OVERVIEW I am a tried mechanical engineer and was truly surprised by the very high build quality of this compass. I highly recommend it for kit aircraft and similar non-safety-critical purposes. It is made in China, which is the only way one could obtain such a quality instrument at this affordable price. However, no instructions come with it. Moreover, my version, which has internal illumination, was far too dim to see but that was easy to fix. See the following details to save yourself confusion and time. DETAILS There’s not much more I can say about the quality of this instrument. Though I don’t want the large proportion of this review dwelling on the negatives to unduly outweigh the positives, but I’ll nonetheless elaborate to save other buyers’ time. First off, the compass comes with no instructions or diagrams at all. That includes hole panel layouts. This is an unnecessary and unfortunate omission that makes the following details unnecessarily difficult. The standard hole layout in inches has this size of aircraft instrument has four mounting holes on a Ø2.625″ bolt circle. Like many things made overseas, this compass was recreated with hard-metric dimensions its mounting holes are 47 mm apart, which is a bolt circle pattern measuring Ø 2.617. This is close enough if you are using 6-32 screws, but if you are using M4-0.7 screws in the compass’s Ø 4.2 mm holes and are using machine tools for precise layout, the small difference can matter. This is no deal breaker. Also, the standard cutout for an American-standard gauge requires a Ø 2¼″ hole to comfortably clear the gauge body. That’s 57.15 mm. However, you’ll need at least about a Ø 57.5 mm hole for this compass. The compass comes with a #330 (T1-3/4 base, sub-miniature flanged, 14-volt) tungsten-filament bulb. I found it was woefully inadequate for illuminating the internal dial I had to turn off the room lights and let my eyes adapt for a few seconds to see that the thing was lit at all. The compass has a red filter inside the housing, so a white-light bulb has most of its light absorbed by the filter, letting through a meager amount of red. So… I first tried a white-light #330 LED replacement bulb shaped like a regular plastic injection molded domed LED bulb. I instantly discovered that such bulbs direct their light like a flashlight, axially, straight out the front, which is the wrong direction the compass requires radial (sideways) projection of the light. So, I then bought a red version of a #330 LED replacement from Aero-Lites on Amazon. That bulb emits all of its light in red, which efficiently gets through the compass’s red filter, and it casts its light radially, which bathed the compass dial in ample amounts of red light. And lastly, the cover over the bulb is very stubborn and requires a large amount of force to swing it out of the way. It’s a fragile thing that easily be damaged if the force is applied incorrectly. This one point alone desperately needs to be in printed instructions. Just rotate the compass 180 degrees and then use a hard-plastic pry tool to push downwards on the “swinging” side of the lamp cover while simultaneously pushing inwards (axially into the base of the bulb) with a free finger to lessen the binding action.

Nola L Verified Purchase

FALCON PANEL MOUNT COMPASS 12V 24V LIT NORTH

Good value

Phil D Verified Purchase

FALCON PANEL MOUNT COMPASS 12V 24V LIT NORTH

Works great, and you cant beat the price.

Richard F Verified Purchase

FALCON PANEL MOUNT COMPASS 12V 24V LIT NORTH

Nice fit and finish, accurate prior to installation, as advertised.