[RV6_flyer]

How does your EFIS affect your night vision? What do you do to adjust the brightness of your EFIS for night flight? Is there one adjustment to adjust everything in your cockpit to the correct night brightness?

Please let us know which brand you are using for the above questions.

 

[Ironflight]

In both the -8 (GRT EFIS) and the -3 (G3X), I essentially turn the brightness almost all the way down for truly dark night flying.

 

[Dynon]

A Dynon SkyView goes from 1350 nits all the way down to 0.2 nits. A D100/D10 goes down to about 0.4 nits.

These dim levels require you to be in a dark room for a few minutes to even tell if they are on. We got these requirements from Boeing who has a 0.4 nit spec for night flight.

In our experience, you need to go this dim for something to work for real night flight. At one point the D10 "only" went down to 0.8 nits and we got some complaints. It's easy to build a really bright screen that also blinds you at night. In our opinion, if in a lit room you can still see the screen at all when it's all the way dim, it's way too bright to be used on a dark night in the middle of nowhere.

The D10/D100 must be manually dimmed unless you have an HS34 or an AP74. SkyView has a light sensor built in and can be manually as well. In both cases, if you have multiple screens, adjusting one screen adjusts them all at the same time. It is possible to use an output from the SkyView to dim other cockpit equipment in tandem.

 

[Wayne Gillispie]

Adjust GRT, Dynon D6, Garmin 430w and G327 buttons manually, everything else is automatic. Cover LED warning lights with strip of window tint/velcro buttons.

 

[jbagley]

As an electronics hobbyist, i'm curious, where do you (Dynon, AFS, etc..) source your screens? Or is this a trade secret? I've played with a few over-the-counter screens designed for automotive applications, but they aren't anything near the quality of the Dynon or AFS screens.

 

[BobTurner]

GRT screens I have wired to a dimmer, along with autopilot lights. They can be controlled with on screen buttons if you want to go that route.
D6 controlled with its buttons. Another dimmer for glare shield lighting.
I let the other avionics set themselves with their photocells.

 

[Dynon]

Jbagley,
Dynon's screens are consumer screens out of netbooks, but they are custom brightened and anti-glare coated, so they are not commercially available in the way you see them in a SkyView

The dimming circuit we use to get both the brightness and dim levels we have is a totally custom circuit that I've never seen in any commercial LCD screen. Most LCD's have maybe 100:1 dimming ratios, while you need 2000:1 for avionics.

 

[scard]

In both the -8 (GRT EFIS) and the -3 (G3X), I essentially turn the brightness almost all the way down for truly dark night flying.

...And it is still way too darn bright on the GRT products (H1 WS & HX) in real darkness. I've resorted to covering displays with a piece of paper at night on a number of occasions as apparently they are really difficult to dim low enough and still have a stable image.

 

[Wayne Gillispie]

I have not had any problem with the HX's. You can always put a piece of windoow tinting over them temporarily. How much do most of us fly in pitch black darkness?

 

[DCat22]

In our experience, you need to go this dim for something to work for real night flight.

+1

In the rentals I fly I always carry post-it notes to mute the inevitable non-dimmable (or poorly dimmed) lights that become blinding beacons at night. I keep the steam gauges just visible... And then you can see outside so much better, what was once "just black".

Same thing driving IMO. My car has black electrical tape in a few key spots for the same reason. Why in the world do I need a bright green non-dimmable light to tell me my headlights are on?!

 

[rvsxer]

I have my 2 G3X GDU's, 2 backup instruments and wet compass on one Nuckolls (now B&C) dimmer. Radio stack and floods on 2 more. One of the great things about the G3X system is the ability to profile the screen lighting to match other items on the same dimmer. With my control knob "off" the screens go full bright for day, the other instrument lighting is off. A slight twist starts the G3X at minimum and then up from there. Indicator lights can be dimmed with a resistor and a relay connected to the nav light power (unless you use nav lights all the time).