SkyView 10 issues

[mmarien]

I tried a couple different USB sticks and the Dynon stick is definitely faster than most (all I've tried). Some of the screen shots were agonizingly slow with those cheap 1G free advertising USB sticks. I recently bought a SanDisk Cruzer Fit from Amazon so it didn't stick out of my panel and have a chance of getting busted off. The SanDisk is half the speed of the Dynon stick but the time to take a screen shot is reasonable.

 

[jdubner]

Serial #03110.  Firmware 10.1.0.2277.

In all cases, screenshots end up on the drive.  (One time I did have a corrupted BMP file though).

I have the Seattle Avionics charts so the 4GB Dynon flash drive would not be suitable for me long-term.  However, I just tested it and the first screenshot took ~27 seconds.  The 2nd and 3rd were each ~18 seconds. 

I cycled power (full reboot) and re-installed the Kingston 16GB drive.  The first screenshot took 50 seconds; the 2nd and 3rd were each ~12 seconds.

In all cases the "Screenshot Taken" message lasted about 2 seconds and then cleared -- no hangups.  This was all done on the ground w/ engine off.

Yes, I had formatted the Kingston drive (twice).  I did not test my other 16 GB flash drive (a SanDisk Cruzer) this time but had in the past (it was slow too).

Two further observations: the delays often (maybe not always) seem to be somewhat indeterminate.  This whole issue bubbled to the surface when I noticed the Black Box log file seemingly took forever to download as I taxied in -- sometimes using my whole taxi time.  And there have been occasions where the SkyView temporarily acted as if no USB flash drive was inserted.

--
Joe

 

[mmarien]

It definitely seems that the first screenshot does take more time than the subsequent ones. I didn't time the screen shots. Will next time I'm at the plane. I copied a large file from my computer to the drives to test the speed. The Dynon drive was about 10 Mb/sec. and the SanDisk Cruzer Fit half that.

I did download a single one hour flight USER LOG and BLACKBOX LOG to the Sandisk. It took a few seconds.

 

[Dynon]

So actually, this is expected as it turns out. SkyView prioritizes things like data log writes and screenshot saves behind all of the other tasks it is performing. So the time it takes to save a screenshot/log will depend on your system configuration, what pages you're displaying, etc. One way to test this is to turn everything off but the EMS page on your display, which is relatively computationally inexpensive compare to the PFD and MAP.

 

[jdubner]

So actually, this is expected as it turns out. SkyView prioritizes things like data log writes and screenshot saves behind all of the other tasks it is performing.

OK, this makes sense.  I would expect any RTOS to have the ability to do low-priority tasks "in the cracks".  Further, I have not noticed any slow (and I had called it "indeterminate") behavior while reading the flash drive during a database or firmware update.

So all this worry over the brand of the flash drive, re-formatting, and the cable integrity is mostly not applicable, at least in my situation.  And I'll state the obvious: the processor(s) is(are) becoming heavily loaded with all these "cool" new and existing features (fancy autopilot and ADS-B, I'm looking at you.)  1/2

Turning off pages is not the total solution -- please read my Reply #41 above about trying to save the log flies while taxiing in.

Obviously, I'd like to see an improvement in this area and I realize there are tradeoffs.  But for starters, would you reconsider my request to make downloading the Black Box data optional instead of bundling it with User Data each time?  (That way I would never have to take the time after engine shutdown sitting there with power on to download it although the NTSB could I suppose.) 

And maybe juggle some firmware task priorities if that's what it takes (I know: not an easy job). 

Thanks.  Even if you cannot do anything about this, I like my SkyView and do not covet my neighbor's Brand "G".

--
Joe