430W-ARINC429-SV1000T dropout

[swatson999]

Flying along fat, dumb and happy this morning, it seems communications between the 430W, the ARINC box and the SV unit somehow got disrupted...AP went from NAV to TRK mode and there was no displayed flight plan for maybe 10 seconds, then it came back.  Manually switched back to NAV mode and all was well for the rest of the flight. The 430 never lost lock and always maintained the magenta course line.

Possible communications problem between 430 and ARINC box?

 

[Dynon]

Possibly. Did you happen to get any alerts relative to the ARINC module? The user alerts log might have helpful info here.

 

[krw5927]

Happens to me often, except the AP never switches itself off of NAV. The HSI guidance, flight plan, etc will disappear for a second or two and then come back. My GNS480 never skips a beat. Happens a lot on some flights and not at all on others.

Never received a single alert relative to the ARINC module, nor anything about the ADSB out losing GPS position. Leads me to believe all is fine there, and perhaps something in software gets finicky sometimes.

 

[swatson999]

No ARINC alerts. The logs did show the AP mode change.

My software systems background tells me this smells like a buffering or synchronization problem between the 430 and the ARINC box...but that's just a guess on my part.

 

[Dynon]

How long of SkyView display on time since the event? If not too long, the diagnostic file might have things we can see to help figure out what's going on here.

 

[swatson999]

Too long, unfortunately, and I forgot to get a log file right after it happened.

If it occurs again, I will definitely get one for you, and I hope that others who have this happen will do the same so it can be tracked down...

 

[krw5927]

Steve, have you loaded and flown with the new 15.3.4? The release notes appear to indicate this may have been fixed. I don't usually like to be an early adopter for new software.

 

[swatson999]

Steve, have you loaded and flown with the new 15.3.4?  The release notes appear to indicate this may have been fixed.  I don't usually like to be an early adopter for new software.

I just saw the new release, so haven't loaded it yet, but I'm hopeful that's fixed it. Of course, I haven't seen it happen since the last report...it's very intermittent.

Will load new software this evening.

 

[kurtfly]

I have loaded the new SV software 15.3.4 but still see my HSI needle and info block blank out for a second or so. (all magenta blanks out). Saw it yesterday on a short 1 hour flight. Even though the change notes say:
Fixed: A bug that caused ARINC to occasionally drop out.

I was hand flying so do not know if it would have affected autopilot.

My system is a SV 1000T with ARINC to Garmin 430W.

 

[krw5927]

Me too. Even with 15.3.4 I get occasional drop-outs still. Only the HSI and info fields on the map. Nothing else. Luckily it's only for a second or two when it happens.

GNS480 never misses a beat during these episodes. No reports of lost GPS integrity, no hiccups in the displayed magenta line or data. Doesn't seem fixed at all.

 

[swatson999]

And I couldn't swear to it, but I believe the 430W-FP-driven course indicator on the HSI dropped out for a second on a 2-hour trip this weekend (but I had a passenger, didn't want to make them anxious about equipment status, so did not get a diagnostic file dump).

I wasn't on autopilot, though, so I have no confirmation of dropout like I did the last time (when the AP switched modes due to ARINC loss).

 

[Dynon]

So for those of you that are on 15.3.4 and are still seeing momentary dropouts, we'd like to see a log. Instructions and the upload page for submitting those are here: http://www.dynonavionics.com/data-datalogs-upload.php. Reference this thread in the message box.

 

[krw5927]

On a long x/c trip this weekend I experienced several instances of disappearing map widget data and HSI issues like those being described here, on 15.3.4 software.

On some occasions, the map screen widgets (ETA Next, ETE Final, etc) would all momentarily display dashes as if they weren't being calculated at all for a few seconds. This happened multiple times over the span of a few minutes, and the same phenomenon repeated itself on the way home. Note that no HSI anomalies were occurring at the time, and the autopilot flawlessly continued to follow the magenta line from my Garmin GNS480 over ARINC.

On other occasions, the HSI magenta line would disappear for a couple seconds and then return, occurring multiple times in the span of a few minutes. When this happened the map widgets continued to be displayed just fine.

Again the autopilot never dropped out - it continued to function flawlessly the entire time.

The last time this happened was more than an hour's flying time from home, so I assume if I grab a diagnostic log now it would be of no use? I do have cell phone video of the widgets dropping out.

 

[swatson999]

A couple of months ago, this happened while I was on autopilot, and the dropout of ARINC data from the 430W caused the A/P to switch modes from NAV to HDG (or something, I forget), which sent the aircraft into an immediate turn to a completely different direction than the courseline...in fact, headed directly towards the Sierra Nevada range. This could have been a serious issue if in IMC, as I don't believe we heard any announcement about a mode change (I could be misremembering this, though).

Nevertheless, users should be advised of this behavior and its possible consequences.

 

[Dynon]

krw5927 - The logs here may still have value. Get in touch with our support staff so they can advise.

 

[kurtfly]

I had the GPS HSI (magenta info block and needle) blank out on 4 occasion in quick repetition, each about 1~2 second long.  This lasted for about 20 seconds total.  It was VFR so I immediately downloaded the diagnostic file. The problem occurred on 12/31/2018 approximately 16:39 to 1645 Z. Hope this helps in finally correcting this problem.  I uploaded the diagnostic .zip file to the Dynon wed site.