Garmin G5 blank display!

sarangan

sarangan

Pattern Altitude
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Andrew, CFI-I
Our club plane had new two G5s installed recently. They are supposed to turn on when the master comes on. There is no "boot time" if I recall correctly. One time during a night flight, neither of the G5s came on. It took about 5 minutes of random poking and turning before they lit up. I am confused if this had something to do with the night lighting (because it is on auto brightness mode), or a hardware issue, or if I was overlooking something since the G5 is a new thing for me. I do have a video of it, although it is not particularly clear due to the darkness in the cockpit. Any comments would be appreciated.
 
Hold the on button for 10 seconds if it happens again
 
Is it somehow wired to the panel lights? What was the status of those?
 
The ones I have flown the night brightness setting was extremely dim and I had to reset it on each power up. There probably is a setting or way to set the default night brightness, but since they were not my airplanes I haven’t researched how to set the default.
 
Happened to me just right after installing. Holding power for 10 seconds did the trick.
 
brcase said:
The ones I have flown the night brightness setting was extremely dim and I had to reset it on each power up. There probably is a setting or way to set the default night brightness, but since they were not my airplanes I haven’t researched how to set the default.
Click to expand...

That is certainly a possibility. The problem is, if you can't see the screen how do you invoke the menu to adjust the brightness? On the other hand, I did have a fairly bright red headmount light, and the red cockpit lights were turned all the way up. Unless the light sensor on the G5 is not sensitive in the red, I don't see how ambient light level is the problem here. Also, I could not find anything in the manual about setting the default brightness when the unit is in automatic backlight mode.

Holding the power for 10 seconds is something I need to remember. I am going to put that on the emergency checklist.

Nevertheless, it worries me that a critical instrument can disappear like that. Just a few days prior to that flight I flew three approaches to minimums in IMC using the same G5s.
 
brcase said:
The ones I have flown the night brightness setting was extremely dim and I had to reset it on each power up. There probably is a setting or way to set the default night brightness, but since they were not my airplanes I haven’t researched how to set the default.
Click to expand...

There is, it was the first thing I changed.


Tom
 
Sounds like a bit of overreaction here, if power to a backed-up G5 is lost it stays on for 45 seconds waiting for you to push any button to interrupt automatic (normal) shutdown.

Not once have I read or seen anyone say their G5 went blank after normal boot, in fact all the cases are I've read are failure to automatically turn on when power was turned on by the aircrafts master switch, they come on fine holding the power buttons down as already mentioned.
 
I also have dual g5s, and there are settings for autodim in the manual.

But if you suspect the unit is on but dim, do this:
Press power button
Rotate knob to the right 1-2 full turns.


This turns the brightness up. If that doesn't work then the 10s power button is in order.

Also, there very much is a boot page so you should notice something right away when the avionics switch is powered. If one Powers up and the other doesn't, you have an issue.
 
G5's not starting up was a known issue with software version 6.5 and below I believe. Update to 6.51 or whatever the current version is. Yes, the workarounds upthread will work, but why not just get it fixed.
 
wow, whole lotta reported issues with the G5, and now there's an apparent new wiring issue reported. but I guess the real issue is the one person that had the red X on the aspen. let's see...….one reported aspen issue, hundreds of reported G5 issues...…...where all the haters at now? keepin awfully quiet, I reckon. </poking hornets nest>
 
Glen R said:
G5's not starting up was a known issue with software version 6.5 and below I believe. Update to 6.51 or whatever the current version is. Yes, the workarounds upthread will work, but why not just get it fixed.
Click to expand...

The latest version is 6.0 (for certified version anyway) and it still exhibits this behavior occasionally.
 
EugeneR said:
The latest version is 6.0 (for certified version anyway) and it still exhibits this behavior occasionally.
Click to expand...

Yeah, somehow I got my versions mixed up with something else. Maybe the GTN. But, we did have that issue once, and after updating it didn't re-occur.
 
I don't understand how one set has trouble and another doesn't. I've never seen it happen in our airplane (dual G5).
 
I only have the G5 HSI in my airplane and sometimes it does not start up when the Master is turned on. I have never had it shut off in flight. I called Garmin about a month ago and they said this is a known issue with a fix coming at a future TBD date. The 10 second power hold usually resets it. It typically happens on the next power up attempt after I have been playing with the unit on the ground.
 
bnt83 said:
I don't understand how one set has trouble and another doesn't. I've never seen it happen in our airplane (dual G5).
Click to expand...

On about 100 operating hrs, I may have seen it happen twice
 
eman1200 said:
wow, whole lotta reported issues with the G5, and now there's an apparent new wiring issue reported. but I guess the real issue is the one person that had the red X on the aspen. let's see...….one reported aspen issue, hundreds of reported G5 issues...…...where all the haters at now? keepin awfully quiet, I reckon. </poking hornets nest>
Click to expand...

The difference is, with G5 it happens on the ground
 
All of ours have a standby battery and I never turn them on by the button, even when just messing with them on the ground. Perhaps that’s why I never seen the problem pop up
 
eman1200 said:
wow, whole lotta reported issues with the G5, and now there's an apparent new wiring issue reported.
Click to expand...

It's not an "issue". Everyone who's already got one is fine. They had to up the spec on the wire that the install manual calls for to get the FIKI limitation removed, and thanks to some quirks in the certification process they can't just say "only FIKI airplanes need the fancy wire". It sounds like they may be addressing this with Rev. 18 of the install manual later this week.

But in any case - Not an "issue".

but I guess the real issue is the one person that had the red X on the aspen. let's see...….one reported aspen issue, hundreds of reported G5 issues...…...where all the haters at now? keepin awfully quiet, I reckon. </poking hornets nest>
Click to expand...

One issue, with Aspen? Uh, you must not have been around long enough. They had a LOT of issues early on. And there is, of course, the well-known failure mode with a blocked pitot.

And sure, lots of reported issues with the G5 (mostly all the same issue), because Garmin actually sold more than one! :D OK, Aspen did pretty well there for a while, but Garmin has also done very well, many units in the field.

Aight hornets, you can go back in the next now. :rofl:
 
bnt83 said:
All of ours have a standby battery and I never turn them on by the button, even when just messing with them on the ground. Perhaps that’s why I never seen the problem pop up
Click to expand...

Ditto, about 200 hours on them.


Tom
 
sarangan said:
Our club plane had new two G5s installed recently. They are supposed to turn on when the master comes on. There is no "boot time" if I recall correctly. One time during a night flight, neither of the G5s came on. It took about 5 minutes of random poking and turning before they lit up. I am confused if this had something to do with the night lighting (because it is on auto brightness mode), or a hardware issue, or if I was overlooking something since the G5 is a new thing for me. I do have a video of it, although it is not particularly clear due to the darkness in the cockpit. Any comments would be appreciated.
Click to expand...


Interestingly, since I signed off the last set of G5s the install manual has been revised 7 times, I'm not sure when they were added to the manual but there are now diodes required on the power wire of each G5.

Edit: Diodes were added in Rev. 16 dated March 2019
 
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Do you by any chance have an SD card in the slot of the affected G5? I experienced the same blank screen. Here's what I found; I had the same SD card with the software update as the unit was trying to use to do data logging. The blank screen was actually booting into the firmware update screen but really dimly backlit when the SD card was there. Wasn't 100% of the time but something about turning the master / avionics on and then powering down and powering back up after engine start was associated with this behavior. Removed SD card no more issues. I'd advise making sure a separate SD card is used for updates and logging.
 
I have never flown with an SD card in the G5s, never had the "blank" screen at power up
 
bnt83 said:
I have never flown with an SD card in the G5s, never had the "blank" screen at power up
Click to expand...
I’ve never flown without an Sd card in the g5, never had the “blank” screen at power up
 
I've done a couple upgrades, and I leave the upgrades on the card.
 
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