Where is the current goto place for a failed legacy autopilot, preferably in the UK, but could be near continent?
It’s an Altimatic V in a Navajo.
My preference would be to replace it with a 55X, but that’s £a lot, and I might make one more attempt to fix it.
Avionicare in Southend was recommended to me – but I can’t recall by whom – in the event that I need repairs to my similarly ageing autopilot. I haven’t tried them personally. Their website does not appear to be responding at the moment, for me at least.
In the UK, the only company I know of which can repair anything is Navcomm Avionics at Bournemouth. I don’t know if they do autopilots.
The situation in Europe is utterly dire, with even the “best” generating an awful lot of bad reports in email which cannot be posted, due to risk of litigation, or protests from pilots based in that country who won’t have their favourite company criticised 
Most people send the stuff to Autopilots Central in the USA.
The whole scene is soon going to get shafted by Honeywell’s ripoff move. The result of this scam (sooo typical of how Honeywell does everything) is going to change a lot of things in GA; basically a lot of planes will become almost worthless unless you rip it all out and replace with Garmin or, for those with a lot of faith, with Avidyne.
The other option is to get your hands on the maintenance manuals and get an electronics boffin to repair it off the books. That will be the way of the future, for sure. But most people can’t/won’t do that. And autopilots aren’t that easy because of how much needs to be connected up on the bench in order to test it. It’s not like testing a fuel totaliser which just needs a pulse generator.
What is the fault?
It works in Azimuth but not in pitch. But the computer, control panel and servo were all sent off to the States for overhaul within the last 18 months, so I suspect that the problem lies not in these units but maybe in wiring.
Essentially, I want a proper diagnosis before just sending the units back. The well respected guy that did the rest of the avionics, and who connected the Aspen to it, does not have the equipment to test the autopilot itself, though he has confirmed that the ACU2 is functioning to spec.
If I were advising myself, I would tell my self to jack it in and get a 55X. That’s easier to say when it’s someone else’s money.
@wigglyamp someone said that your organisation might be able to help, is that right? I can easily whip it across to Fairoaks for a quick look, if you have the equipment.
Wigglyamp posted a while ago that his company no longer does component repairs, FWIW. He seems to no longer post here.
Does the flight director do the right thing? That narrows it down, usually.
The flight director does not work either on the Aspen or the legacy AI that drives the autopilot (by design, not failure). I don’t know why that is, precisely, but has to do with where various inputs come from.
I would not be asking @wigglyamp to repair the electronics, simply to diagnose what electronics need repair, so they can be sent to the States, or recon ones bought on eBay.
I used Avionicare at Southend for my autopilot in the Saratoga, and they did good work. I think one box had to be mailed back to the USA, if memory serves. They knew their stuff, unlike some of the other big name companies in the UK.
The comical thing is that all these firms will be required to destroy all the Honeywell/King MM PDFs on their hard disks, as a condition of continuing to be a dealer…
Since they obviously aren’t going to destroy them, they will be able to do informal diagnostics and then you will have to send the boxes to the USA if you need any paperwork.
I say again, I have no problem sending the boxes to the States, or preferably getting recon exchange units, but I seriously wonder if that is the issue, as that was done in the last 18 months.
At the moment, I simply want someone to diagnose where the problem lies.
I used IAE at Cranfield for system diagnosis and component repair on a similar age C340 ARC autopilot. Gary Joyce is in charge of the avionics section. They sorted out the problem in no time and very reasonably too. (Dry solder joints on a motherboard connector). They don’t appear to have Piper-Mitchell-Century systems on their repair capabilities list but they do for system and bench testing. So may be able to diagnose and possibly rectify if as you suspect its wiring/connectors.
