Thoughts on panel upgrade?

Other than the aesthetics no advantage at all.

If the LNAV is working spend the money on aerotows.
If you don't have Flarm get one
Then go do loads & loads of flying especially on the iffy days.

PF

At 05:17 30 January 2017, Paul wrote:
I've been flying gliders one season, and managed to earn the bronze
badge.
=
I plan to start on the silver badge this spring, and hope to fly cross
cou=
ntry. I've only used the Cambridge as a vario, and it works fine; I
imagin=
e it's navigation interface is clunky compared to my tablets. The Kobo
XCS=
oar tablet gives lots of glider flight data, and the Android tablet also
ru=
ns XCSoar, in case of a Kobo failure.

I imagine some of you have been down this road. Other than the obvious
aes=
thetics, what's the benefit of replacing the Cambridge gear with
something
=
like an LXNAV S100?

Thanks,
Paul

You will want an IGC logger for badge claims, starting with silver. The Cambridge kit should be good for this, but you need to check you can obtain suitable files from it.

If not, the cheapest solution acceptable at silver is likely to be a flight recorder such as ? FR100. And if you get a Flarm unit that may include an approved logger depending on version.

Is the Kobo connected to the LNAV to obtain airspeed and vario data? Flight computers calculate wind more accurately, and the final glide information is therefore more accurate, if they have airspeed data.

XCSOAR on Kobo is a superb in flight information system. But do work hard on the ground to understand it as well as possible

I agree with all of the advice given so far especially about saving cash to fly more. The only real downside of keeping the CAI stuff is repair and availability of p[arts. I use the CAI stuff and buy it up as it becomes available so I have parts to keep it going. By now I could have had a fully modern system with the total $$$ spent but it was laid out over years so didn't hurt too much.