Veetail88

Veetail88

Well Known Member
I'm posting this to let folks know about a design flaw in the Garmin 240 audio panel that anyone thinking about buying one should know about.

First and foremost, I want to say that obviously, Garmin is a great company and they provide fantastic products, just that this one is a problem that shouldn't be.

When installing the unit, they want you to add a switch to disable one channel if you are not using stereo headsets. Using a mono headset with this enabled can/will damage the unit by blowing an internal fuse.

This point is unarguable. The folks at Garmin know about it and document it in the installation manual.

So they put a product on the market that can be damaged if you accidently leave a switch in the wrong position? Really? So if my GIB accidently bumps the switch back there the unit quits working?

Of course they'll fix it for you, for a price, AND it isn't going to happen in a day or two.

I intentionally purchased all Garmin equipment for my radio stack as I knew them to produce great equipment and I wanted as much uniformity as possible. I WILL however say that I most certainly would have gone with someone elses audio panel had I known of this previously.

I do have first hand knowledge of the problem as my own unit blinked out a few weeks ago. Fortunately, ApacheJoe had tracked down a fix which I successfully applied. See this thread,
http://www.vansairforce.com/community/showthread.php?p=729836#post729836

So, Garmin guys, how about a permanent factory fix for this and a recall on the units?
 
Garmin is a gps company, and they make great gps units, which is a good thing since they have no competition for tso'd boxes.
Their SL30 is also a great nav/com, but Garmin didn't design it - Apollo did.
Their audio panels have always had problems. The earliest ones had insufficient gain for the music. And then the fix introduced so much background hiss that you could hear it- in an airplane with the engine running.

[ed. Hey, Bob. I get it....you're not a fan of some Garmin products. I deleted the text in your reply that could make a lawyer reading this raise their eyebrow. Nice and civil, and with documented, verifiable data, OK? Thank you, dr]
 
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Music

I have the 240 audio panel and have NEVER heard the XM or iPod. I do hear ATC fine though:).
There was a fix for that, but Dan took his website off the net and so went the fix for the music. Garmin knows how to do it too, but isn't sharing. I still love the audio panel, but I know why PS audio has customers.
 
I believe Dan had a 340, not a 240. I didn't see any fix on his CD.

I think one of his probs was intercom activity muted the music, which he had a fix for, but neither he nor "passenger" could hear Music2.
 
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potential workaround

I don't own this unit (& wouldn't, given the info provided), but might be able to offer an easy workaround to avoid the problem.

*IF* the unit has decent output levels, try this: on the output pin for each channel, insert a 1/2 watt resistor with any convenient value between 400 & 700 ohms. This means:

output pin>--resistor-->wire to headset earphone

This should result it an approximate 3dB reduction in effective power (should be unnoticed in normal operation). But it will mean that the output section of the unit will never see a lower impedance (heavier load) than your chosen resistor value, which is roughly the impedance of most a/c headsets.

(A properly designed unit for this application would have these series resistors inside, if the output section can't tolerate a shorted output.)

FWIW,

Charlie
(audio tech with design experience in a prior life)
 
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