This is relevant to people who replace a GNS530W with an IFD540, leaving the original Garmin tray in place to avoid a substantial installation charge, and hope to sell the 530W to somebody who doesn’t already have the Garmin tray to put it in – i.e. quite a lot of people!
Garmin’s 530W STC requires the use of the Garmin tray, and in a cynical move to stop people doing exactly the above, Garmin stopped making the tray.
So, now the person who bought your used 530W can buy the Avidyne tray for it.
Just what you always wanted to know 
Garmin’s 530W STC requires the use of the Garmin tray, and in a cynical move to stop people doing exactly the above, Garmin stopped making the tray.
Peter, I think that the claim that Garmin stopped selling the GNS530W tray in a cynical move to stop people from installing the unit in another aircraft is wrong, based on internet hearsay, and is a rumor. The GNS530W was discontinued many moons ago. There was another rumor on the internet that Garmin sent a letter to dealers indicating they would be cancelled if a GNS530W was installed in an Avidyne tray.
The claim was:
I’d bet the FTC would be interested in the alledged letter Gamin just sent out to all of their dealers. The letter threatened that if any Garmin dealer installed a Avidyne 540 into a GNS 530 rack that they would loose their Garmin dealership.
No copy of the letter was ever produced and Trek Lawler of Garmin specifically denied this:
Good morning everyone,
please allow me to comment on this issue to clear this up. I work and review most of the bulletins and documentation to our dealers. Not really sure where this came from but I can assure you this is simply a rumor.
Many of our Garmin dealers are also Avidyne, Aspen dealers. if this were the case we would have cut off a lot of dealers a long time ago. we respect the fact that they reach out and provide good competition. Competition in the business makes everyone perform to higher levels.
case in point I was just at a dealer to assist them with a G1000, and a potential customer flew in to talk to the dealer about a new glass panel. the customer was dead set on one of our competitors system. I was never involved in the negotiations however had my Garmin clothing on. the dealer did their best to work them into a Garmin G500 however at the end of the day we answered some questions for them however all had complete respect for the fact that they decided to go another route.
Part of our business policy is to be honest and fair. trust me when I say there are never any considerations for hard line tactics like this.
The rumor was then retracted.
Many thanks for the clarification NCYankee but I would have myself never believed that Garmin would have terminated a dealer for an alleged breach of an STC condition.
AFAIK, from here in Europe, the GNS530W was discontinued (in terms of new box sales; no idea when actual production stopped) only in 2014.
I should also add, to my original post, that the Avidyne tray is reportedly not exactly the same size as the Garmin one. Some metal cutting is needed if you have two, one tightly above the other.
