G3X Touch Display Failure Rate?

[Dad's RV-10]

I've got two non-touch 7" screens (GDU-370/375). At some point down the road, I'll likely upgrade to Touch.

Weighing the pros and cons of replacing the two screens with two 7" Touch screens vs. a single 10.6" Touch screen.

The benefit of keeping two 7" screens appears to be additional serial ports and screen redundancy. The benefit of a single 10.6" screen appears to be greater overall display real estate.

If choosing to consolidate to a single 10.6" screen, what's the likelihood of an actual display failure? Has anyone here had a Touch screen fail in flight?

There's a Dynon D6 in the plane that would likely be replaced with a G5 when upgrading to Touch.

 

[DerekS]

I took a slightly different thinking. I have two 10", and a G5 in my -10 but the second 10" is way over on the right, basically a co-pilot screen.

Stuff can fail for a number of reasons. Since you can't assume a zero failure rate, the actual failure rate doesn't really matter, you still need to plan for it. I can confirm they can fail . That said, the vast majority of your flying will be with everything working.

If the PFD goes dark the G5 gives me all I need to fly speeds and keep the airplane the right side up. I put the G5 right next to the 10" so its very close to where you eyes want to go and a natural transition

I have a IFR navigator that works for navigation, but could use an Ipad or a cell phone. Nothing really that would up my stress levels.

If the timing of the failure is particularly bad, I can also fly an approach with the G5, which I preferred to use than looking cross panel at the 10"

You would lose the engine instruments which are not needed for flight, which would make the decision about a ferry flight a bit more complex, but they aren't needed to find a place to put down. If that bothers you, it would push you two 7", or a 7" on the right.

I really prefer the extra space the 10" provides and the less total space lost to the "frames" around the 7" screens, so even if I didn't have the 10" on the right, I'd still put one on the left as long as I had the G5 as a backup.

Derek

 

[bmellis11]

I can't speak to display failure and there are probably no publicly available stats on that. Garmin recommends (and I believe it is required for certified aircraft) that you have a G5 for backup and redundancy over two G3X screens because the G5 has a separate ADAHRS and dissimilar architecture. With two G3Xs, you may have a system error that kills both G3Xs at the same time since they are the same type of device, but shouldn't kill the G5 because of its different architecture.

 

[Ed_Wischmeyer]

I took a slightly different thinking. I have two 10", and a G5 in my -10 but the second 10" is way over on the right, basically a co-pilot screen.

Stuff can fail for a number of reasons. Since you can't assume a zero failure rate, the actual failure rate doesn't really matter, you still need to plan for it. I can confirm they can fail . That said, the vast majority of your flying will be with everything working.

If the PFD goes dark the G5 gives me all I need to fly speeds and keep the airplane the right side up. I put the G5 right next to the 10" so its very close to where you eyes want to go and a natural transition

I have a IFR navigator that works for navigation, but could use an Ipad or a cell phone. Nothing really that would up my stress levels.

If the timing of the failure is particularly bad, I can also fly an approach with the G5, which I preferred to use than looking cross panel at the 10"

You would lose the engine instruments which are not needed for flight, which would make the decision about a ferry flight a bit more complex, but they aren't needed to find a place to put down. If that bothers you, it would push you two 7", or a 7" on the right.

I really prefer the extra space the 10" provides and the less total space lost to the "frames" around the 7" screens, so even if I didn't have the 10" on the right, I'd still put one on the left as long as I had the G5 as a backup.

Derek

With the Garmin G3X Touch, you can have engine instruments on both sides. And if the left screen fails, the right screen goes into reversionary mode and shows everything that was on the left screen.

And, if you physically move the screens toward the center and run them both in split screen mode, you can get MFD and PFD functionality on both screens, from both seats. After all, in full screen mode, the center half has most of the information.

That’s more or less what I do.

 

[Walt]

2 is better than 1, but 3 is even better!

Below you can see the G5 has been replaced with the GI275...,
I like that the 275 is truly independent of the G3X, it talks to the G3X via 232 but it's not on the CAN bus, certified AHRS.
Data is shared from the 750 via ethernet port.
So with dual GSU25's and the 275 I feel pretty comfortable with backups.
The 275 display is a thing of beauty!

 

[chaskuss]

Walt either does heavy IFR or owns stock in Garmin!

 

[Ed_Wischmeyer]

Methinks there's a better way, like I was talking about. Look at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1ylNkG1x1A, a Garmin training video, and check out the demo cockpit shown before the video starts. Including the GTN750, they've got five screens, plus space-saving, expandable engine instruments.

They're showing the panel with only one set of engine instruments, but you can have engine instruments on each screen, individually set to left or right side.

On the MFD in split window mode, one half can be any of the screens, and the other is limited to three: map, flight instruments, and something else (I'm not in the hangar at the moment).

Frankly, I'd love to replace the 650 with a 750, and use the voice recognition audio panel, but that would require a whole heap of installation work. On the other hand, I prefer what I've got now to any certified airplane panel I've seen.

 

[Dad's RV-10]

2 is better than 1, but 3 is even better!

Can you elaborate on why you feel that two is better than one? That's really what I was asking in my OP.

Below you can see the G5 has been replaced with the GI275...,
I like that the 275 is truly independent of the G3X, it talks to the G3X via 232 but it's not on the CAN bus, certified AHRS.
Data is shared from the 750 via ethernet port.
So with dual GSU25's and the 275 I feel pretty comfortable with backups.
The 275 display is a thing of beauty!

Right now I have a single GSU25. Assuming I stay with one GSU25, can you explain why you feel that the 275 is better than the G5? You wrote "the 275 is truly independent of the G3X" but what exactly is gained by having 275 vs. the same setup with the G5?

Some of the other comments above are informative but are more aligned with designing a panel from scratch. I'm asking about upgrading two 7" non-touch displays to either two 7" Touch displays vs. a single 10.6" Touch display.

 

[KeithB]

Walt either does heavy IFR or owns stock in Garmin!

I think this might be “both”.

 

[Walt]

Can you elaborate on why you feel that two is better than one? That's really what I was asking in my OP.

Well that's easy, because electronics do fail, no such thing as 100% bulletproof.

Right now I have a single GSU25. Assuming I stay with one GSU25, can you explain why you feel that the 275 is better than the G5? You wrote "the 275 is truly independent of the G3X" but what exactly is gained by having 275 vs. the same setup with the G5?

Some of the other comments above are informative but are more aligned with designing a panel from scratch. I'm asking about upgrading two 7" non-touch displays to either two 7" Touch displays vs. a single 10.6" Touch display.

With just 2 sources of attitude, if one AHRS soft fails you will not know which one is correct, so a tie breaker is needed IMO if you actually intend to fly IFR (my personal limitations).

I like that the 275 is not on the CAN bus and has been rigorously tested and certified.
The CAN bus is great, but faults can cause unexpected problems, the 232 and HSDB interface totally isolate the 275 from the G3X CAN bus.