MGL Avionics User Forum

Heya guys,

I’m wondering what others have done to protect their panels during engine start.

Obviously I’m going to want my MX1 powered up, to monitor oil pressure, during engine start.

Your thoughts would be highly regarded.

James.

If your power supply and ground wiring has been done right there is no issue leaving your EFIS on during engine start.
Our systems are well protected against spikes caused by load dumps and I am not aware that we ever lost even one due to this. It is preferable to be able to watch oil pressure at engine start (in my opinion). After all - you can do the same with an old fashioned steam gauge.

Issues can arise if you have an insufficient ground wire from your engine block to the battery negative and there are additional ground connections to other devices that ultimately connect to the engine block - that can, during start, send large currents through these additional connections and possibly right through the instruments - however, just leaving the power off makes no difference to that (unless your power circuit switches ground).

What you can get is that the EFIS shuts down during cranking as supply voltage collapses with a tired battery. But it will restart immediately and our boot times are really fast (fastest in the industry by a long way) - the MX1 is effectively instant.

Thanks for that advice, I feel much assured.

rainier wrote: ↑Tue Oct 27, 2020 7:46 am But it will restart immediately and our boot times are really fast (fastest in the industry by a long way) - the MX1 is effectively instant.

The iEFIS G3 is no slouch either. I've shown a number of people how fast mine boots up, aligns, and acquires an internal GPS fix and they just shake their head as if they don't really believe what they just saw.