Upgrade to 5.5.0

[JohnWF]

After a seemingly correct upgrade to 5.5.0 now my AP-74 lights all light up and can't be put out....was working fine before the upgrade...can't do much until Monday when support said to get in the airplane and call them...maybe they can help...they said it looks as if the AP-74 isn't 'talking' to the other Dynon units.

Did anyone else have this problem? :

 

[JohnWF]

I went through the entire procedure again. Things keep changing. Now it says the D-180 cannot communicate with chip #2 what ever that means. Also all the display pages are missed up. I cannot get the full page display that shows, among other things, the trim tab setting...a critical piece of info for the powerful RV-12 trim tab.

I wish I had never tried to upgrade to 5.5.0...I now have a really major problem that did not exist before.

Until I can resolve not getting the full page display showing the trim tab setting it would not be safe to fly the plane because you might get a BIG surprise trying to take off.

 

[JohnWF]

Here's the latest on this fiasco:

My RV-12 was working perfectly with the Dynon D-180 UNTIL I tried to load version 5.;5.0

Now here is what I see/don't see.

1. The full page EMS page is no longer available.
2. No altitude
3. No OAT
4. No VSI
5. AP-74 either all lites off and can't be turned on, or all on and can't be turned off
6. One panel re autopilot said: THIS SETUP IS DISABLED BECAUSE EFIS NOT BUSMASTER
7. Once during reload attempt; D-180 CANNOT COMMUNICATGE with CHIP #2 - what ever that means, but it sounds bad...this is once or twice
8. Once; MAGNETOMETER NOT DETECTED. even though magnetic heading looked OK
9. During loading when it asked for locked settings it gave: PREPARING TO UPDATE SECTOR 44 16/16, then freezes of up to 10 minutes (timed & no computer action)
10. Once it said: RUN TIME ERROR 8021 INTERNAL ERROR DEVICE CONTROL BLOCK
11.Trying to use Vans locked file VANS_RV12_FLIGHTDEK_LOCKED_SETTINGS_5.5.O0.efs
12.All DSAB devices were found and were shown as ACTIVE and configured.
13. Multiple attempts to reload...all shown as successful with no change in D-180 displays missing and changed or autopilot working...had been fine except for occassional nav drop outs.
14. Vans zipped files are a genuine pain...I used four (4) different unzip programs until I would one that would work.
15. Since D-180 was working perfectly, save nav drop out, prior to 5.5.0 I doubt there is a hardward problem...its likely in that dam locked file somehow.

John Fasching 120185
n29cx@ridgeviewtel.us

 

[JohnWF]

I just noticed I had saved a backup from an earlier attempt to upload 5.5.0, which I thought had been successful, so I will put those backup back in and see what happens this morning...I am up at 3AM; can't sleep, keep working on this problem in my mind.

 

[JohnWF]

I finally got the a/p to work...

How do you use the backup files? That is, how do you activate them or somehow put them into the D-180? I can't find any info on how to use them. Help on this would really be appreciated.

 

[JohnWF]

It looks as if loading 5.5.0 wiped out all the settings in the D-180 and messed up almost everything that could set/adjusted. I am still missing a few things, particularly the full screen EMS page that the manual says doesn't exist but somehow I suspect Vans worked that one out...

A genuine mess.

 

[Dynon]

John,

Sorry for your troubles here. The fact that the update unlocks most settings on the RV-12 D180 also causes it to loose many preconfigured settings, unfortunately. The "RV-12-Dynon Support Program download instructions.pdf" file on their site covers this (it recommends manually copying down all of the settings, as well as taking a firmware backup just in case, to mitigate the amount of work you need to do), but I suspect it's not prominent enough to catch everyone's attention. We'll ask Vans to improve the page.

 

[Dynon]

Also, even though the settings aren't preserved, one of the nice things about the 5.5 update is that you can change practically anything in the setup, including what pages are available in the page rotation (press and hold the right button to get into the page rotation selection / setup menu)

 

[JohnWF]

Just to put this thing to bed let me say Dynon, Mike Huff, was very good at clearing up a number of items still eluding me, and pointing out the backup procedure....the info was there, but a bit cryptic, and after all my problems I was far too timid to do anything unless I was positive about what I was up to.

I am very please with the Dynon support which I appreciated more than you might think.
John

 

[JohnWF]

I see on Vansairforce website that other D-180 folks are getting wiped out when downloading V5.5.0....cause unclear.
I guess I was not alone with this problem...some point to Vans locked settings as the root of the problem, but I have no knowledge of what the cause may be.

 

[Dynon]

We're not sure exactly why some seem to be loosing some settings, some all, and some none. We're looking into it. Note that the instructions do specifically say to jot down EVERY setting you can get your eyeballs on, and then check everything post-upgrade. We know there was a chance of this happening (but couldn't find a root-cause), but Van's decided to release with those instructions so we could get it out there, even with risk, since RV-12ers have been waiting for this update for a while since its been available to the general population.

 

[JohnWF]

I am still working on cleaning up the massive damage that the upgrade to 5.5.0 did to my D-180. One of the persistent problems is the wind vector. I did my best to reset the magnetic alignment procedures but still get gross wind errors.
Is there anything else I can look at that might be causing these great errors. I did the best I could to recalibrate the magnetometer by orienting the plane in motion using a GPS unit, but still see winds to 30 MPH in one direction, and only 10 or so if I fly directly back 180-degrees, which points to errors in the magnetometer. (There is not one compass rose in the whole state of Colorado as far as I can find.)

 

[Dynon]

Have you set your maginc and magint before going through the calibration? If not, that can lead to some pretty bad magnetic heading readings post-calibration.

Also, if your calibration location of choice (airporrt ramp, etc) happens to be above a magnetic disturbance, that can make a good calibration at that location impossible. So calibrating somewhere else as an experiment may help.

 

[JohnWF]

Dynon: If I were to return my D-180 to you (out of warranty) could you reset it to initial settings as you would have normally delivered it to a buyer? I think I just want to completely start over. I am quite willing to pay for this service.

I would assume you could re-install 5.5.0 which it indicates is installed.

Is this possible?

 

[Dynon]

Yep, we can do that. The fee is the same as an out-of-warranty repair for the product, which is $250: http://www.dynonavionics.com/docs/support_returns.html