EFIS-D100 Rebooting Again

[matt.hocker]

I thought I'd gotten past this but the D100 is back in its reboot cycle again. Blue screen for 5 seconds, then black for 5 seconds, again and again. It started working after flying for about 45 minutes and after testing it on the ground, it stopped after 30 minutes and fully booted up.

I decided to hook up my laptop to the serial port and monitor what came out while it was rebooting. FYI, the serial port speed is 115200 8N1 CTS/RTS. I've attached the output. It repeated the exact same cycle each time.

I'm wondering if anyone can shed light on why it fails at exactly the same point each time?

Thanks.

 

[Dynon]

From your post history it's not clear what seemed to fix it the first time. Was it back here for repair?

 

[matt.hocker]

No, it wasn't. Originally, I planned to send it in but it stopped behaving like this. Unfortunately, the (bad) behavior is back.

A little background. The aircraft was disassembled and put in a container, and shipped to my airport over the course of about 4 months. Don't ask. I flew the airplane before it was disassembled and the D100 had no issues then.

The panel avionics including the D100 and D120 were removed and kept separately. They were brought by airplane by a company representative who reinstalled them while reassembling the aircraft. The EFIS-D100 exhibited this problem from the first moment it was reconnected but this problem went away as I used the aircraft more. So I thought the issue had gone away.

I did contact Dynon and we worked through a firmware upgrade process which actually showed some very serious defects in the upgrade software and I advised on workarounds. You guys remember me, I'm sure!

The problem is that I'm in Panama and it is very hard to deal with international shipping so I have accepted a few minutes of being without my EFIS in exchange for not being without my EFIS for what would probably end up being 2 months, essentially grounding me except for local flights with my steam gauges.

I'm hoping that someone can tell me whether this is a battery issue (happy to buy a new one if so) or something I can resolve locally (wiring, something else). If I must send the unit in, of course I will and I'm happy to pay for the service. But I would greatly appreciate some insight into what's wrong before doing so.

Thanks.

 

[Dynon]

It could possibly be a battery issue. Two tests that might help determine what's going on:

Pop the harness off the unit. Boot on just the battery (button 1 powers it up). Does it still exhibit that behavior?
Next, take the battery out and then power it on just the harness. What happens then?

 

[matt.hocker]

This actually stopped for about 7 months. Then, after storing my airplane for 3 months, it started happening again.

Tests performed:
- Removed from aircraft, put on bench 12V (pins 1+3)
- Attempted to power up, unit exhibited same behavior (logo, sometimes a bit of the EFIS screen, then reboot)
- Removed battery, 12V only. Same situation.
- Removed 12V, battery only. Attempted button 1 startup, same situation.

I left it on the bench for about 12 hours in the reboot mode and eventually it did start up. Reinstalling in the plane worked as well. However about 2 minutes after starting the engine, the vibration must have caused the issue to return.

Any advice? Or do I need to send this in for repair (very very expensive from UK I assume  :'()

 

[trevpond]

Matt,

Send it up to Danny at Harry Mendelssohns in Edinburgh, he'll test it, and if necessary will send it for you.

best regards


Trev ;D ;D

 

[Roger_Lee]

Have you disconnected or clipped the #2 yellow keep alive wire?I have had several of these in the last 3 months after many years of no issues in other peoples planes. You may also have a corrupt file. Have you tried to reload the current software version?

 

[matt.hocker]

Thanks for the replies, everyone.

I pulled the unit today, drove home and on a whim, pressed the #1 button to see if it would power up. As you might expect… perfect. I have the unit on a desk in front of me and it starts up perfectly on its internal battery every time now. Unlike in the hangar and unlike in the plane.

Remember, this is after a whole night on the bench rebooting, then working for a few minutes in the plane until I started the engine.

This is incredibly frustrating because now I'm not sure what the problem is. It clearly isn't a wiring one because I've reproduced the problem on the bench with only pins 1 + 3 connected (+ve / -ve).

To Roger Lee: #2 is not enabled. The software is up to date - AFAIK there isn't any new software nor ever will there be.

I've seen the failure mode with my own eyes many times over the past year, as documented in these forums. What happens if I send it in and the issue can't be reproduced?

 

[Dynon]

I think there's something up with the hardware, unfortunately. Fortunately, your testing has been pretty comprehensive now. That will give us a lot more to go on, and be a lot less willing to accept a "can not reproduce" if we don't initially see what you're seeing here. Get in touch with our technical support staff at support at dynonavionics dot com to work with us directly, or, you can go through Mendehlson as well.

 

[Beacon69]

I had the same exact symptoms. D100 rebooting constantly. After a while the unit settled, but it could reboot again during flight. Tried with and without battery, also tried to charge main battery. I sent it to Dan at Mendelssohns who verifed the fault and he sortet out repair with Dynon. It turned out to be hardware fault. I have received the unit back now and everything works fine.