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ACK E-04 ELT has triggered 3 times while stationary.

We finished our 3rd RV build this last November and in the past 5 months our ACK ELT-04 406mhz has gone off 3 times in our hangar while stationary.
I've received calls from SAR and I've called ACK technologies to find an answer. They said they haven't received complaints of this nature and to send it in if I want them to look at it. I've rechecked the installation, batteries and static suppressor near the antenna. I've installed ELT's in the past 4 airplanes we've built, this is the first with a GPS input.

Tonight I was dusting off our airplane with a "California duster" dusting mop and my ELT went off AGAIN! I noticed static build up while dusting.

Has this happened to anyone else?
Thanks for any input on this.
Tom
 
Interesting, so they use a mechanical or electronic G load-accelerometer sensor?
 
There was a similar issue with one brand of 121.5 ELTs a number of years ago, where RF & other stray energy would trigger them. Couldn't find any internet references, but IIRC, it started after the FAA started requiring remote indicator/control panels visible to the pilot (long runs of wire & an extra circuit board was an entry point into the ELT).
 
As a data point, I use a California Duster to dust the surfaces of my RV-12 -- no ACK ELT-04 issues in past three+ years.
 
Interesting, so they use a mechanical or electronic G load-accelerometer sensor?

That's the sensor, but it can also be triggered by the remote panel switch.

Perhaps an intermittent short in the cable to the remote sensor?
 
I am dealing with this exact same thing in our Cessna 172K. We had a brand new ACK E-04 ELT put in (replaced an old 121.5 only ELT) back in June of last year.

A few weeks ago, it goes off at 6:50-ish AM while the plane is happily and safely tied down at the airport. It took over an hour before we could get someone to turn the ELT off, so we had to spend several hundred bucks on getting a new battery.

New battery goes in, and its fine for another week or so. Then, our CFI takes a student up, and the ELT triggers while they are about 2k feet in their climb. They called guard and explained they were indeed safe and the ELT is acting up, and headed back to airport. Luckily only about 15 ,minutes or so was used on this new battery. The student had to keep disarming the thing while the CFI flew them back.

our A&P pulled it, and called ACK. They had us send it for warranty repair and its supposed to be back Tuesday-ish. They fixed/replaced it under warranty but we didn't get an explanation as to what went wrong.

A friend in our EAA chapter also had his ACK E-04 act up doing the same thing a few months ago. That ELT was installed around may of last year. I wonder if a bad batch didn't go out around the first of last year or something.
 
Well, after what I thought was a corrected ELT, this happened again tonight.

From the last time it happened, ACK replaced the transmitter part of our unit since it was still under warranty, and they said they found an "issue" with it, they also told us to have our A&P rewire everything....which we did and he rewired the whole ELT system exactly to ACK's specs.

Fast forward a few weeks until tonight. I get a call from the air force asking me if my aircraft is safe. I told him unless it decided to go on a night flight by itself, it should be safe and sound on the ramp. I had to trek out to the airport and disarm the stupid thing again, and pull the control panel so it wouldn't go off.

So, since it had been triggered for about 2 hours, I have to purchase yet another stupid battery (two batteries in under 45 days now), and see why this crappy ELT keeps triggering.

I am SERIOUSLY thinking there is some flaw with these ACK units.
 
Still giving me fits, my ACK-04 goes off after dusting the airplane

I thought I had solved this issue, I found a connector that might not have been fully seated and replaced the battery in the beeper and control panel units just to be safe. I've rechecked all of the harnesses and wiring. It had not gone off for months, now it's back. If I wipe down the fiberglass parts with a duster and get some static my ACK-04 ELT goes off. I can repeat this as many times as I want, I have my wife sitting it the cockpit resetting the ELT and then dust the tips and it will go off again and again.
The ELT waits 50 seconds to transmit a distress call on 406mhz, so we are NOT alerting SAR, but we are using up a VERY expensive battery.

I see that CubedRoot's 172K had the same problem and I'm hoping he found a solution.

Anyone else having a problem? If you've got a duster and you're in a dry climate give it a try.

Thanks for any help with this.

Tom
N74TL
Van's RV7A
 
Ask ACK for a static suppressor. It goes behind the antenna. They game me one for free for my Beech.....I think there is a problem with sensitivity to static electricity. It took just a minute to install it. Good luck!
 
This happened on a plane i was working on recently. After a new install, it kept going off every 20 minutes or so. In trouble shooing we isolared the audio alarm module from the system and finally everything woked fine. They sent a new module and so far it is still working, or at least not going off all the time.
Ymmv but something to consider.
God luck
 
I had similar with my AmeriKing unit. Turned out to be the remote battery run down and sending a false activate signal - supposed to last 3 years but didn't. I now change it each annual
 
ACK-04

I have had mine installed for 4 years with out a hiccup

Had to replace the battery since it was coming up out of date

Hope you get the issues resolved

Also while here make sure you register your 406 ELT. Every 2 years

Jack
 
Static suppressor

After reading multiple threads and seeing the issues and lack of customer support for the Artex 345, I ordered the ACK E-04, 406 ELT for my RV6 from Gulf Coast. They have a good policy of price matching so it only set me back $489.

I brought up the issue of inadvertent activation due to static build up. They had not heard of the problem so Casey at Gulf Coast opened an ELT box but could not find a suppressor. He then got on the phone with ACK. Turns out ACK knows of the issue and all new units ship with a BNC inline suppressor. Hope this solves the problem.

Kudos to Gulf Coast and ACK for addressing this issue.
 
ACK E-04 activation

So my ACK E-04 went off for no apparent reason. I heard the beeping start while I was buttoning up the plane after a flight. There had been no jarring of the aircraft or the ELT unit.

I discovered that the button on the remote panel wouldn't reset the ELT. The red light on the remote panel wasn't flashing either.

So after switching off the main unit, I replaced the battery in the remote panel. After re-arming the ELT (and hearing the "beep" from that resulting self-test), the remote still wouldn't run a self test. No beep, no flashing light.

Turns out it wasn't the remote panel battery -- the problem was that my remote panel was dead/malfunctioning. I replaced it at the shockingly low cost of $38.40 (I feared the worst and couldn't believe it was that cheap) and now everything works perfectly.

So a theory: maybe some inadvertent activations, including mine, are the result of failing/malfunctioning remote panels?
 
So my ACK E-04 went off for no apparent reason. I heard the beeping start while I was buttoning up the plane after a flight. There had been no jarring of the aircraft or the ELT unit.

I discovered that the button on the remote panel wouldn't reset the ELT. The red light on the remote panel wasn't flashing either.

So after switching off the main unit, I replaced the battery in the remote panel. After re-arming the ELT (and hearing the "beep" from that resulting self-test), the remote still wouldn't run a self test. No beep, no flashing light.

Turns out it wasn't the remote panel battery -- the problem was that my remote panel was dead/malfunctioning. I replaced it at the shockingly low cost of $38.40 (I feared the worst and couldn't believe it was that cheap) and now everything works perfectly.

So a theory: maybe some inadvertent activations, including mine, are the result of failing/malfunctioning remote panels?

Thanks for posting that possibility.

Today after a nice flight right after I shut everything down mine started going off. I knew it wasn't my landing because it was dang good. :D It took me about 2 minute to figure out where the beeps were coming from. Sure enough, a lovely false alarm. Luckily my reset button worked.

As soon as I found the number to call I was already getting a call from Florida. He did say that they get about 50-100 of these a day and that I was in the top 1% because I actually tuned a radio to 121.5 to make sure it was indeed activated and also de-activated on pushing the reset button.
 
Another uncommanded activation

I can now also join the uncommanded ELT activation club. I have an ACK E04 ELT and when doing my runup (stationary) I heard the "beep beep beep" and also noticed the squelch on my GTN650 was intermittently pulsing with an RX signal on 122.9. There was no LED indication on the remote ELT panel. Pressed the ELT reset button and all was good. Went flying and my wife get a call from the Air Force. It must have been on long enough to activate. Needless to say she was a bit worried. Spoke with ACK, they suggested a static suppressor. My ELT has been installed for 6 years trouble free. Replaced the battery on the ELT and the remote about 6 months ago. I will try a static suppressor, but I don't think that is the problem, but it is the next step in the troubleshooting process. One good point is I now know without a doubt my ELT works. :)
 
Another uncommanded activation

I can now also join the uncommanded ELT activation club. I have an ACK E04 ELT and when doing my runup (stationary) I heard the "beep beep beep" and also noticed the squelch on my GTN650 was intermittently pulsing with an RX signal on 122.9. There was no LED indication on the remote ELT panel. Pressed the ELT reset button and all was good. Went flying and my wife get a call from the Air Force. It must have been on long enough to activate. Needless to say she was a bit worried. Spoke with ACK, they suggested a static suppressor. My ELT has been installed for 6 years trouble free. Replaced the battery on the ELT and the remote about 6 months ago. I will try a static suppressor, but I don't think that is the problem, but it is the next step in the troubleshooting process. One good point is I now know without a doubt my ELT works. :)
Did you find any kind of solution? Our ACK ELT goes off by itself every few months. we made the recommended changes (from ACK) to our installation, but still have the issue. ACK insist it's our problem.
 
I am dealing with this exact same thing in our Cessna 172K. We had a brand new ACK E-04 ELT put in (replaced an old 121.5 only ELT) back in June of last year.

A few weeks ago, it goes off at 6:50-ish AM while the plane is happily and safely tied down at the airport. It took over an hour before we could get someone to turn the ELT off, so we had to spend several hundred bucks on getting a new battery.

New battery goes in, and its fine for another week or so. Then, our CFI takes a student up, and the ELT triggers while they are about 2k feet in their climb. They called guard and explained they were indeed safe and the ELT is acting up, and headed back to airport. Luckily only about 15 ,minutes or so was used on this new battery. The student had to keep disarming the thing while the CFI flew them back.

our A&P pulled it, and called ACK. They had us send it for warranty repair and its supposed to be back Tuesday-ish. They fixed/replaced it under warranty but we didn't get an explanation as to what went wrong.

A friend in our EAA chapter also had his ACK E-04 act up doing the same thing a few months ago. That ELT was installed around may of last year. I wonder if a bad batch didn't go out around the first of last year or something.
Did you find any kind of solution? Our ACK ELT goes off by itself every few months. we made the recommended changes (from ACK) to our installation, but still have the issue. ACK insist it's our problem.
 
Check your transponder installation, including coax condition (no kinks, crushing) and antenna bonding.

Old avionics guys here ( Wulfsberg., ya I’m old) I had an aircraft I was gonna take over the pond (brand new early Encore+). We kept getting random ELT triggers. Duncan replaced everything related to the ELT, including coax. Test flight climbing out off KSLC, something triggered the ELT. I had thought about other similar Xmitting items on the aircraft that could cause a RF trigger; radios, DME, TCAS, XPDR. Hmmm. XPDR? Switched to number 2 XPDR, no more false triggers.

It appeared the number 1 XPDR coax had been kinked slightly during install, (crushed the dielectric?), stray high power RF was leaking out.
 
We finished our 3rd RV build this last November and in the past 5 months our ACK ELT-04 406mhz has gone off 3 times in our hangar while stationary.
I've received calls from SAR and I've called ACK technologies to find an answer. They said they haven't received complaints of this nature and to send it in if I want them to look at it. I've rechecked the installation, batteries and static suppressor near the antenna. I've installed ELT's in the past 4 airplanes we've built, this is the first with a GPS input.

Tonight I was dusting off our airplane with a "California duster" dusting mop and my ELT went off AGAIN! I noticed static build up while dusting.

Has this happened to anyone else?
Thanks for any input on this.
Tom
Yes this is very common for this ELT. I have spoke to ACK about the problem and there answer its "It must be an installation problem". I have even filed a faulty equipment report with the FAA about this issue. I did find a fix, however. I wrap the entire orange unit in heavy duty aluminum foil. Then clamp the metal straps around it to provide a solid ground. This creates a shielding for the unit. Sounds strange, but I have not had a false activation since and I have been doing this for 5 years..
 
As I have mentioned before, the ACK E-04 has a big 'ol "X" in the Radiated Susceptibility category for environmental testing. I know most of you don't really pay attention to that stuff because "hey, it's TSO'd!". Well, I live in that world, and that is a huge red flag on this box. That either means that they didn't test for RS, or they did and didn't like the result.
I have read that one gent wrapped his ACK in aluminum foil and that helped. Do what ya gotta do. ( LOL, Bill ^^^ has entered the chat! )

If you are in the market for a new ELT, I suggest that you pay a few more dollars and get a quality product. I fly with an Artex because I know the folks that design and build them. They are pros.
 
As I have mentioned before, the ACK E-04 has a big 'ol "X" in the Radiated Susceptibility category for environmental testing. I know most of you don't really pay attention to that stuff because "hey, it's TSO'd!". Well, I live in that world, and that is a huge red flag on this box. That either means that they didn't test for RS, or they did and didn't like the result.
Yes, I was surprised to see this in the documentation after I installed mine - certainly not what I'd expected. For something that's supposed to be crash-proof you'd think they would have made it relatively EMI-proof also.
 
Is there something inherent to 406 ELTs that necessitates unusual and extremely expensive proprietary batteries? My jurassic 121.5 ELT specifies Duracell MN1300 batteries - the ubiquitous D cell.
 
Is there something inherent to 406 ELTs that necessitates unusual and extremely expensive proprietary batteries? My jurassic 121.5 ELT specifies Duracell MN1300 batteries - the ubiquitous D cell.
Going from memory, the expensive batteries are a result of the way the FAA wrote the TSO.

As an aircraft owner with two or more seats, I am required to use a TSO'ed ELT. The manufacturers say that to keep the TSO on the ELT valid, we have to use the TSO battery pack they sell at a huge mark up. Yes the battery pack is almost three times the price of the cost of the batteries that they use.
 
This brand is a boat anchor. Worse than a boat anchor actually. At least a boat anchor doesn't incessantly false alarm search and rescue. I replaced mine with an Artex and never looked back. I refuse to even resell this POS since I know it will false alarm on the new owner.
 
I had the same issue with my ACK 9 years ago. I sent it back twice, and the company gave it a clean bill of health both times. But they did "something" to it (like a "refresh" or something; I forget) and it never happened again. But I would likely not by anther ACK device for my current project.
 
I have an ACK E-04 ELT with about 1445 Hobbs Hours on it. No false alarms so far.

i-V6knJj9.jpg
 
Did you find any kind of solution? Our ACK ELT goes off by itself every few months. we made the recommended changes (from ACK) to our installation, but still have the issue. ACK insist it's our problem.
Please tell ACK it is also my problem. I used to think my faulty panel switch was the issue, but now I have also had it go off in my hangar when nobody was even near the thing. The ACK is a total and complete POS.
 
I had this happen to my ACK on three occaisions. Got to know the guys at Scott AFB well. Thinking static, I wrapped it up in aluminum foil and it has not gone off again in over two years. So far, so good.
 
I had one in my radio transparent Glasair for 5 years with out a single failure. Installed one in my -10 and it went off twice in 6 months. A few months later the one in my Glasair went off. All not moving and in the hangar. They are both now sitting on a shelf with batteries removed and that seems to have fixed it. Replaced with Artex 345s, the bolt pattern matched but I did need to run a new wire back to front to replace the phone wire.

Derek
 
Refresh my memory, but wasn't it a few years ago (2015 era I think) the collective braintrust was dumping on Artex, especially for its price compared to quality, and saying ACK was the better model to go with?

I've only had one time my ACK has gone off uncontrolled, and I think it was more from the bad attempted landing at Daytona Beach a few years ago, trying to get down in gusty conditions before an afternoon storm rolled in. My only ongoing issue is it seems my audio alerter never works, even after replacing the battery /and/ the alerter unit itself. Never have figured that one out yet.
 
Refresh my memory, but wasn't it a few years ago (2015 era I think) the collective braintrust was dumping on Artex, especially for its price compared to quality, and saying ACK was the better model to go with?

I've only had one time my ACK has gone off uncontrolled, and I think it was more from the bad attempted landing at Daytona Beach a few years ago, trying to get down in gusty conditions before an afternoon storm rolled in. My only ongoing issue is it seems my audio alerter never works, even after replacing the battery /and/ the alerter unit itself. Never have figured that one out yet.
Are you sure the panel switch isn’t messed up in some way? Mine failed for no apparent reason.
 
Are you sure the panel switch isn’t messed up in some way? Mine failed for no apparent reason.
That's my next stop in the chain. The lights are fine, the buttons are fine, everything works as expected when I do a top of the hour test. But it's the next thing to try replacing.
 
Our club had the E-04 activate a couple of times while on the ground and in the hanger. Turns out the Remote Panel battery has gone bad. Replaced and all is well.
 
Refresh my memory, but wasn't it a few years ago (2015 era I think) the collective braintrust was dumping on Artex, especially for its price compared to quality, and saying ACK was the better model to go with?

I've only had one time my ACK has gone off uncontrolled, and I think it was more from the bad attempted landing at Daytona Beach a few years ago, trying to get down in gusty conditions before an afternoon storm rolled in. My only ongoing issue is it seems my audio alerter never works, even after replacing the battery /and/ the alerter unit itself. Never have figured that one out yet.
Artex has gone through some ownership and senior management changes. Their ME406 product had significant issues with its G-switch (ask me how I know - their handling of the multiple failures of my ME406 is one of the reasons I have, in the past, been very outspoken about both the company and their product. Times have changed, the company has changed, and their product has changed. The 345 is one generation newer than the ME406 and, so far, doesn't seem to suffer from that same G-switch bugaboo.

For the record, I've never suggested the ACK was the better model. In fact I've always dissed it for a number of reasons, including its use of telephone wire which has absolutely no place in an airplane, let alone in an emergency/survival system. A system which requires multiple batteries to function is, in my experienced opinion, not desirable in General Aviation aircraft. The need for a static suppressor on the antenna coax is yet more evidence of an inadequate design.

The historical recommendations in favor of the ACK product have almost uniquely been based on the unit's price point. Ya get what ya pay for.
 
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