Peter wrote:
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).
Peter,
An avionics shop certainly can replace the Garmin battery. A dealer has access to a maintenance manual.
The 430 MM is online. Probably posted here but you can google it. I have it, and a guy called Mike G has a load on his website.
US or non US, if they sell here…
How can Avidyne tell the battery was changed?
They can tell if the seal was broken and the unit opened, I guess.
The 430 battery is field replacable, … but if you have broken switch or knob (like i had on a 430 i bought used) – Garmin will not even give the spare part to their dealer, although it takes ten minutes to replace the switch with the knob.
I hear in the field that people find it difficult to rely on Avidyne and that the company financially weak. I would be in favour of having a good competitor for Garmin. It would bring the price down of these glass cockpit systems due to competition and would drive innovation. I am not sure though that Avidyne can compete against Garmin at the moment. They might have lost the battle.
Jesse wrote:
This is a good example of an issue which is “new”:
IFD-540 squelch issuesAnother new one for us. Never heard this before.
This is written yesterday. I have an IFD540 with the same issue, for which the replacement unit is taking months now. Funny they didn’t hear that before. The concept might be good, but they are having more issues then they openly admit (as most others as well (Filser / Funkwerk /.FUNKE comes to mind))
If you read the forum today you will find out that it was not a bug in this case but merely a user mistake during a SW update. The auto-squelch had been fat-thumbed by the user. Unfortunately, this happens quite a lot and for the casual reader it might look like another Avidyne bug. You might want to check whether you can resolve the problem on your IFD like the user on the forum did.
placido wrote:
If you read the forum today you will find out that it was not a bug in this case but merely a user mistake during a SW update. The auto-squelch had been fat-thumbed by the user. Unfortunately, this happens quite a lot and for the casual reader it might look like another Avidyne bug. You might want to check whether you can resolve the problem on your IFD like the user on the forum did.
One user (TomH) did hit the squelch button, this is not applicable to the other user (lolsen94) where the squelch is not constant on, but is intermittend, whatever the setting. The complaint is similair as one of the issues I had, and needs to be returned to Avidyne. We don’t return units, this can ground my customers for as long as Avidynes wants. I want an exchange box for my customers. They are very slow in sending these, and at maximum 1 unit at a time.
I still have to see the first avionics manufacturer who delivers 100, 100% perfect boxes. These things are low volume production and things go wrong every now and then. Some companies do a far better job in quality, and support, but still have issues every now and then. In my experiance Trig is the best manufacturer. With fast and honest responses, sending an exchange unit when I call them with an issue, instead of shipping the unserviceable unit and waiting for weeks. I hope they will continue with good designs and keep the service at the level it is now, or even improve when they grow.
Most companys who become large are difficult to deal with, to many people to deal with, and a great deal of them don’t care, and just do the work for the money. They have no interest in electronics or aviation at all. At Aspen, Trig, and Garrecht to name a few being relative small, they all seem to care about THEIR products and love the work they do.
Avidyne should be small enough to care:-o
On the forum they seem to be very responsive for the rest I have no idea as this is the first time I will have an Avidyne product in my plane.
As an info, I had a chat today with Jeppesen Germany as I will have to select a new service for my Avidynes and the lady was very knowledgeable about the IFD which made me ask a few questions and she confirmed that they are seeing growing requests for the IFD bundles which apparently are cheaper than for the GTNs. Let’s hope for the best.
placido wrote:
Avidyne should be small enough to care:-o
I guess they should be. I think the popularity of the IFD, and an alternative for Garmin however might have exceeded their expectations, combine that with long delays which causes high pressure on them from end-customers and avionics shops to deliver.
Again, I don’t say this is just Avidyne. Every manufacturer faces some issues, some just do a better job then others sorting things out.
I must be honest with my customers, the support of Avidyne is just less then that of Garmin, and far less then that of Trig for example. Although it might not be fair to compare like this. The trig products are good, but also far simpler than the IFD or new TAS boxes.
I think it would be in the best interest of GA when there would be more manufacturers at the high end stuff.
Jesse wrote:
I think it would be in the best interest of GA when there would be more manufacturers at the high end stuff.
Well, there is the Rockwell Collins Pro-Line 
Still a lot of KLN90B’s out there….strange that no manufacturer looks into the same format WAAS/EGNOS enabled
