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IFD-540 shutdown
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brou0040 View Drop Down
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    Posted: 07 Sep 2015 at 10:00pm
I had my alternator voltage regulator fail on takoff this past Saturday.

The alternator went offline and the low voltage light came on.  The IFD-540 went immediately black although the buss was still powered by the battery and all of the rest of the panel (including my AXP340) stayed online during that time.  I understand the IFD-540 has shutdown protection if the power is beyond limits, but since the buss was still powered by the battery, I was surprised to see the 540 die.  I was able to turn it back on during that flight and although it looked like it had a hard boot since it didn't bring up the last or local frequency, it eventually came fully online.  I then powered it down in flight to reduce the load on the battery.

I've sent the logs to tech support for them to review them and let me know why the 540 failed.  I'll follow up and post their response here.

Has anybody else seen this issue?


Edited by brou0040 - 07 Sep 2015 at 10:00pm
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oskrypuch View Drop Down
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What was the voltage on the bus when on ship's battery?

There are specific limits outside of which the 540 will shutdown, they are in the manuals.

* Orest
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brou0040 View Drop Down
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Originally posted by oskrypuch oskrypuch wrote:

What was the voltage on the bus when on ship's battery?

There are specific limits outside of which the 540 will shutdown, they are in the manuals.

* Orest


The battery was in good condition and charging prior to takeoff.  I'm assuming it was very close to 24 volts, but I've sent the logs for Avidyne to verify.  The manual says that a 60 second countdown starts when the voltage drops to 9 volts, I shouldn't have been anywhere near that low.

Depending on the section of the manual, the minimum voltage for the AXP340, which stayed online is either 10 or 11 volts.  I'm not sure what it does as the voltage falls below that level.


Edited by brou0040 - 08 Sep 2015 at 12:17am
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safari View Drop Down
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I had mine shut down the other day when I was using it in the plane with the charger on it was kind of strange first time I have seen this. It rebooted by it self
Dave
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AviJake View Drop Down
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Logs *should* tell us what your box was seeing for input voltage.  For reference, here's a snippet from the pilot guide about behaviors as input voltage decrease:

Low Power Operations

The following actions are taken as input power is reduced to the IFD:

Input Voltage

IFD Operation Impact

19.9VDC

16W VHF radio output power reduces to 10W.

18VDC

Lose high power (2.1A) USB charging. USB charging reduces to 1A.

12.75VDC

Lose all USB charging.

11.5VDC

Bezel lighting and display lighting maximum values are reduced.

10.9VDC

VHF radio output power reduces to 6W.

10.0VDC

VHF radio output power reduces to 4W.

9VDC

60-second countdown to IFD shutdown begins (countdown message displayed on the IFD).

Function is restored by rising above those voltage thresholds by 1VDC for more than 1 second.
Steve Jacobson
sjacobson@avidyne.com
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brou0040 View Drop Down
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Points: 720 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote brou0040 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08 Sep 2015 at 3:11pm
AviJake,
 
Do you have any details of what the AXP340 does as voltage drops?  It would be useful to compare why one stayed online and the other didn't.
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AviJake View Drop Down
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I think I have some notes on that from a test I ran last year.  I'll try to dig those up in the next few days when I get a few minutes and re-post.
Steve Jacobson
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MysticCobra View Drop Down
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Clearly the IFD didn't follow the script in this particular case--nowhere on there does it say, "IFD immediately shuts off", which is what was observed.

There may have been a transient voltage fluctuation that occurred when the alternator's voltage regulator failed.  It would be interesting to understand the IFD's ability to tolerate (or not tolerate) such transients, as well as what it's supposed to do as voltage "gracefully" degrades as the ship's battery depletes.
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Originally posted by MysticCobra MysticCobra wrote:

Clearly the IFD didn't follow the script in this particular case--nowhere on there does it say, "IFD immediately shuts off", which is what was observed.

There may have been a transient voltage fluctuation that occurred when the alternator's voltage regulator failed.  It would be interesting to understand the IFD's ability to tolerate (or not tolerate) such transients, as well as what it's supposed to do as voltage "gracefully" degrades as the ship's battery depletes.


I would not jump to that conclusion.  Until we look at the logs, we will not agree that the IFD actually shut down.   It could be a simple as the backlighting was turned down/off.    When we can get the logs, we'll know.


As for the AXP340 behavior, my notes from previous testing indicate:

You need 10V to turn it on and it will display a "Low Output Power" alert message.

Below 6V, it will shut off completely. 

The backlighting will hold steady before it goes completely dark.
Steve Jacobson
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MysticCobra View Drop Down
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I was going by the OP's comment "I was able to turn it back on during that flight and although it looked like it had a hard boot since it didn't bring up the last or local frequency, it eventually came fully online," but fair enough--the logs should tell the true story.
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brou0040 View Drop Down
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Originally posted by MysticCobra MysticCobra wrote:

I was going by the OP's comment "I was able to turn it back on during that flight and although it looked like it had a hard boot since it didn't bring up the last or local frequency, it eventually came fully online," but fair enough--the logs should tell the true story.

Tech support replied today saying they saw anomalies in the logs so they sent them to engineering.  I'm waiting to hear what they find and what the anomalies were.

As far as what I know, it went black as the alternator voltage controller (not the alternator itself) died on takeoff.  Once I climbed to a safe altitude, I tried to restart it by simply pressing the power button and it started back up with what I'll call a "hard boot".  I'd assume if the backlighting went down/off, that I would have had to hold the power button down for the countdown then press it again to turn it back on - I did not have to do that. 

The manual says that display lighting maximum values are reduced as voltage drops below 11.5VDC.  Perhaps this is tied with the backlighting issue where even after calibrating the dimmer, it is still unviewable during the daytime (I hope and believe that increasing this max limit is in the next release).  Perhaps it got so dim during the 60 second shutdown that I couldn't have seen it.  I doubt this because I don't believe my buss voltage was below 9VDC for more than a minute, but was all of the sudden OK when I powered it back on at altitude.


Edited by brou0040 - 09 Sep 2015 at 9:26pm
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