Need help on IFD 540 and Aspen error/problems possibly from ADS-B In

[Oldguy]

Let's try this again. See below, please.

Edited January 31, 2021 by Oldguy
Pics didn't come through.

[carusoam]

@Oldguy John, your pics didn’t come through...

Blank space holders are standing in their places... (on my iPad...)

Glad you are feeling better...

and tail winds both ways... somebody important was throwing you a bone!   

Best regards,

-a-

[ZuluZulu]

12 minutes ago, carusoam said:

@Oldguy John, your pics didn’t come through...

Blank space holders are standing in their places... (on my iPad...)

Glad you are feeling better...

and tail winds both ways... somebody important was throwing you a bone!   

Best regards,

-a-

Same here, no joy on a MacBook Pro.

[vorlon1]

or in Windoze...

[Oldguy]

23 hours ago, Oldguy said:

 

Let's try this again.

Finally got a good trip in with my new avionics after getting the plane back in early December. I got sick a week after I got it back, and am just now feeling well enough to fly. So another Mooney pilot friend and I made a run down to Lakeland Friday and back today, and the following things showed up. I did some looking, but I can't find anything about what the IFD 540 and the Aspen MAX PFD were presenting. I was hoping some of you who have experience with one or both of these products would point me the right direction. Here is the error message on the IFD 540:

 

And here is what the Aspen PFD would show.

 

Followed a few seconds later by this (which is how the display looked the majority of the time).

 

I am thinking there is a problem with my ADS-B In (FreeFlight) getting the GPS signal it needs to tag everything correctly for the IFD and the Aspen, but that is just a wild stab in the dark.  I could not find anything in the Avidyne manual or the Aspen documentation showing these issues. I did find the "TFC" with the line through it and the "REGNL:" tags and the explanation about what each means, but I think they are more the result of something rather than the cause.

As a side note, my flights had no problems with ATC seeing me at the correct location and altitude down and back. The transponder is an AXP 322 and ADS-B In is from a FreeFlight FDL-978. Both the AXP and the FDL get GPS position from the IFD. The IFD did show traffic from time to time, but it would vanish and reappear with no apparent correlation to anything.

Obviously the first picture  was taken at a different time than the last two, but both situations kept occurring throughout the flights. 

Any help is greatly appreciated. I would love for it to be something simple, like a config parameter that got messed up, but it never seems to be the case with avionics, does it?

TIA

And, yes, it was sweet having a 20+ knot tailwind going down yesterday and a 6 knot tailwind coming back today. Usually just the opposite.

 

[Cruiser]

Since this is your first flight I will assume this has never worked correctly before. 

The Traffic issue is well known but unclear of the cause. Avidyne says it is failure in the ADS-B system. I see this failure multiple times on every flight. Something about the aircraft ID data being cut out of the datastream. 

The ADS-B position invalid is just telling you that the transponder is not getting a valid GPS signal. If you did an FAA ADS-B test report I am certain it would fail. https://adsbperformance.faa.gov/PAPRRequest.aspx

You show two different issues on the Aspens. On the PFD it shows your Nav source and flight plan data is from GPS1 and is green so it should be valid.

but on the MFD you have a yellow RSM GPS warning which means the GPS data is invalid. !!

Sounds like a trip back to the avionics shop to me. 

[carusoam]

Pics are visible!

-a-

[Oldguy]

16 hours ago, Cruiser said:

Since this is your first flight I will assume this has never worked correctly before. 

The Traffic issue is well known but unclear of the cause. Avidyne says it is failure in the ADS-B system. I see this failure multiple times on every flight. Something about the aircraft ID data being cut out of the datastream. 

The ADS-B position invalid is just telling you that the transponder is not getting a valid GPS signal. If you did an FAA ADS-B test report I am certain it would fail. https://adsbperformance.faa.gov/PAPRRequest.aspx

You show two different issues on the Aspens. On the PFD it shows your Nav source and flight plan data is from GPS1 and is green so it should be valid.

but on the MFD you have a yellow RSM GPS warning which means the GPS data is invalid. !!

Sounds like a trip back to the avionics shop to me. 

Tom, thanks for the diagnostics. I was hoping someone with a bunch of Aspen knowledge and experience would see this. Unfortunately, you have verified what I felt the solution would be - back to the shop.

I will check out the FAA report for this trip and see what shows up. One thing that confused me when I looked at the MFD, in the upper left corner, it shows GPS1 in green. Any idea what the divergence versus the RSM GPS indicator further down the screen could mean?

Thanks again!

[Marauder]

Tom, thanks for the diagnostics. I was hoping someone with a bunch of Aspen knowledge and experience would see this. Unfortunately, you have verified what I felt the solution would be - back to the shop.
I will check out the FAA report for this trip and see what shows up. One thing that confused me when I looked at the MFD, in the upper left corner, it shows GPS1 in green. Any idea what the divergence versus the RSM GPS indicator further down the screen could mean?
Thanks again!

The Aspen receives it’s GPS signal from your Avidyne. It looks like your PFD is receiving the Avidyne GPS signal but the MFD is not and hence the “RSM GPS” message. Your Aspen 2000 has 1 GPS antenna built into the PFD RSM. I have seen some shops install dual GPS RSMs for each Aspen, but the typical installation is just one.

Since your MFD is not seeing the Avidyne GPS signal, it is using the emergency RSM GPS for position. Something is not wired correctly or a connection has been broken.

The top of the MFD is showing the navigation information from the PFD. Have you tried to go into reversion mode to see what happens?

I would give Aspen a call and just confirm how everything is supposed to work.

Does your Aspens ever show normal displays like this?



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

[Oldguy]

9 minutes ago, Marauder said:

 

The Aspen receives it’s GPS signal from your Avidyne. It looks like your PFD is receiving the Avidyne GPS signal but the MFD is not and hence the “RSM GPS” message. Your Aspen 2000 has 1 GPS antenna built into the PFD RSM. I have seen some shops install dual GPS RSMs for each Aspen, but the typical installation is just one.

Since your MFD is not seeing the Avidyne GPS signal, it is using the emergency RSM GPS for position. Something is not wired correctly or a connection has been broken.

The top of the MFD is showing the navigation information from the PFD. Have you tried to go into reversion mode to see what happens?

I would give Aspen a call and just confirm how everything is supposed to work.

Does your Aspens ever show normal displays like this?



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

 

Tom, each of the Aspens are only connected to their own RSM, from my understanding of the installation. Reversion mode comes up fine with the question to xfill, which happens correctly from what I remember. 
 

This is the only pic I have of them both. I’ll run out to the hangar and get a couple shots so I am not working from memory. (Benefit of living 7 minutes from the airport.)

[Oldguy]

@Marauder I went out to the airport and pulled my plane out so I could get a good GPS signal and loaded a short trip from KPLR to KASN. As a note, I do not have the ADS-B unlock on the MFD. Something to be corrected. Here is what I saw on the Aspens:

First, PFD and MFD.

Then, reversion.

Then crossfill.

Then back to PFD and MFD.

And here is what showed on the IFD.

Obviously we do not have ADS-R on our local field, but from what you have written, it looks to be potentially more of a wiring problem rather than a reception problem. I have already been in contact with avionics shop and they are looking at the earlier pics to decide how they want to address the problem.

Thanks for your help.

Edited February 1, 2021 by Oldguy
Pictures sequence wrong

[Marauder]

1 minute ago, Oldguy said:

@Marauder I went out to the airport and pulled my plane out so I could get a good GPS signal and loaded a short trip from KPLR to KASN. As a note, I do not have the ADS-B unlock on the MFD. Something to be corrected. Here is what I saw on the Aspens:

First, PFD and MFD.

 

Then, reversion.

 

Then crossfill.

 

Then back to PFD and MFD.

 

And here is what showed on the IFD.

 

Obviously we do not have ADS-R on our local field, but from what you have written, it looks to be potentially more of a wiring problem rather than a reception problem. I have already been in contact with avionics shop and they are looking at the earlier pics to decide how they want to address the problem.

Thanks for your help.

You do have a mystery on your hands. The MFD is definitely not getting the Avidyne's GPS signal and the PFD is. The "RSM GPS" indicates a invalid GPS signal. This could be caused by no connection between the RSM that has the backup GPS (read, not wired correctly or a bad connection) or a faulty backup RSM GPS. If the MFD was not receiving the Avidyne's GPS signal, I would expect it to show this:

 

Not sure how familiar you are with the menu on the MFD, but I would check the menu option for "GPS Position Source" on the MFD. I think it should have "GPS 1 or GPS 2" in it.

What is troubling is in one of the flight photos you are showing no traffic being shown on the PFD yet, the regional radar from FIS-B is green signifying you have solid communication. I am wonder if your ADS-B unit is functioning correctly as well.

Let us know what you discover!

[Oldguy]

1 hour ago, Marauder said:

What is troubling is in one of the flight photos you are showing no traffic being shown on the PFD yet, the regional radar from FIS-B is green signifying you have solid communication. I am wonder if your ADS-B unit is functioning correctly as well.

My thinking is along similar lines. I wonder if the weather is coming through but the traffic is not as I could see it needing an accurate GPS location to display versus weather not being as selective about precise GPS location.

Just trying to think logically to explain something I have no idea about how it operates internally or what the data packets must have to be accepted as valid, and realizing logic and avionics do not necessarily go hand-in-hand.

[Marauder]

3 hours ago, Oldguy said:

My thinking is along similar lines. I wonder if the weather is coming through but the traffic is not as I could see it needing an accurate GPS location to display versus weather not being as selective about precise GPS location.

Just trying to think logically to explain something I have no idea about how it operates internally or what the data packets must have to be accepted as valid, and realizing logic and avionics do not necessarily go hand-in-hand.

I am not familiar what the Avidyne will or won't display. My Lynx 9000+ will display weather and traffic on both the PFD and MFD (I have both unlocks) and traffic will show on the GTN 650. Garmin doesn't support displaying weather on their unit. Since the Lynx has traffic and weather on its own display, I can see if I have weather and traffic (as well as the METARs).

[Oldguy]

@Marauder Well, the mystery continues.

GPS input on the MFD is GPS 1, and the MFD RSM tests good on the startup and power on self test. Talked to the shop this morning, and I am taking it into them next week for them to chase down the problem.

They have been good about fixing any issues, but I do wish there were fewer to fix. The last time I took it into them, the manager and I sat down and he apologized for all the issues I was having. They had to hire some contract avionics techs due to workload and illness during the last 9 months, and they are discovering the work those folks did, let's be nice and say, was not up to their standards. Seems I am not the only one with rework coming back to them, and in an effort to not damage their reputation any more than it has been, there is no charge to anyone for the fixes (which is as it should be, but we all know shops where it is not always the case). So we will see how it goes.

I will post an update once it is back home after they work on it.