Enjoying more ECU Fail annunciations

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manatee
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Enjoying more ECU Fail annunciations

Post by manatee »

Last year during a run-up before a flight, one of the ECU Fail annunciations came on (can't remember if it was A or B). When the breaker was pulled for the opposite ECU, forcing the plane to use the "failed" ECU, it swapped the annunciation to the other one. This indicated to me that the problem was really one of the shared sensors rather than the ECUs actually being broken.

Rather than journey all the way down to SouthTec I hit up Dave at KJYO who happened to have the diagnostic cable and software. Turns out it was the common rail pressure sensor that was upset (error said something along the lines of minimum voltage detected?). After resetting the error to clear the panel annunciations it seemed like it was fine after a test run-up and flight. It came back on later so I called SouthTec and Austro - and sent all the engine log files to the latter. None of the answers were particularly indicative of a solution and eventually the error just cleared itself with no action taken. It's been over 6 months and the plane has been through an annual inspection in March with nothing notable found, and the annunciation did not return until just recently.

I like knowing more about my plane so I joined the club of people who have spent $800 for a USB cable and downloaded the Austro Engine software myself. Last week I got the same annunciation and went through the same process with the same error. The only difference is this time it started with both ECUs annunciating as failed. However after doing the same breaker procedures as last time, it only had one erroring. I am wondering if maybe the sensor is loose or needs to be replaced, or if this is not worth bothering with until the next maintenance interval. As I understand it, if the ECUs get anomalous readings they will substitute them with average values and continue to operate the engine normally.

I ran the plane through a run-up on the ground after clearing the error but haven't touched it since and am wondering if this will occur again. I am interested if anyone's been through something similar.
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alanhawse
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Re: Enjoying more ECU Fail annunciations

Post by alanhawse »

I saw an ECU fail error one time on run-up. I didnt the a-auto-b-auto and it went away. But it is certainly troubling.

I have also been roasting in hell with "COOL LVL" ... which turned out to be a bad sensor

Is the cable just a CAN-USB bridge? Where might I acquire on.. and the software?

Thanks,
Alan
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Re: Enjoying more ECU Fail annunciations

Post by Boatguy »

alanhawse wrote: Fri May 19, 2023 8:34 pm Is the cable just a CAN-USB bridge? Where might I acquire on.. and the software?
One would think, but I don't know if anyone has tried a generic cable. I and many others have paid $800 to our local DSC.

Software is here: https://partners.diamondaircraft.com/s/files
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Re: Enjoying more ECU Fail annunciations

Post by CFIDave »

We've tried generic (cheaper) CAN-Bus (Car Area Network) USB adapters, but they don't work. Unfortunately the Austro Engine Wizard software seems to work only with a genuine Diamond/Austro adapter.
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Re: Enjoying more ECU Fail annunciations

Post by chili4way »

Buy the HW, software is free. (Reminds me that MacOS won't run on a Windows machine.)
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manatee
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Re: Enjoying more ECU Fail annunciations

Post by manatee »

alanhawse wrote: Fri May 19, 2023 8:34 pm I saw an ECU fail error one time on run-up. I didnt the a-auto-b-auto and it went away. But it is certainly troubling.

I have also been roasting in hell with "COOL LVL" ... which turned out to be a bad sensor

Is the cable just a CAN-USB bridge? Where might I acquire on.. and the software?

Thanks,
Alan
Diamond service centers can order the cable for you. Be warned - my service center did not want to sell me it until I showed them the completion certificate for the 1 week maintenance course. I have heard mileage may vary with other service centers. A seat for the course was offered with my purchase of the plane and I opted to take it myself rather than gift it to a mechanic.
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Re: Enjoying more ECU Fail annunciations

Post by alanhawse »

I wasn’t necessarily trying to save money … but I worked on several chip with can bus … so I own several can bus protocol analyzers
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