I have not yet found an official Garmin forum where you can openly communicate issues. One of the perceived differences is that with the Avidyne forum things come to light very quickly. Even user errors or faulty installations are perceived to be product issues. The company is very responsive on the forum and has introduced features suggested by clients in their later SW releases. The minority of the issues really ground you. From a financial point of view there is undoubtedly a higher project risk when going with Avidyne and the tolerance for it is very subjective.
placido wrote:
I have not yet found an official Garmin forum where you can openly communicate issues.
That reminds me of the video that I posted showing a G1000 AHRS spinning wildly in circles on a US Forum. Someone from Garmin tracked me down to investigate and remediate the problem so that I would take it down !
Clearly, Garmin takes user forums very seriously …
I just saw that Avidyne has removed R9 from their product offering. So they rely on the IFD series and the DFC90 to be their cash cow.
I would think the TAS boxes are their biggest cash cow.
They bought them from Ryan.
They recently also outsourced more and more of their repair / service work exclussive to Extant and Duncan Aviation. Had an EX5000 which required a new backup battery, quoted fee for customer was 1560 USD from Extant excluding shipping the unit to USA and back, leaving customer grounded for at least 2 weeks.
Quite insane if you ask me.
Completely crazy, I agree. That’s the stuff that’s killing GA. I have no problem paying a fair price for a repair, and I know the stuff is expensive – but a non field replacable battery and that price … they are making big mistakes here.
But: Garmin, L3, Honeywell,… they are all doing that stuff.
Usually however you can change a backup battery on the bench.
Apart from ELT ones it is not a lifed part so the change doesn’t need to be logged.
The KLN94 one is easy and under Articles here is a procedure for not losing the config, too.
A lot of people have done the famous GNS430 battery too.
All off the books of course. A maintenance shop cannot do that openly but I know some do (nobody here).
I would never pay that silly money and be buggered for weeks. The battery is usually a few quid from RS etc.
Avinik Straubing, for one, (and I am sure Jesse too) could open and repair any of those systems. But the y don’t let them. They don’t give them the test software, and they cancel any warranty (or will not even repair it again) later if you open an Avidyne PFD/MFD … and I am sure Garmin is the same. (All hearsay from various sources)
The GNS430 battery is field replacable, I have had that done.
will not even repair it again
Is that legal?
Maybe in a fixed price repair concession.
Anyway, yes another reason to obtain the MMs, using any means…
How can they tell the battery was changed?
Peter wrote:
Is that legal?
I doubt it is legal in the EU – at least if the customer is a consumer. But Avidyne and Garmin are both american companies.
