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GPS Failure in flight
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D-EACY View Drop Down
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    Posted: 23 Aug 2024 at 3:58am
On a 2:30 IFR last week my Entegra MFD went black and restarted after 3 minutes. Now works fine again.

YESTERDAY, on a VFR flight over flat terrain, my IFD440 #1 lost all satellites - #2 had all satellites.

I switched the navigation to GPS 2 and waited nothing. I had to power down #1 and restart it – and immediately it had ll satellites again and worked fine.

Also: After the #1 GPS had rebooted the #2 GPOS showed VLOC and could not be switched to GPS. I had to power it down aswell and when it restarted it showed "GPS" again.

Will these GPS problems ever have an end. I really love Avidyne avionics and I made a couple of Cirrus pilots switch to IFDs and the DFC90. Terrific products. 

But OTOH I have a GNS430W in my other plane and it has not failed once in 20 years ... I bought two 440s for my SR22 in 2018 and they were both exchanged one year later (slow GPS lock on) and one was exchanged again another year later (white screen). 

Not good. 


Edited by D-EACY - 23 Aug 2024 at 3:59am
2006 SR22-G2 DFC90 IFD440
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ansond View Drop Down
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Points: 149 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote ansond Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 23 Aug 2024 at 10:24am
I have basically had the same experience with one of my IFDs (everything was working perfectly, then my IFD #1 suddenly lost all GPS association.. I looked at the GPS status page and it had tasked 0 satellites.) 

I did NOT reboot...I just left the IFD as-is and it eventually re-tasked (about 5 minutes later) and worked as I would have expected.  I did download and check the logs - I found 0 log entries indicating some sort of problem or issue.  I double checked all of my antenna wiring (all are gold-plated BNC/TNC connectors, professionally installed, using the highest standard RG142 cable... no issues were found).   IFD#1 is connected to my CI-428-410 Comant antenna... no issues found with that either. 

I'm not sure what happened - I just flew nearly 6 hours and both IFDs performed ***perfectly***.  From the "sudden-ness" of the loss of all satellites/association (it was literally "fully associated SBAS" to "everything gone" in an instant...) , I assume the problem is the IFD GPS software - the GPS stack in the IFD might have a few bugs in it that can cause it to effectively "reset".  Never seen this in any of my previous Garmin 430's.  10.3.1.2 is installed.  

Question for Avidyne:  Do your IFDs use any software from Microsoft?  Windows Embedded/Core?  Just curious.  Some of the UI look/feel and filename extensions would indicate that might be the case. 

Just FYI!  Safe flying! 
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Points: 96 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote D-EACY Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 23 Aug 2024 at 10:30am
In my case the #1 GPS is connected to a GA-35 antenna that was installed new on top of the fusleage in 2018 when I first got the IFDs.

#2 is connected to a COMANT 2580-200 combined COM-GPS-WAAS antenna that replaced the original COM 1 antenna. 

Although both units (M18 and M19 serials) are exchange units they are pretty slow aquiring GPS after GPS, but I got used to that. 

A failure in flight though is more critical. They Skywatch traffic,, the EGPWS and the Stormscope all run off the #1 unit, so all these systems fail immediately without GPS.

PS: I also have 10.3.1.2


Edited by D-EACY - 23 Aug 2024 at 10:44am
2006 SR22-G2 DFC90 IFD440
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Points: 149 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote ansond Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24 Aug 2024 at 9:11pm
FYI... another flight today in (hot!!) Austin TX and not a single issue... both IFDs worked flawlessly and had full GPS lock for the entire flight without issue. 

Wondering if there might be a way to differentiate, in a future version of AviOS, when the GPS antenna goes missing vs. a GPS stack/subsystem fault... that is, it would be beneficial if, instead of a more generic "GPS Fault" error.. that error would only be displayed if the GPS subsystem and/or software stack failed for some reason... if the antenna goes missing, perhaps that specific condition could be detected and a "GPS Signal Lost" message could be dispatched vs. the generic "GPS Fault"... thoughts?  Possibly ditto for the NAV stack and/or COM stack as well... just a thought. 

Doug
N208LG


Edited by ansond - 24 Aug 2024 at 9:14pm
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Points: 2210 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote AviSteve Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27 Aug 2024 at 8:29am
Originally posted by ansond ansond wrote:

...Question for Avidyne:  Do your IFDs use any software from Microsoft?  Windows Embedded/Core?  Just curious.  Some of the UI look/feel and filename extensions would indicate that might be the case. 

Nope, IFDs don't contain any Microsoft components.
Steve Lindsley
Avidyne Engineering
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Hi,
I have sent my logs to pilotsupport two days, ago. Do you know anything about them? 
2006 SR22-G2 DFC90 IFD440
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Points: 149 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote ansond Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27 Aug 2024 at 3:46pm
Thanks Steve!  was simply curious as the log filenames look that way... thanks for the update.  


Edited by ansond - 27 Aug 2024 at 3:46pm
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Points: 2210 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote AviSteve Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 28 Aug 2024 at 9:24am
Originally posted by D-EACY D-EACY wrote:

Hi,
I have sent my logs to pilotsupport two days, ago. Do you know anything about them? 
I know that people have been looking at them, but don't know of any conclusions at this point.
Steve Lindsley
Avidyne Engineering
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