is a story, not a claim.
Check the pilot, glider and competition ID in the header.
Download the file with software that preserves it byte-for-byte, and validate the G-record before submitting.
Keep the original. Every copy you send is a copy; the recorder holds the truth.

Because the recorder is backed by the internal battery, a claim flight survives a loss of ship power.

Settings people get wrong

Symptom	Usual cause
Vario feels sluggish, or twitchy	Response/filter setting. Slower is smoother and later; faster is earlier and noisier. There is no correct value, only your preference.
Speed-to-fly nags in the climb	The instrument is in speed-command mode while circling. Check the mode switch or the automatic switching setting.
Final glide arrives pessimistic	Bugs and ballast still set from last weekend, or a polar that was never adjusted for the actual glider.
Airspace warnings everywhere	Warning classes not filtered, or look-ahead time set too long for the airspace you fly in.
Wind readout wanders	Normal early in a climb — the calculation needs a full circle of data. Persistent wander usually means unsteady circles.
Altitude disagrees with the altimeter	QNH not set, or the two instruments are on different references. Both can be right.

Upgrading an Era essential

The essential-to-full upgrade unlocks the IGC flight recorder and the full TP, APT, TSK and Nearest navigation on hardware you already own — no new instrument, no panel work. Contact your dealer or LX with the serial number.

Where to go next

Documentation and firmware: the LX download center, under the Era device page.
Theory behind the numbers on the screen: the LX Academy articles on the polar and MacCready, the thermal assistant, airspace, and what makes a flight log official.
Anything that behaves differently from this article: your dealer first, then LX support.