Waypoint memory after power cycle

[tdyer]

I have a challenger that has a couple items that do not work the same way the simulator does.

1. The simulator retains the last waypoint when you shut down the simulator. My challenger looses the waypoint if it is power cycled. I there a way to make it retain the last waypoint after a power cycle?

2. If I select an airport on the screen then hit the airport info button the simulator has a "GOTO Airport" Button that will set the touched airport as the waypoint. The efis has a goto nearest button that does not seem to do anything when pressed. Is there a way to edit the airport info menu? Do I have a different screen installed in the efis?

This one would be a nice to have:

3. Is there a way to make a fill up command that would automatically send the left tank capacity plus the right tank capacity to the virtual tank? Currently I have to enter the number of gallons after each fill up.


Thanks,

Terry

[rainier]

I have a challenger that has a couple items that do not work the same way the simulator does.

1. The simulator retains the last waypoint when you shut down the simulator. My challenger looses the waypoint if it is power cycled. I there a way to make it retain the last waypoint after a power cycle?

Your battery is flat - type CR2032. It is only used if you have not connected the "keep alive" wire.

2. If I select an airport on the screen then hit the airport info button the simulator has a "GOTO Airport" Button that will set the touched airport as the waypoint. The efis has a goto nearest button that does not seem to do anything when pressed. Is there a way to edit the airport info menu? Do I have a different screen installed in the efis?

This is the same as the Goto Nearest available in the NAV menu. Does the NAV menu work ?

This one would be a nice to have:

3. Is there a way to make a fill up command that would automatically send the left tank capacity plus the right tank capacity to the virtual tank? Currently I have to enter the number of gallons after each fill up.

No - that's one of the many ways a virtual tank can be used so we kept it generic

Rainier

[tdyer]

I have a challenger that has a couple items that do not work the same way the simulator does.

1. The simulator retains the last waypoint when you shut down the simulator. My challenger looses the waypoint if it is power cycled. I there a way to make it retain the last waypoint after a power cycle?

Your battery is flat - type CR2032. It is only used if you have not connected the "keep alive" wire.

I double checked the keep alive pin and it has battery voltage on all the time. I also replaced the battery just to verify that that wasn't the problem. The old battery measured 3.3v. The attached photo shows the wpt value that disappears after a power cycle. I am sure the battery is not the problem because the tach, hobbs, and maintenance timers have not been erased. I also loose the "Show D and E airspace" settings about half the time.

2. If I select an airport on the screen then hit the airport info button the simulator has a "GOTO Airport" Button that will set the touched airport as the waypoint. The efis has a goto nearest button that does not seem to do anything when pressed. Is there a way to edit the airport info menu? Do I have a different screen installed in the efis?

This is the same as the Goto Nearest available in the NAV menu. Does the NAV menu work ?

It looks like the problem is that the efis locks up for about 20 seconds when the Goto nearest button is pressed, then it comes up with a blank menu.

3. Is there a way to make a fill up command that would automatically send the left tank capacity plus the right tank capacity to the virtual tank? Currently I have to enter the number of gallons after each fill up.

No - that's one of the many ways a virtual tank can be used so we kept it generic

There is no way to send a preset value to the virtual tank instead of popping up the keypad to enter it.

Thanks for your help

[rainier]

The EFIS stores the current waypoint information and also the location where you activated it from in battery backed RAM in the EFIS.
Hobbs etc are also stored there unless you have an iBOX - in that case that sort of information is stored in the iBOX.

The icons work fine (just tried it here) and also the setting of the waypoint to the last known after power cycle. This has been a feature of our systems since the first days of the Enigma EFIS.

I notice you are using custom screens. Any chance something is mucked up there - check your skip component. If it is not reacting to a touch on that icon there may be an unintentional skip over it. This sometimes happens if the person that did those screens edited the existing screens but did not look at the skips to adjust them for changes.

To check your data retention on the EFIS: Set the zoom level of a map or change the filter settings on your waypoint viewer, or just change your barometer setting. All that is stored in battery backed RAM (there is almost 2 Megabytes worth of stuff stored in there). So change any of these and see if that gets restored after a power cycle.

If you experience long delays when activating any type of display that shows a list of waypoints or airports - it is busy creating that list. That process tends to be very fast - it's mostly trying to sort the waypoints in order of distance from where you are. If that is anusually slow - it is struggling to read your internal disk that holds your files. In that case PLEASE clone that card using the facility provided - get a new 16GByte SD Micro card, class 10 if you can. Then replace the internal card with your clone.

[tdyer]

Thanks for all your help. I will look into all your suggestions this weekend and get back to you. The screens were originally created by Matt and I have made minor changes. The unit is a Challenger Lite so no IBOX.

[rainier]

I did the above mentioned checks using a Challenger lite on my desk.

You mentioned the class D/E setting - that is also in battery backed RAM. I wonder if there is not some kind of actual hardware fault, perhaps intermittent. But so far all (except for the delay you mentioned) points to the battery - but if it measures 3.3V that is very full. Note that you must not measure the voltage while it is still in the holder - the system is designed to inject a few nano-amps into the battery even though it is not a rechargeable battery - that helps to prevent much of the natural self-discharge of these coin cells. But it means the voltage will show higher than normal - 3.3V seems high - they normally tend to be around 3-3.2 volts.

Rainier

[tdyer]

I measured the battery with it out of the system with a Fluke meter. The old and the new both measured the same. The meter could easily be off by .1v, it is a old meter and has not been calibrated. The airspace is defiantly an intermittent problem and the waypoint has never been retained.

You mentioned the screens in the previous post, I checked for the skips but didn't find anythin. The screens work perfectly in the simulator, so not sure what is going on with the gps search.

I was planning on installing a new navdata file and possible rolling back all the screens to default. This unit has been back to Matt twice already, once for a noisy AHRS and the second time for a rebooting issue that happened when I would press the menu button. The rebooting was fixed by installing a new internal sd card.

I noticed the waypoint goto in the log file on the simulator, I will check the challenger tomorrow and see if the log has the same message.

Terry

[tdyer]

I have managed to get the goto functions working normally again. I had a primary and a secondary navdata file loaded, I deleted the secondary file and loaded a new copy of the primary file. I did clone the sd card but have not installed it.

Memory issue:
I have never had a problem with the hobbs, tach, or maintenance timer retaining the correct data, I verified this by looking back through the last 2 years of the flight log. The airspace settings and the filters seem to get lost every few flights, and I have never had the waypoint retained. This seems like odd behavior for ram, where some of the data always works some never works and some is intermittent. Is there a diagnostic version of firmware I could run that would log these values to the log file or dump them to the serial port for diagnostic purposes?

Thanks for your help

[rainier]

No diagnostics for that RAM.
I assume you are running the current firmware ?
I remember we slowed access to the RAM some years ago were we indeed found issues where it would write fine to certain locations but not to others. But that was noticed as part of production Q/C and never made it out the door.
Anyway - your problem seems to be that the locations are changing by themselves without being written - that usually is due to power on the RAM dropping below about 2V or so - if most locations say OK and some are changing it usually means a short break in power.

Some of the settings are kept in a block with a checksum around - that includes the waypoint type and map selections (but not the active waypoint itself which has its own checks). On startup all these things are checked - if found lacking it resets these blocks to default.

[tdyer]

This unit has always had these issues even on bench power, not sure how that voltage is dropping below 2v with a brand new battery and only being cycled off for 20 seconds or so. What is the fix for this another trip back to Matt? The unit has been back 2 times already and this issue has never been identified and fixed.

The unit does have the latest firmware in it.

The waypoint getting erased is a annoyance but the displayed airspace and filters returning to defaults could be a safety issue. If I for get to check these after a fuel stop I could fly into controlled airspace without knowing.

Are the schematics available for this? I would like to take a look at the chip in question. Is this IC in question a RTC with ram on board?

Terry