Charging Battery

[marvminiely]

Hi.
Is there a way I can connect a solar panel to my EFIS-D10A battery in order to bring it up to charge while I am still in process of finishing my RV 6a?

 

[dynonsupport]

Nope. The battery in the EFIS is a Li-Ion battery, and needs to be charged carefully, which the EFIS knows how to do. So you want to let the EFIS or FlightDEK charge the battery by simply getting anything between 10-30V DC on its power pins. You can even bring up the EFIS voltmeter to confirm when the charge is complete.

 

[funflying]

My D100 is newly installed and has about .4hrs of ground run time for testing and calibration. The VMETER shows the current voltage (fine), 0.0 on the enternal battery (E) because there is none, but I purchased the internal backup battery (I) which shows 0.0 as well. I connected the "stay alive" wire to the power side of the aircraft battery and left it for over 24 hrs, but no charge. I did not receive an internal battery in the box with all the ordered components when delievered so I believed it was installed. Maybe not? Should there be a voltage level displayed at this point? The installation manual stated that the "stay alive" would draw at a higher rate to charge the internal battery as opposed to the draw that maintains the clock. Should I disconnect, remove from the tray, and open the door to see if the battery is there, or is that still premature?

Thanks again for all your help in the past!!

 

[dynonsupport]

Whenever an internal battery is installed inside an EFIS or FlightDEK-D180, there should be a non-zero voltage displayed on the EFIS voltmeter under the "I" (which stands for internal battery) row.

A few things to check:

Make sure that there is in fact a battery installed by physically looking for it under the access door on the side of the instrument. Refer to your installation manual for exact instructions.

Also, there was a small issue in older versions of the EFIS/FlightDEK-D180 firmware that made the battery look invisible to the unit when it was deeply discharged. So make sure you are running the latest version of the EFIS-D100 firmware as well. It is available on our website.

Finally, try disconnecting and reconnecting ALL power from the unit, including disconnecting / reconnecting the internal battery connector.

 

[funflying]

Thanks for the tasks.  I flew 1.3hrs, first flight behind the D100, and it was very nice.  However the internal battery still showed I 00.0.  I will follow your suggested procedures and let you know what happens.


Mystery solved!!  No internal battery!!  I will be calling Gulf Coast-Avionics in the morning to be sure.
The internal battery is shipped to customers when they order their Dynon system, and not installed in the unit. After several phone calls they are sending me one to supply me the one that I had orginally order, but not received.

 

[funflying]

The internal battery is installed and tested. Works great. ;D I test flew it again (second flight now) and the system works wonderfully. Thanks again for all the help!!