I don't believe it is luck. I believe it is working with folks to understand the system instead of just saying "it's broke" and sending it in. Simple things like recalibrating the compass fix some odd behaviors. Other things have to do with installation problems in getting a digital system to work with legacy analogue systems. But of course it is easier to blame the Aspen and drive on...after all the problems didn't exist prior to installation.
Yeah but your an engineering nerd, as am I. We dig into such things and are interested.
Normal people rely on avionics techs for such things, and I haven't found an avionics shop in the Denver area that has anyone on staff that could speak with any level of knowledge about how the boxes actually work or would recognize anything inside them if they dared open the case with a screwdriver. That's just seemingly the way it is in a world of black boxes anymore.
One shop, I won't say which, doesn't even appear to have a decent oscilloscope anywhere on any bench. Hell, buy a cheap Rigol at least, and learn how to use it...
At the prices they get hourly, fiddling with troubleshooting avionics would be a fun gig, but I'm not going to go get a freaking A&P cert to do it. My interest level in learning about 1930's engines from farm tractors, isn't nearly high enough. Hah.
I met a pilot who does have his from a misspent youth, haha, or so he says, who specializes in nothing but troubleshooting the stuff when he's not doing international ferry work. He said he really likes working on the weirdnesses that happen when folks put modern era avionics in WWII military aircraft.
I think he's just figured out how to get a lot of rides in really cool airplanes. Grin!
Yeah. It seems like it wouldn't be that hard to program in a way to do it manually so you can keep using it normally except for checking it against the Mag compass and setting it every now and then. Looks like the best you can do now is check it against the Mag compass and then keep reminding yourself "it's 20 degrees off to the left." That's if you can stop it from huntin and peckin around and "fast slaving"
That's the thing, it'll often fast slave in many failure modes and then it's worthless.
The one in the aircraft that I'm waiting to come back from the factory was inconsistently but regularly rebooting. My money, considering it was built in the late 2000s, is on a crappy cheap Chinese electrolytic cap leaking. If not that, some cold solder joint from RoHS soldering techniques. T'was the most common problems around that timeframe.
And this smells like power supply problems...
But hey, that crappy cap was "certified" on paper! Last many years! You like! You buy! Cheap!
Can certify it on paper all day long, if you have it built at the One Hung Lo plant... It's probably going to fail eventually because it probably isn't the part you paid for.
The tear-downs of fake components labeled with major manufacturer's names that you can order for a song on eBay over on YouTube are fun.
I particularly like when someone rips open some $2 high voltage assembled part like a solid state relay module or a multimeter and finds it has traces about 2mm apart for HV applications, a glass fuse, and the traces are about 2mm wide.
More fun if the person doing the tear-down has the gear to make the thing let its magic smoke out on the workbench.
Bang! Chinese fireworks!
