G3x Touch issues

[sneedrv-6]

I have 60 hours in my just finished Rotax 914 bush plane, gets me to the cool places the RV-6 can't. I have been having some issues with the g3x touch and was wondering if anyone else has had the same issues.

1. With the master on I was getting 40-60 GPH fuel flow in the hangar with 2 red cube units. V3 software did help this issue a lot, I now can see .2-2 Gph. This issue seems to be temperature dependent. Garmin told me one other guy had this issue. Oddly, if I unplug my oil pressure sensor I get no Fuel flow. But I think this is because if I unplug my oil pressure sensor a loose other sensors, Which I do not like but have not been able to fix, even tried a new EIS box from Garmin.

2. Does anyone else think the autopilot control logic requires too may steps? In the RV-6 flying on autopilot at 10,000 if I want to goto 9,000 I turn the ALT knob on the Advanced flight EFIS to 9,000. On the g3x touch I need to turn the bug to 9,000 then bring up the AP control window, then hit VS, then Nose down 5 times to get a 500 fpm decent and it stops at 9,000. I know it is not a big deal but when in the class B and ATC is giving me heading and alt changes it is a pain as compared to advanced flight where one knob is heading and one is ALT. So when the controler says fly 180 and descend to 7,000 in the rv I just turn 2 knobs. Since I have been using it more it is not so bad but I would prefer less steps to make the AP do what I want it to do. The other day I was descending 500 fpm and wanted to have the AP engage and climb 500 fpm. I engaged the AP then had to hit nose up 10 times.

3. Flight log does not work correctly. 2 seconds airbourne and the flight log has logged 2 minutes. I land at spanish fork airport in Utah and it logs it as provo. Also I have a rotax which at idle and taxing turns 1500 rpm. I told the g3x to record engine time at 3000 RPM or above, today I flew 2.2 hours, the engine times was 3.5, these numbers should have been the same or very close. The run up for a couple of seconds would be over 3,000 rpm.

4. Found it odd that if you dump 6 gallons of fuel in the plane and power up the g3x to add the fuel, it does not make the change unless you leave the g3x touch on for some amount of time (I think 2 min). Garmin says this will be fixed in the future and it is due to them not wanting to make to many writes to the internal memory because it can only be written to so many times.

5. When the AP trims the servos I get noise that breaks squelch on the radio, apparently the fix is shielded wire which is not an option for me.

6. With most airport bound aircraft we don't really care about user waypoints, but in a bush plane in Nevada, Utah, and Idaho pretty much everyplace we land is a user waypoint. I probably have 100 user waypoints in my g3x touch and I spent a bunch of time sitting in the plane inputing them. I could not believe it when I heard you can not import or export user waypoints. I know you can export them if you make a flight plan and include all your user waypoints but in order to accomplish this you would have to write the names of all the waypoints down on paper, then create a flight plan and search for each user waypoint and add it to the flight plan. At the very least maybe gamin could add and button that says add all user waypoints to current flight plan. Hopefully in the future we will be able to import and export user waypoints to an sd card.

7. I have also been having an issue where the EFIS will not boot up. I usually have to cycle power a couple of times and it will eventually come up. I was told this is because you should use 3 different cards with the efts (not in manual). I will be formatting a new card and i'll see if the issue goes away.

Other than these issues I have been happy with the system and the support I have received has been exceptional, Steve was working with me Christmas eve and day. I am not posting this to be negative towards garmin, I am posting it to:

1. See if anyone else is having these issues, which would help me fix mine.
2. Maybe save some else some time knowing that others are having the issue.
3. I am curious how many people are actually flying with the touch.
4. The more brains seeing this the better..

Thanks for you time,

Jason Sneed

RV-6 IFR 430w and advanced flight 0-360 (airflow FI)
Rans S7-S Rotax 914 Garmin g3x touch dual axis AP

[Brantel]

#1. Sounds like a wiring/installation issue.

#2. Is a personal preference issue. If you had the GMC305 it would help. Many people like to be able to pre-select an altitude and then tell the system how you want it to get there. Pretty sure this is how their certified stuff works as well.

#3. The flight log works fine in my airplane. Sounds like a config issue with the timing.

#4. The fuel computer works fine on my airplane. Very accurate. I tell it how much fuel I put in and it just works and I have never noticed a dwell before it will save my entries.

#5. Wiring/installation issue. I don't have shielded trim servo wiring either but it has never caused a problem with the radios.

#6. Make the suggestion to TeamX for this feature. It is amazing how well they listen to customers and several folks here have seen them respond to request. In the interim, it is my understanding that you can edit the export file by hand to add your user way points and then re-import them.

#7. Never experienced this issue. Page 213, 303 and 308 in the Pilots guide and 1-15, 29-152 and 30-2 in the installation manual gives recommendations for SD cards.


Just my experience with the Touch and another data point for you.

Lots of em flying now....

[humptybump]

There are two (or three) threads discussing the GMC305. I don't have it but for many of the reasons you describe, it's a good addition. After some corrective setup (thanks G3Xperts) my G3X autopilot is great. The GMC305 would just make it more natural, given my familiarity with other hardware).

If you use Garmin Pilot for planning, it will create any necessary waypoints when you transfer a flight plan to the G3X. It doesn't help with creating them directly in the G3X.

[g3xpert]

Stein Air and Garmin have worked many, many long hours with Jason in an effort to resolve the issues with this S-7. Here is a little more information to go along with the posting.

1. If you are installing an antenna for a 250W transponder in a fabric airplane, you should be extra careful to not mount the antenna close to the fuel flow sensors. Even when in GND mode, the GTX23ES is constantly transmitting ADS-B Out data, and as soon as you power up the avionics the transponder is transmitting, so this explains the comment about seeing fuel flow on the ground. While this has not generally been a problem with other aircraft, we did make a digital fuel flow input configuration change in V3.00 to raise the signal threshold. This removed most of the noise coupled in from the transponder, but apparently not all. We asked that a test be re-run to verify whether or not the remaining noise is only present when the transponder is powered up, but no feedback yet on that request. While there was some indication that the issue changes with temperature, there hasn't been much evidence to support this, and as stated above, we did exchange the GEA24 just in case there was something there that we didn't understand, but this changed nothing with the installation. To make matters worse, at least with the pre V3.00 software, connecting the Rotax oil pressure sensor caused a noisy fuel flow, so we have worried about some kind of ground loop in the system that has not yet been found.

2. We pride ourselves on having the very finest autopilot you can have in an experimental aircraft, and many, many customers have provided positive feedback that this is indeed the case. The G3X autopilot operation is almost exactly like that used in thousands of certified aircraft, even jets, and we believe strongly in the human factors of this design and the many advanced features which are available. Using the altitude pre-select to choose an altitude target and then arming/activating a mode which defines how the autopilot flies the plane to that altitude target has many advantages and provides a great deal of flexibility in adding new features, but we are always listening to customers and are open to improvements when the benefits are clear. We are internally discussing creating a "chase the altitude bug" autopilot mode for those that prefer to not learn/use a more advanced and capable autopilot design.

One additional comment on the use of the touch screen autopilot control panel. It is certainly not necessary to use the Nose Up/Nose Down touch screen buttons to change the vertical speed and airspeed selections. Just grab the outer knob below the touch panel, and you can very quickly change these targets.

3. The flight log starts to account for time in the flight after the engine is started, but doesn't create the flight log until you take off, so this explains the extra time placed in the flight log that is mentioned. The flight log logic to determine takeoffs and landing works great in the vast majority of aircraft, but it is possible to fly low with such a low ground speed that the logic can be tripped up. Ourselves, and most of our customers use the really extraordinary SD card flight data logging features provided by all G3X systems to record their flights (including valuable engine data which isn't collected in the flight log Jason is using) and don't use the flight log feature, but again, we are considering improvements.

4. Many parameters are stored in both random access memory where it can be updated frequently, and in non-volatile flash memory for protection through power cycles. Random access memory doesn't have read/write limitations, but flash memory has a large, but limited number of writes which may be performed. We manage the non-volatile memory inside each display carefully including using techniques to "wear level" the memory to make sure that no one wears out their internal flash memory before the display wears out. Most people update their fuel remaining after powering up their avionics to go fly (and don't immediately turn their avionics back off), so this has never been a reported problem before, but we are making changes to store the pilot entered fuel remaining change to flash immediately after update to support this use case.

5. While the GSA 28 servo uses a very high quality brushless DC motor, the trim motor that everyone uses has a brush type DC motor and no capacitors across the motor power inputs. This type of motor is notorious for generating RF noise which radiates off the wiring, especially when being driven by a pulse width modulated signal for fine speed control as is done with the GSA 28. We consider it imperative to use good shielded wiring for the servo to trim motor installation, but as Brian mentions, customers with metal airplanes can sometimes get by without it.

6. We provided Jason a custom user waypoint HTML file with 4 of his user waypoints and provided instructions for using a text editor to easily add the rest of his waypoints so he could 1) have all of his user waypoints safely stored to a file on his computer or SD card and could share with others if desired, and 2) rapidly import all of his user waypoints instead of manually entering them by using the Menu, Import command from the flight plan list page. He chose to not use this method. We have received this request before to be able to export the user defined waypoints to the SD card, and will continue to consider it as an added feature improvement. We already support exporting flight plans to the SD card, and you could actually create one or more flight plans with your user defined waypoints and export the user waypoints to the SD card in this fashion, and re-import them anytime you wish.

7. We are unsure why Jason is sometimes having problems with startup, and have just started working this issue with him. Since the display powers up, but is showing it is busy, we have asked about the data on the SD card inserted into the display. On startup the display reads the SD card and processes the files to determine if software or database files are on the card that need to be installed, and we know that some types and sizes of files not used by the system can be hard for the display to process, so we have asked that he keep his software update, database update, and flight data logging SD cards separate to limit the work the display has to do in processing the card on each power up. We are adding similar guidance in the next pilot guide update.

We appreciate Jason's comment about our service and commitment to solve his problems, and look forward to getting everything resolved. I am the Engineering Manager of the team that develops all of these products (and more importantly a homebuilder and G3X pilot!), and due to the unusual number of issues experienced in this installation, I have personally worked with Jason and Stein Air to make sure that the most direct access to the best information could be provided. Ultimately we are sometimes limited by the installation on what can be done, but we want to do everything possible for every customer regardless of the challenges.

Thanks,
Steve

[bkthomps]

Outstanding support- sounds like he'll be sorted out in no time

[RV7AJeremy]

1. I was having the same issues, I thought it was a red cube issues so I have been discussing the issue with them. My Transponder antenna is about 8" from the red cube (on the other side of the firewall). The issue seems to have subsided with the 3.0 release.

2. I agree that it is a lot of button pushes but it functions the same as the APs in much larger aircraft I have flown. I should have installed a 305....

The G3X is an amazing system, it is by far the most advanced panel I have flown behind. Love it!

[Robert Anglin]

Thanks, Steve, I learned a lot just reading these posts. Being in the meddle of updating to a Touch G3X full system and auto-pilot, this is timely for us. We had already planed on installing the 305 control panel for the autopilot, but did not know of the shielded wire issue for the Ray Allen trim motors. We will jerk that unshielded wiring that has been in the aircraft from the start, back out and redo it. With respect to one other thing mentioned in this thread. The "S.D." card, we use Sand-disk cards in our cameras now and I see you list an 8GB Sand-disk in your installation or Pilot Guide as a good one to use. Is the 8GB capacity a set point or can we use higher capacity card, but just not lower capacity kind of rule thing? Very good work, Team-X, Thanks for all you do. Yours as always. R.E.A. III #80888

[RV7AJeremy]

Originally Posted by g3xpert

5. While the GSA 28 servo uses a very high quality brushless DC motor, the trim motor that everyone uses has a brush type DC motor and no capacitors across the motor power inputs. This type of motor is notorious for generating RF noise which radiates off the wiring, especially when being driven by a pulse width modulated signal for fine speed control as is done with the GSA 28. We consider it imperative to use good shielded wiring for the servo to trim motor installation, but as Brian mentions, customers with metal airplanes can sometimes get by without it.

I also did not use shielded wire for the trim motors and have not had issues with radio noise. But the G3X install manual does NOT show shielded wire to be used for the trim motors.

[g3xpert]

Originally Posted by Robert Anglin

Thanks, Steve, I learned a lot just reading these posts. Being in the meddle of updating to a Touch G3X full system and auto-pilot, this is timely for us. We had already planed on installing the 305 control panel for the autopilot, but did not know of the shielded wire issue for the Ray Allen trim motors. We will jerk that unshielded wiring that has been in the aircraft from the start, back out and redo it. With respect to one other thing mentioned in this thread. The "S.D." card, we use Sand-disk cards in our cameras now and I see you list an 8GB Sand-disk in your installation or Pilot Guide as a good one to use. Is the 8GB capacity a set point or can we use higher capacity card, but just not lower capacity kind of rule thing? Very good work, Team-X, Thanks for all you do. Yours as always. R.E.A. III #80888

Hello Robert,

You are welcome to use an 8 Gbyte or smaller SD card with your G3X Touch display. We recommend the Sandisk cards since we have had the best luck with those and they are pretty readily available.

Thanks,
Steve

[g3xpert]

Originally Posted by RV7AJeremy

I also did not use shielded wire for the trim motors and have not had issues with radio noise. But the G3X install manual does NOT show shielded wire to be used for the trim motors.

Hello Jeremy,

You are correct that while we show the trim motor connections to the servos, we don't identify the wiring type - but should and will.

We probably too often assume everyone is using shielded wiring for almost everything since that is about all we use in our planes.

Thanks,
Steve