Red X's on PFD....

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Leesommer
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Red X's on PFD....

Post by Leesommer »

After be plagued by this off and on for a year. Shenandoah found the root cause... The power pin for the ADC and the ground pin were the culprits. Power pin had corrosion and ground pin bent.

Great find and the system work great and consistent now. Great shop will visit again.

Lee
PS if you want more info please message
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Colin
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Re: Red X's on PFD....

Post by Colin »

That's great detective work. I will be mentioning this to my mechanic the next time my plane is open. The last flight coast-to-coast had two instances of red-X's, but I think less than a minute each. One flight was the vertical speed indicator and the other was the AI.
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Steve
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Re: Red X's on PFD....

Post by Steve »

Not trying to start a flame war. In 19 years of flying my (electric) steam gauge DA40, I have had exactly one instrument issue. The DG started precessing, and was overhauled. It didn't fail outright, just needed to be aligned with the mag compass every 10 minutes. I see a fair number of posts like this one, with partial or total failure of the PFD or MFD:

1) I realize that there are way more G1000 equipped DA40s out there than steam gauge variants
2) I understand that with the G1000, you have built-in redundancy
3) Usually, a single electric instrument failure is easier to diagnose and resolve than a failure (especially an intermittent one) in a complex, highly integrated system
4) Cost and ease of finding experienced technical assistance seems to be a disadvantage of the G1000 system compared with steam gauge panels

So, for those of you that fly the G1000 system IFR (especially in IMC), are you comfortable with the reliability of the system? I know that steam gauges can fail, too, but most of those failures were in the days of vacuum-powered instruments, not electric ones.

Steve

PS: And yes, I realize that your choice of instrumentation is limited to glass panel nowadays for most new airplanes...
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Colin
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Re: Red X's on PFD....

Post by Colin »

Steve,

You're flying single engine, so I know your feelings on things failing and having a backup.

One flight with my son (where the steam gauge AI was behaving a little oddly, when I landed I decided I caged it too soon on startup and didn't notice until I took off that it wasn't in agreement with the G1000) made me worry enough about the backup instruments that I now have a backup for the backup.

But now I also have a second engine, because when I turned fifty I became a little anxious at night over mountains, even though I was SO close to gliding distance to an airport.

It is, in general, an outrageously reliable system. The only serious failure I had was introduced by technicians who were in a hurry and sloppy at putting it back together (they bent five pins which my mechanic located). Even that failure was not catastrophic and I flew it home with the backup gauges and iPad just in case.
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Steve
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Re: Red X's on PFD....

Post by Steve »

Colin wrote: Thu Jul 23, 2020 9:33 pm Steve,

You're flying single engine, so I know your feelings on things failing and having a backup.
Hey, I like a backup as much as the next guy. For my mission, a second engine doesn't make sense. Flying over the Pacific Ocean - I like 4 engines. :) The main thrust of my post was to get an idea if the G1000 system is living up to its promise, and if the MTBF is worse than what we should expect. You mentioned one mechanical AI failure - so that makes a total of one mechanical instrument failure each in an awful lot of flying years. By the way, I never cage the AI, I always watch it self-erect as an indicator of functionality.

Steve
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Re: Red X's on PFD....

Post by Colin »

That's a good hint on the AI. I think I had an instructor who pull that cage knob as a nervous habit when we were sitting on the ground. I like your idea better and will change my policy.

I've had one mechanical AI failure, the AI hidden behind the PFD fell over and was simply replaced. I am not sure the mechanical AI problem was really a failure, I don't know *what* happened and it was okay on the next flight. So in 2,700 hours behind G1000 that's one bad AI, one suspected-user-error, and three red-X events on the G1000.

That's okay with me, so far, considering the backups I have. Do I want to try to shoot an approach to minimums using the iPad Mini? Not particularly. But I would be happy to use it to fly to the next VFR airport.
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Rich
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Re: Red X's on PFD....

Post by Rich »

The fiction bandied about in the industry is that iron gyros need to be rebuilt/replaced at really low intervals, like every 500 hours. I don't know where they get that. Maybe this is true for vacuum-driven devices. I'm still on the original units. Once, maybe 8 years ago, the connector from the 530W to the back of the 525 came partly loose. The consequence was I had to hand-fly a couple of IMC legs on a flight to/from Canada. I opened up the instrument panel and the problem and fix were immediately apparent - 5 minutes. Nothing replaced, I just tightened one retainer, snapped the connector into place, and that was that. Total issues over the years (18 years, 1300/1700 hours), in addition to that incident:

- A few years back the 530W suddenly failed to supply GS information to the HSI - all other functions continued to work fine. The 430W (and its dedicated CDI) still worked fine for LPV/ILS, etc. approaches while the 530W was out for repair.

The lack of interdependence has real value to me. I view with suspicion newer electronic AIs that include pitot-static inputs for their attitude solutions. I see a fair number of malfunctions reported in this aspect of their behavior.
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Boatguy
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Re: Red X's on PFD....

Post by Boatguy »

Steve wrote: Thu Jul 23, 2020 7:59 pmSo, for those of you that fly the G1000 system IFR (especially in IMC), are you comfortable with the reliability of the system?
I'll offer two data points.

My own plane has only 400hrs on it. The electro/mechanical backup AI has been replaced once. The G1000 has exhibited a red X over AHRS for about 40secs while it performed a realignment in flight which is still a mystery to both Garmin and Diamond.

Before I bought my plane I rented C172s with G1000 WAAS panels from a very active flight club. These planes were heavily booked; so much so that I would try to book my time 4-6 weeks in advance. Over the course of 18 months I only saw one plane off the flight line for a G1000 problem and that problem was a dim PFD. The PFD was entirely functional, just dimmer than it should have been.

With regard to interdependencies, consider this failure mode chart from the NXi manual. The degradation is pretty graceful.
Screen Shot 2020-07-25 at 12.33.13 PM.png
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Re: Red X's on PFD....

Post by waynemcc999 »

In support of Russ's points, I've flown my 2008 DA40 just over 2000 tach hours in the past 5 years that I've owned her... I've only had the following G1000 issues:

-- HDG red Xs -- 4 times for ~10 seconds each over the past year -- I believe the magnetometer needs to be recalibrated, and this is on my squawk list for this summer's annual.

-- Com 1 was transmitting, but not receiving -- had the com unit re-racked and problem went away.

Other than those 2 points, not a single G1000 or GFC700 issue. OK, full disclosure, the double knobs (com, ALT, FMS) get gummed up (my dirty fingers?) and need to be cleaned (just the plastic knobs, nothing electrical) every year or two.

I'd say that's reasonably reliable.
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Re: Red X's on PFD....

Post by perossichi »

Wayne

400 hrs a year or 8 hours per week! Wow, that is a lot of flying. I’m impressed.

My turn coordinator gyro is very noisy in the six pack. I’m told that this may be a sign of impending failure. original instrument from 2002 with about 1400 hours on it. Anyone have experience on this?

Thx
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