External Dimmer Control -- Issue

[vlittle]

I've configured the external dimmer for my SkyView. I've noticed that in a power-fail scenario (using battery power), the screen goes very dim.

The root cause of this is that the external dimmer input voltage drops to zero during the power fail, and the SV senses this and goes to it's lowest brightness setting.

This isn't the behavior that I would expect if I have a power failure in flight. I would prefer that the system revert to 'Automatic' mode when running off of battery power.

Of course, the work-around is to always use Automatic mode, but this defeats the purpose of using the External input. It's also difficult to set the Automatic mode brightness levels on the ground.

At some point, can Dynon change the behavior of the External dimmer function to have this, or similar, fail-safe capability?

Thanks, Vern

 

[dynonsupport]

You have a bunch of options without us changing anything:

1) Auto dimming works well for most people. When in auto mode, you can put the system in Manual mode and then use the buttons or knob to adjust brightness in those rare situations where the auto level is wrong.

2) If you are using an external dimmer that isn't adjusting anything but SkyView, run the dimmer power off of SkyView's 5V, 8V, or 12V output which will be backed up by the battery.

3) If your dimmer is running other things, use a dual wiper pot and use the second wiper just for SkyView.

4) Put the pot on the negative side of the dimmer circuit, so 0V is full bright. This is actually how a lot of dimmers work.

 

[cbennet12]

You have a bunch of options without us changing anything:

1) Auto dimming works well for most people. When in auto mode, you can put the system in Manual mode and then use the buttons or knob to adjust brightness in those rare situations where the auto level is wrong.

4) Put the pot on the negative side of the dimmer circuit, so 0V is full bright. This is actually how a lot of dimmers work.

I have the same "issue" and suggestion #4 is interesting. Would this reverse the effect of the pot- ie clockwise rotation would now dim the screen?

Craig

 

[vlittle]

You have a bunch of options without us changing anything:

1) Auto dimming works well for most people. When in auto mode, you can put the system in Manual mode and then use the buttons or knob to adjust brightness in those rare situations where the auto level is wrong.

2) If you are using an external dimmer that isn't adjusting anything but SkyView, run the dimmer power off of SkyView's 5V, 8V, or 12V output which will be backed up by the battery.

3) If your dimmer is running other things, use a dual wiper pot and use the second wiper just for SkyView.

4) Put the pot on the negative side of the dimmer circuit, so 0V is full bright. This is actually how a lot of dimmers work.

Thanks for the suggestions. Right now, I am taking the feed from a Van's dimmer module that also controls some annunciator lamps, backlight label strips and a compass backlight, so I'm stuck with the current behaviour. A dual wiper pot is a clever work-around for this.

Unfortunately, I'm not keen on any hardware changes at this point, so I may just use the automatic mode... if you tweak this feature to provide different behaviour in future, I may revisit.

Thanks, Vern