Screen too Dark to read in cold
 

Have had the airplane in some Cold weather this past week. Cold as in 35 on the ramp over night.

No issues starting but my Dynon EMS D-10 screen was too dark to read. It was very dim and could make out that I had oil and fuel pressure but too dark to fly.

After 18-minutes of warm up, the screen did get readable but IMHO, was too dark and not normal. After flying in -3 C OAT and the engine warming up enough for the cabin heat to take the chill out the cockpit, the display did get to normal brightness.

I just relocated the airplane to a COLD climate. Is this a problem that others have or is it time for me to send the unit back to Dynon? Had known that there were going to be display readable problems, I would have purchased a different manufacturers EMS to replace my Rocky Mountain microMonitor.

Gary,

I am not 100% sure but I think the EFIS-D10A/EMS-D10/EFIS-D6 have fluorescent backlights. Could be the reason for the dimness till they warm up.

The are rated to -30C however so there may be an issue with yours.

When I had my D100/D120 combo, never had any major issues like you are describing. I ran mine in the hangar a couple times at about -18C. They were slightly dimmer than normal but quickly warmed up to normal.

I would call Dynon and run it by them...

Hey Gary - Louise had a couple of early generation D-10 backlight failures. Is your unit old? Hers worked fine for the last five or six years, so Dynon apparently solved the problem - but early units might still be susceptible? I'd check with Dynon.

Been flying with a D-10 (upgraded later to a D-10A) in Wisconsin winters for 10 years and never had this problem. I suspect a bad screen.

Oh, and 35 is not cold weather. Sorry:)

No kidding! That's practically tropical compared to our winter temps up here! Any system that starts crapping out at 35 F wouldn't be on a plane at our latitude for very long:) For what it's worth, my hangar partner has a D100 and I've never heard him complain of having a problem with screen brightness at any temps that we actually fly in.

Don't have a Dynon so I can't speak with any authority on them, however...some of the large corporate jets I fly have a suggestion to not turn the display on if the cockpit is too cold or too hot. Basically they say if you are not comfortable, leave the displays off until you have conditioned to cabin. The displays will work but they say it improves the display longevity and they are constantly in the list of the top 10 removals on the airplane.
Now, how do you translate that to RV usage. That's the question.

Gary,
That isn't normal, and as someone said, 35 isn't cold, unless you forgot a minus sign in front of it!

We test every device here to temperatures much colder than this. We also have thousands of EFIS units in the field in places like Northern Minnesota and they work fine. So something is up with your unit.

The only thing I could think that might not be a issue with the unit is if it was somehow set to dim and had nothing to do with the temp. Did you happen to try pressing BRIGHT or do you happen to have an HS34 or AP74 which can auto dim the screen?

So, is this how you are announcing your retirement??

Congrats on that:D

My experience with that D10 series box in my old RV6 has been that it takes weather down in the single digits or below zero for it to get to that point (and have it soaked for some time at those temps). In my case, I can only be comfortable down to the single digits without many extra layers of cloths anyway, so it hasn't been a very common occurrence! Tonight is supposed to get down to the single digits and tomorrow night around zero, so I'll go check these again...but so far it's like I said. It has to be REALLY cold for it to get that bad - and at those temps a whole bunch of things get cranky.

I'd give Dynon or that darned dealer who sold you that (especially since that darned dealer has some cold weather experience with said box) a call and have them get you fixed up! :)

Cheers,
Stein

Cold...
 

Missing SoCal already?

Skylor