These kinds of systems usually have hardware-level watchdogs that reboot the software if things aren't running right.
Yours it would seem, worked at first (the first few reboots you noticed), but the failure mode was persistent ... would suggest a hardware issue I would think, not software ... or an error condition (Bad data on the bus?) that persisted and the system wasn't handling correctly.
The EFIS system you have at your day job is developed to incredibly exacting standards ... and comes along with a price to match. Dynon (and others like them) do follow some of those standards, but you can only go so far all the while trying to maintain the right price point ...
It is hard to know who sells the hardware/software that you think might best meet your standards, because they won't usually tell you what the architecture is (and even if they told you, you'd have to know how to interpret that, which would be tough for someone without some degree of expertise and skills in that world).
MGL is somewhat more open with their design and architecture ... they publish their CAN-Bus specs for instance ... but again, doesn't mean much.
You could try to mine the VAF archives to see whether a particular EFIS shows up more/less often in terms of complaints regarding technical issues in flight!
JF,
Good points, all, and I agree with you.
Finding the right balance on price vs performance is the tightrope these manufacturers have to walk, and Dynon delivers a huge amount of bang for the buck, no question there.
But, when issues crop up, the way info is disseminated about the problem seems to be somewhat questionable in the experimental community, frankly.
Maybe I'm just being high maintenance, but with this type of failure mode I would have expected some kind of "push" notification from Dynon about it. An email, or something similar. I made sure Dynon had my contact info after I bought the aircraft, and I get their newsletters, etc. I'm in the database already! Seems it would be easy to give folks a heads up, and I think it's expected in today's business climate.
Is it on me to check for updates? Sure!
But...life can happen, and it may not always be possible to do so. What then?
It mirrors my gripe about the way the latest service bulletin from Van's was issued-just posted up on their website, on a Friday to boot. I believe the seriousness of action to be taken (no fly if cracks discovered) warranted more of a response from Van's than that.
That doesn't take away that Van's makes a good product that I love using.
But, safety-sensitive info needs to rapidly be put into the end-users hands by the best method possible-that just seems like good business to me.
So..I guess I don't get it.
Thanks for chiming in,
Rob