Reliability of VANS engine gauges.

[plehrke]

Full set of vans gages have been working for over 800 hours with no issues, except a burnt out light bulb. My frequent check of accuracy, being an engineer, with alternate sources I have within other instruments (mostly my flight data recorder that uses independent source data) has shown very good consistency.

[Tim Lewis]

My only Van's gauge is my (secondary) ammeter (charge/discharge type, center reads zero). I've had two of these Van's ammeter gauges fail on my RV-10. In both cases, the ammeter gauge worked OK for a while (perhaps 100-200 hours), then started intermittently oscillating and/or showing full (40amp) charge when I know darn well the correct indication is zero.

I have not bothered to replace the second failed Van's gauge, as my EFIS has a (reliable) alternator current and bus voltage display.