Problem performing initial backup battery test.

[jaba-who]

I have my new HDX setup on the bench.
I have connected up the battery and got the messages that a battery test was needed.

I got into the battery status page which said that a battery was detected, previous shutdown was normal, a test had not been done and was needed and that the battery was "Charged".

On the strength of that I followed the manual to do the test. First time it did the right stuff when I turned off main paower supply and I pressed the test button and it gave me the page which showed a voltage in the low 11.something range. Not a surprise because I have not fully charged the battery and the rate of drop of charge made me think It would not last the full duration of the test anyway. So I aborted the test.

I then put the system on and left the battery to charge up for about 4 hours. Then repeated the test.

Now the trouble has started.
When I turn off the main power the screen puts up a red box saying " Aircraft Power Lost" and the two buttons "Stay On" and "Power Off" are there but the "Test Bat" button is now greyed out and doesn't function.

Pressing the stay on button - screen returns to normal
Pressing power off button it simply turns off

Now no 30 sec countdown

The icon next to the clock still indicates it's untested and the status page agrees. But How do I get it to allow me to do the test?

 

[jaba-who]

As a follow on to the above.
I let the HDX run on backup battery and checked it intermittently.
It ran for about an hour before stopping.
I assume that means the battery is OK despite the inability to test it.

The surprising thing is that I repeated the attempt to do the initial test and this time the "Bat Test" button was white.
It took me too the test page but it said the battery was flat and the test could be run.
No surprise there. Voltage was 10.56 after running it down.

So here's the problem.
The battery test page won't function when the battery is fully charged only when the battery is below full. And then it can't complete the test because it's not charged.

Any advice?

 

[Raymo]

Here is the verbiage from the install manual. Are you following these steps?

4. On the SkyView display that is being tested, during the 30 second power off countdown, press the TEST BAT button above button 8 (far right button)

TEST BAT Button Appears After Removing Power to SkyView Display

5. The BATTERY TEST screen will appear displaying the status of the test. If the SV-BAT-320 is able to power the system for at least 45 minutes, the SV-BAT-320 passes this test.

 

[CGameProgrammer]

Master power does not charge the back-up battery because the aircraft battery is more important than the Dynon's. You need to be running your engine with the alternator on and the RPM high enough, and then the backup battery will charge.

 

[Raymo]

Actually, you can charge the backup battery with an appropriate battery charger. It needs to push the main battery past a certain point (12.1 volts, if I recall - it's in the manual) before the backup battery will start to charge.

 

[jaba-who]

Sorry I thought I had outlined the events better.

Battery will and does charge on big enough bench power supply - which I have (20 amp output).

Battery test sequence followed and worked/entered correctly first.
But aborted because ( as only becomes obvious during a test) it showed 11.something low volts and was dropping voltage quite fast over a few minutes. It seemed clearly was not going to last the full time required but I was not surprized because I had not run the skyview for more then a few minutes at a time up till that point so I assumed would not have fully charged. The battery staus page said it was "Charged" but I did not assume it was charged completely. Perhaps I was wrong there but thats irrelevant because I aborted the test anyway.

Then it was charged for 4 hours so assume it was then fully charged and status checked said it had about 11.76 v.

That's when attempts to retest failed because the display now greys out the test button.
And now the display simply switches over to backup power (with a warning label stating the aircraft power has been lost)without giving any 30 second step down warning or option to run the battery test.

 

[Dynon]

So you'll get the on/off option instead of the 30 second countdown when the system thinks the aircraft is moving. It also won't let you start a test if this is the case. This can happen if there is non-zero airspeed or perceived GPS movement (which can happen when you have a bad GPS lock in a hangar - the position can "walk" enough to confuse the system).

To clarify, you need over 12.25V on SkyView's master power source, with enough current of course, to charge the backup battery. So make sure it's set above that. You can also view the state of the battery charge on the battery info page in SkyView setup. So while it's charging, you can check there to verify it's actually charging (and should register as charged after a time).

 

[jaba-who]

Ok that explains a few things but leaves another to be addressed ( that I was going to chase later)

My system thinks it's travelling a 17 knots. The ADAHRS unit is sitting on the window sill with the test cable ( Dynon supplied one) connecting it to the display. ( Also has the oat probe connected and no hoses or connectors. The red plastic bungs are in the sockets for static, pitot and AoA but each has a small hole in it to allow pressure to equalise to ambient) The GPS unit is sitting on the roof of my workshop with a good clear look at the sky and has worked correctly with local waypoints and airports etc. .

The screen shows the Ground speed is 0 but shows the airspeed is 17 knots.

So that seems like I have to sort that out first.
I haven't done any reading on that bit yet. Can I recalibrate the airspeed to 0 or is there an issue with the unit or the cable perhaps?
I haven't yet done a compass calibration either ( if that means anything in this context).

 

[jakej]

You’ll need to do a zero airspeed calibration, it’s in the install manual -
http://dynonavionics.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1468169485/7#7