Douglas
New Member
I recently spent a great sum of money to have an absolutely beautiful dual screen Dynon HDX panel with all the bells and whistles installed in my 1977 Cessna 172. I must say, although it is beautiful to look at and I am pleased with many of the awesome features, I have been plagued with problems from the moment we powered up the system.
First let me say I feel like I chose a reputable shop with many years of Dynon experience to do the install. In fact, I chose this particular shop not because they were on Dynon’s “certified” installers list, but because they were the biggest proponents of Dynons equipment. Their sales pitch was refreshing in that they did not try to talk me into installing Garmin equipment like two of the big “high volume installers” that were on Dynons approved list...
My objective here is not to talk poorly of anyone, but to instead just to give you some interesting background info and let you know that I was a believer in Dynons stuff after trying it out at Sun N Fun this year. After researching it online and talking to a few current experimental owners and A&P’s, I wanted a dual screen Dynon system, nothing else...
After going through the research process, I do find it odd that some of the bigger
high volume certified installers Dynons choosing to work with are not always actively promoting their equipment...It’s really kind of weird... and thinking back, I hope I made the best choice...
Anyway,
After talking to 3 different shops I chose the one that although was not the least expensive, was the most knowledgeable of the task ahead. It seems like this was the type of shop that should be a “certified dealer”. Just my opinion...
Fast forward a couple of months and the panel is in and ready to go...
So the 1st issue was a faulty com radio, after days of phone calls with dynon my tech literally built a test bench for the radio and together they came to the conclusion Dynon had sent a faulty radio...
Fine, no big deal, in my opinion poor quality control, but Dynon overnighted a new radio, problem solved.
Simultaneously my tech discovered that one of the soft keys located at the bottom of HDX screen #1 was also faulty and dynon quickly overnighted a new screen, again, come on guys, where’s the quality control? At least they were quick to respond and send a new screen. I do appreciate that...
That brings me to the auto pilot...
After carefully following Dynons calibration booklet, flying multiple flights and spending hours literally raising and lowering, torque, gain, sensitivity, and the rest, I’m still gettting the roll slip indication a couple times a minute, the auto pilot will track a course but basically methodically rocks back and forth and this is the best I’ve been able to get it to do. The high point is the vertical guidance has been good since day one.
This brings me to my biggest question...
Given my brief experience with Dynon components and what seems to be weak quality control, is it possible I’ve got a bad servo? I guess the part I don’t understand, is that Dynon has spent all this time and effort certifying this system for 172’s and Cessna 172s are all rigged basically the same, shouldn’t the pre determined settings sent to upload with the new system just work right out of the box? I’ve spent hours reading on this forum about people with RVs trying to figure out many of these same roll slip and tracking issues but it just seems like when you pay $2000 extra for an STC this stuff should be somewhat ironed out...
Anyway, has anyone on this forum experienced similar issues with a 172 install? If so any recommendations?
I apologize for the long intro but thanks in advance for taking the time to read it...
Sincerely, Doug
First let me say I feel like I chose a reputable shop with many years of Dynon experience to do the install. In fact, I chose this particular shop not because they were on Dynon’s “certified” installers list, but because they were the biggest proponents of Dynons equipment. Their sales pitch was refreshing in that they did not try to talk me into installing Garmin equipment like two of the big “high volume installers” that were on Dynons approved list...
My objective here is not to talk poorly of anyone, but to instead just to give you some interesting background info and let you know that I was a believer in Dynons stuff after trying it out at Sun N Fun this year. After researching it online and talking to a few current experimental owners and A&P’s, I wanted a dual screen Dynon system, nothing else...
After going through the research process, I do find it odd that some of the bigger
high volume certified installers Dynons choosing to work with are not always actively promoting their equipment...It’s really kind of weird... and thinking back, I hope I made the best choice...
Anyway,
After talking to 3 different shops I chose the one that although was not the least expensive, was the most knowledgeable of the task ahead. It seems like this was the type of shop that should be a “certified dealer”. Just my opinion...
Fast forward a couple of months and the panel is in and ready to go...
So the 1st issue was a faulty com radio, after days of phone calls with dynon my tech literally built a test bench for the radio and together they came to the conclusion Dynon had sent a faulty radio...
Fine, no big deal, in my opinion poor quality control, but Dynon overnighted a new radio, problem solved.
Simultaneously my tech discovered that one of the soft keys located at the bottom of HDX screen #1 was also faulty and dynon quickly overnighted a new screen, again, come on guys, where’s the quality control? At least they were quick to respond and send a new screen. I do appreciate that...
That brings me to the auto pilot...
After carefully following Dynons calibration booklet, flying multiple flights and spending hours literally raising and lowering, torque, gain, sensitivity, and the rest, I’m still gettting the roll slip indication a couple times a minute, the auto pilot will track a course but basically methodically rocks back and forth and this is the best I’ve been able to get it to do. The high point is the vertical guidance has been good since day one.
This brings me to my biggest question...
Given my brief experience with Dynon components and what seems to be weak quality control, is it possible I’ve got a bad servo? I guess the part I don’t understand, is that Dynon has spent all this time and effort certifying this system for 172’s and Cessna 172s are all rigged basically the same, shouldn’t the pre determined settings sent to upload with the new system just work right out of the box? I’ve spent hours reading on this forum about people with RVs trying to figure out many of these same roll slip and tracking issues but it just seems like when you pay $2000 extra for an STC this stuff should be somewhat ironed out...
Anyway, has anyone on this forum experienced similar issues with a 172 install? If so any recommendations?
I apologize for the long intro but thanks in advance for taking the time to read it...
Sincerely, Doug