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sneedrv-6

Well Known Member
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
 
#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....
 
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.
 
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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
 
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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!
 
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Thanks Steve!

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
 
g3xpert said:
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.
Click to expand...

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.
 
Robert Anglin said:
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
Click to expand...

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
 
RV7AJeremy said:
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.
Click to expand...

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
 
I'll just add my 2 cents worth here by copying an email that I sent to Garmin a few weeks ago regarding the autopilot altitude "feature". I would REALLY like to see an improvement in this area of the system.

***

Thanks for the response. Let me start by saying that the #1 reason I bought Garmin over the competition after visiting Oshkosh last year was that Garmin has done a GREAT job competing in the GA market on every front..... speed of innovation, product, and most of all exceptional customer service. To me that's amazing for a company like Garmin! You guys have shown that you have the flexibility to vastly improve on the functionality of Garmin's certificated avionics with your GA products.

My new panel has a pair of G3X Touch GDUs, a GTN 650, SL30, GTX330ES and a TruTrak Sorcerer autopilot (you can see before and after pictures of the panel on the VAF forum here.) I'm not new to TAA aircraft or coupled autopilots. Most of my flying has been behind the G1000 in my previous Bonanza G36 and a C172, GRT, and most recently Chelton EFISs so I'm not a rookie when it comes to glass panels, integrated autopilots and their functionality.

Coming from a G1000 background I completely understand that Garmin is following the logic and procedures from G1000 in the G3X with the AP vertical speed interface. Let's face it..... compared to the G3X the G1000 has a terrible user interface (IMO of course) and many of the ways that it functions are very unintuitive, overly complicated and simply aren't logical. Garmin's GA products must (and in many, many cases have) move past the limitations of the G1000.

While I understand the "pros" of not "chasing the altitude bug", the cons FAR outweigh the pros, and the cons can be easily overcome as they have been with some of your competitor's products. Consider the following. Let's talk about simply descending to a designated altitude in IFR where the autopilot is the most critical. Then I'll address the VNAV (VFR) profiles.

ALTITUDE SELECT - IFR

1. I'm being vectored for an ILS approach in turbulence at 7000 ft. and I receive the following clearance.... "84VC, turn left heading 230, descend and maintain 5000 ft."

I repeat the clearance then turn the heading bug to 230. Very easy. The aircraft starts to turn to 230 (hmmmm. I didn't have to tell it the rate of turn because that's a default.... that's good!.) Then I have to set the altitude....

a) with the GRT and Chelton EFIS I simply press and ALT button to indicate that I'm changing altitude, then turn the knob to adjust the altitude bug to 5000 (which I can do almost without looking) and that's it. With AFS it's even easier.... I just change the altitude bug.

I understand the Dynon forces the pilot to also select not only the altitude, but also the vertical speed each time an altitude change is needed. With all due respect, I think both Garmin and Dynon should rethink this logic. What now takes 5 steps....touching the screen in turbulence three times, twisting knobs twice and covering the approach plate could be replaced by simply turning the left knob.

OR....

b) With the G3X Touch (the G1000 with the GFC700 is is almost as bad but with its physical buttons it's a little easier in turbulence than trying to touch the right position on a touch screen)

i) TURN the altitude knob to set the altitude

ii) while bouncing around, TOUCH the AP box on the screen (not easy in turbulence)

iii) TOUCH VS (not easy in turbulence)

NOTE - AS SOON AS I DO THIS THE AP INTERFACE COVERS THE APPROACH PLATE THAT I'M SUPPOSED TO BE VIEWING!

iv) TWIST the right knob to set the vertical speed while watching the really small vertical speed numbers (Note.... my DEFAULT vertical speeds RARELY change, especially if I'm in IFR conditions!)

v) TOUCH somewhere else on the screen to dismiss the AP box so you can see your original screen

Items ii-v are not only time consuming in a critical time, they also require you to take your eyes off of the flight instruments and distract you from the other things you need to be thinking about. When the controller tells you to change your altitude, in single pilot IFR your should literally be able to do so with your eyes closed if you have a good autopilot and user interface on your EFIS!

With the G1000 with the GFC700 for single pilot IFR this is marginally better due to the physical push buttons but it's still unnecessarily complex, distracting and time consuming. Even with the physical buttons I'd argue that there's still a LOT of "monkey motion" involved simply to change altitudes.

These "set the altitude then set the vertical speed or airspeed before anything happens" procedures were no doubt conceived in cockpits having the luxury of two pilots. Using a touch screen, IMO for IFR in any type of turbulence this renders the G3X Touch virtually useless. At best it's a distraction and I'm forced to turn off the autopilot when I need it most to avoid having to go through steps ii-v above each time I get an altitude change.

VNAV (VFR)

Now let's talk about VNAV..... Let's refer to the video that you referenced earlier here.

The G3X Touch follows the G1000 / GFC700 steps which arw unintuitive, confusing and overly complicated. These steps are.....

i) Set up a VNAV profile and enter into the G3X Touch (or G1000) everything it needs for the descent (my destination altitude, location and how fast I want to descend to get there.)

ii) BUT, I have to set my VNAV altitude BELOW where I really want to be, THEN set my altitude bug to where I ACTUALLY want to be

iii) Then, remember to arm the VNAV profile, THEN arm the VNAV profile.

Why does this need to be so confusing and time consuming to setup (other than that's the way that the G1000 works???) To me this is WAY overly complicated considering that you've already entered everything you need for your VNAV descent.

Why not instead...

i) create a VNAV profile and load it from the same screen (not unlike loading an arrival procedure.)

ii) within x miles or minutes (say 3 miles or minutes, or even better, user defined times or miles) have the G3X prompt "VNAV Profile - 500ft per minute descent to 1000 ft AGL 3 miles before KGSP - Activate - Cancel?" If you activate, let it change the desired altitude to whatever you've already put in the VNAV, and use the vertical speed that you've also already entered.

SUGGESTIONS RECAP -

1. Vertical Speed Default - Give us the ability to set our default ascending and descending vertical speeds (or even just one speed would be fine.) When we twist the altitude knob, use those defaults. In the rare instance that we want to change them for a particular approach, we can do so from the AP interface. Alternately, just let us touch the vertical speed bar to set one default vertical speed, and if someone wants it to work like it does now they could set their default speed to 0. Want to bet how many would set their vertical speed to 0?

2. VNAV - Let the VNAV announce that it's nearing it's activation point, and if we choose to activate let it automatically set the vertical speed and the destination altitude to what we've already entered. One click on the screen should be all that's required.

Thanks for your consideration. I look forward to the innovations that your team incorporates into your GA products in the future, and I wish you the very best. If I can be of any help, including beta testing, please don't hesitate to contact me. Keep up the good work!

Best regards,

Steve Jarrell
***
 
Altitude Functionality

I personally like the present G3X altitude functionality on the autopilot. Particularly during an approach. If I'm being vectored on an approach that starts at 1700', with missed approach instructions to climb runway heading to 2000', I can do the following:

Use the autopilot to descend to 1700'.
Once at 1700, I can change my altitude bug to 2000' in preparation for the missed approach
With the current logic, the autopilot will not "chase" the change to 2000'
I can then couple to the to the approach.
I can descend through the approach, and should I go missed, I can just use my TOGA switch, and when I have time set a VS back to the preselect 2000'
 
sjarrell said:
I understand the Dynon forces the pilot to also select not only the altitude, but also the vertical speed each time an altitude change is needed. With all due respect, I think both Garmin and Dynon should rethink this logic. What now takes 5 steps....touching the screen in turbulence three times, twisting knobs twice and covering the approach plate could be replaced by simply turning the left knob.
Click to expand...

With the SkyView Autopilot, the workflow depends how you're using it. First, there's a simplified mode that omits some of the more IFR-centric scenarios like the capability to pre-select an altitude and the ability to capture an approach. But, it does let you spin in either a GPS ground TRK or new altitude with the ALT knob and you're off at whatever the default vertical speed is (climb/descent are independently-selectable).

If you're using expert mode - which you would if you either have the SV-AP-PANEL and/or want to shoot approaches - you do need to select the altitude and THEN command the change via a nose up/down command (essentially a VS change). One way we've tried to shorten this process is by have having default climb and descent vertical speeds that take effect upon the first press of NOSE UP / NOSE DOWN. Leave them set at 100fpm and you'd need to press the button a few times to get what you're after. But, set the defaults to say 500fpm, and the first press of either button will jump the VS to that value (subsequent presses adjust by the hundreds). So, expert mode well-configured takes a spin of the alt knob and a single button press on nose up or nose down to start an altitude change. We do this so that people that want to set up their next target - perhaps for a step-down or a missed approach - can do that as the poster avionicsr above describes.

I definitely realize that what some of you would like to see is something in the middle of our two modes: We're a little hesitant to create too many UI/UX permutations and options: subdle things start to break in the workflows. But we definitely listen to the feedback, and this isn't the first time this wish has been voiced. Thanks for the thoughts.

Michael Schofield
Marketing Manager
Dynon Avionics
 
avionicsr said:
.....
With the current logic, the autopilot will not "chase" the change to 2000'
I can then couple to the to the approach.
I can descend through the approach, and should I go missed, I can just use my TOGA switch, and when I have time set a VS back to the preselect 2000'
Click to expand...

I understand completely, however, wouldn't it make sense to have a default climb and descent vertical speed that you could set, and when you press the VS button if the altitude that you have selected is higher than your present position seed the speed with your default climb speed, and if it's lower seed it with your default descent speed?

From Dynon's previous post that seems to be what they've done with their nose up or nose down function. No reason that it couldn't be done for both nose up/down and VS. My point is that 99% of the time I use the same climb and descent speeds and I shouldn't have to re-select them every time I change altitudes with the autopilot whether I'm using the "delayed" ascent or descent or "chasing the altitude bug."

Best regards,
 
I've been flying behind the G3X (non touch) for a year now. The autopilot operation is second nature after you've used it a couple times. Muscle memory kicks in and you don't really think about it anymore. No complaints here.
 
From an IFR standpoint I would not like "chasing the bug" I like to preselect altitudes then tell it how I want to get there either vnav or vs. It would be nice if the vs was set at 500 ftpm bc most of the time that's what it is. Then also you adjust after by just 1 or 2 clicks if you wanted 600 or 700ftpm.
 
Brantel,

What do you mean by:

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


How do you get into the config for the flight log? Not sure what you mean by timing?
 
sneedrv-6 said:
Brantel,

What do you mean by:

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


How do you get into the config for the flight log? Not sure what you mean by timing?
Click to expand...

Timing as in tach time vs Hobbs time vs flight time. There are config settings for the engine that determins how tach time is totaled.
 
sneedrv-6 said:
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.
Click to expand...

Looks like TeamX heard your request:

Changes made from version 3.50 to 3.60:
SNIP
Add import/export options to user waypoint list page
SNIP
 
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