So I did not post trip reports

I really had the best of intentions when I last posted in May this year, to keep you folks updated on how nice it is to have a flying plane and why one would want to get one started (so they could eventually go to all these cool places we went to). But then I figured that I just did not have the time anymore to sort through all the photos taken and come up with a nice catchy story to bind it all together into a nice blog entry.
I just don't have Dave's inspiration (Schmetterling's Dave) and energy to keep this going on a detailed level... but, hey, this was meant to be a builder's blog anyway, right?

Well, then why am I posting now?

Hm, you might have guessed it if you followed me for a while. A bit more than a year ago I got my "pink slip" and that means that I needed to do an annual inspection of my RV in order to honor my operating limitations.

And so I started over Thanksgiving on this task to disassemble and inspect and to catch up with some SBs and stuff I wanted to change myself.

Taking the cowls off to perform the mandatory oil change (after just 50 hours since the last one at 25 hours) was somewhat revealing. I found that I had no problem with chafing wires but the modification for clearing the left forward exhaust spring was not deep enough. It still has a very slight contact it seems.

Not enough for me to consider another lay-up but I might ever so slightly Dremel it down if it persists.

Then there was a slight oil leak at the oil drain plug. Obviously the crush washer is very delicate in regards to its placement when tightening. It was just a few drops over the 50 hours but due to the vibration got tossed around quite a bit.

All the temp indicators showed that the ignition modules did not get too hot. I also added another indicator on the side of the rectifier/regulator to see if it runs too hot as others have reported quite some problems with the Ducati unit.

After the oil change it was time to put the plane on saw horses. Before that I had removed the wings and put them back in the cradle.

The wheels and brake assemblies came off and I found a slight mark that shoeed some contact between the brake disc and the spacer for the inner pad on the right brake.

I contacted Matco about it and they said not to worry about it if I can clearly determine that it does not make contact with the disc now - which it doesn't. I will keep an eye on this. The linings where pretty worn by-the-way and would not have lasted another 70 hours, so I replaced them.

I cleaned the bearings and repacked them and everything went back together and off the sawhorses. Before that I also retorqued the landing gears bolts which needed absolutely no attention whatsoever. They were in perfect shape.

On to the interior. I took off the floor covers and found absolutely nothing to worry about.

Besides some dust, the tail cone did reveal something though:

It looks like the plastic spacer that is supposed to keep the lower elevator cable from sawing through the bulkhead is worn down quite a bit. I measured about 3mm left and the cable makes no contact with the bulkhead yet. This is something I will keep a close eye on and I might have to replace that spacer some time soon.
The tension of the elevator cable was below spec at 20lbs and so I put that on the list to tighten when the seat pan was closed up.

Back to the engine. I replaced the K&N air filters which started to discolor already with a pair of blue ones from Simota USA. They cannot be worse than the K&Ns and they are a bit shorter too, which gives a tad more room to work with under the hood.

I also had to replace my extra RPM resistor as it had started to show erratic readings again. Its behavior indicated that the crimp was probably loosening and removing it confirmed that suspicion. I replaced it with another crimped installation but I might have to additionally solder the connection or install a wired version to overcome these issues.

Next was some electrical work on the left side, enhancing the headset wiring with a LEMO connector for my Bose headset to get the power from the onboard electrical system.
The cutout for the plug reminded me of a delicate surgery performed with a Dremel tool.

Thanks to Van's we have a power wire in the correct location that just ends dead as the standard plugs do not provide power to a headset. But Van's knew what builders would eventually like to add down the road.

It took a while to get it all separated and then soldered back together without messing anything up. Here you see the wired in LEMO harness all hooked up except for the red power wire.

And then all installed in the fuselage.

It all worked like a charm, with a regular headset or a LEMO plugged in. Noticeable is that the headset power comes on with the Main switch, so the LEMO is powered as soon as you power up the system without needing another switch like the Avionics system or anything.

It was a full weekend worth of work but definitely worth the extra effort.


Then I repaired some things with my backup avionics. The Chinese altimeter had given up about 6 weeks after starting flying. Like so many others had reported before (I just couldn't believe it could be THAT bad) the thing never showed the right altitude after it went bad. The Kohlman dial did not seem to have much of an effect anymore and it was practically useless.
Also my German ASI had come back from repair (my fault when running the leak tests on static and Pitot systems) and I wanted to put it back in the panel again.

Opening the avionics bay revealed .... nothing. Everything looked just like I had left it there.

Out came the crappy altimeter and in the one built by United (yellow-tagged) and in with the ASI as well.

The German plugs are a bit too undersized to use 1/4" ID tube and get a good seal. I tried RTV before with success but this time I did not succeed with it. No big deal, I just used shrink tubing to make them a tad bigger.

Please note that the plumbing in the picture above is actually glued to the glove box using spots of RTV so it cannot move around or vibrate.

The disconnected breaker and the still covered slot above the ASI is for a PCAS unit which I chose not to install yet. I might do that the next time I have the bay open. 

Before closing the avionics bay again I complied with SB 13-12-12 and sealed the avionics bay. Instead of using the awkward suggested method described in the bulletin and smear RTV on the inside of the joint after removing the Dynon from the panel, I used a thin compressible sealant strip behind the row of nutplates to accomplish the same goal which is to keep water from entering the avionics bay.

You can get this wonderful sealing strip in 3/16" width from Aircraft Door Seals in Texas. The product is called VWS 100. I also had a VWS 150 which is 1/4" wide as I did not know back then which size would work best. I used the VWS 150 under the canopy skirt to seal off the minor gap between the skirt and the avionics bay cover to keep water and air out. Sorry no picture from that installation yet.

Next, I closed up the seat pan and went on to tighten the elevator cables. Make sure you have the safety clips for the turnbuckles handy when you cut them open.

I tightened the upper cable as this was the one most loose and it also had the most threads showing out of the turnbuckle.

On to the last two items on my list. I wanted to inspect the gascolator screen and thought it to be  a good occasion to drain the rest of the gas out of the tank to allow for the Dynon tank calibration that I had never done. The Moeller gauge is so easy and reliable that I never felt I needed the Dynon gas level information anyway.

It was also a good catch-up on my still existing gas pressure drop issue when cruising with less than 8 gallons of gas.

With the gascolator bowl removed draining the tank through the gascolator is easy. The pump makes it super fast, so watch the level in the canister!

As you can see above, the pressure drop is a clear mystery to me. This flow is taken at around 2-3 gallons left and the pump on.

There was a bit of debris caught in the screen, a bit of fluff that looked like Scotchbrite fibers but the rest was mainly excess lubricant from the O-ring. As the stuff is fuel resistant, it doesn't wash through the screen. I thought about cleaning the screen but they cost $2.50 at Van's and so I just replaced it.
I also had to replace the O-ring as its inner diameter had extended to match the outer diameter of a new one and would have hardly fit back in. This is the result of ethanol in the gas I am using for the Rotax.

And then on to the final task - installing the turtledeck brace that was added to Section 42C. By itself a very simple task but pushed at the edge of being impossible by the inaccessibility of the tailcone without removing the tank. My aft bulkhead modification allows for easy access only to check the cable tension or maintenance on the ADAHRS and its connections but not really for crawling into the cone while on your back.
Of course, that was exactly what I had to do - and then some.

It was insanely difficult to balance on your side while having only one hand to work on a part that needs to be affixed for match drilling as it only has one cleco point in the beginning.

I eventually succeeded but not without major bodily pains that lasted for two days to remind me to never do that again.

And after an hour of sloshing fuel around (I did mention before how much I enjoy that, right?) I also completed the gas tank calibration task that was part of the PAP.

One thing I found that is not yet resolved. Just when I was closing up the aft bulkhead to go for the maintenance flight I found a hole that looked like a #30 size (years of riveting engrained this particular hole size in my cognitive/perceptive cortex).
A hole that might need a rivet but there was clearly no rivet in place - whence the hole.

You found it? It's on the right side of the angle the tank attaches to. Now clearly this would have to get riveted in from the aft of the bulkhead and I had already put most of the screws in. Knowing that one missing rivet would not cause me to crash and burn I decided to look this up the plans and put it on the list for the next annual inspection.

And here she was after the successful maintenance flight. The RPM was again rock solid after replacing the previous resistor with a freshly crimped one. This time around I only had a 41k Ohms available instead of the 47k I had used before, and it did not seem to matter.

This work was done over more than 3 weeks, with all weekends spent at the hangar and some late afternoons and holidays as well.

Landing Gear Section Completed

I was mainly closing out sections tonight. One of them was the landing gear section. The little covers I had primed yesterday were ready to get riveted.

So on they went.

And just as quickly they were riveted on.

I also finalized the wiring on the Avionics by tightening and cutting the wire ties.

Adjusting the audio levels is probably only doable in the hangar when everything is hooked up, including the mechanical stall warner.

I also crept forward in the Miscellaneous section by starting to install the retention devices.

And then the mosquitos got a bit annoying as it was dark and me the only lighted food source around.

Dynon's 2nd Reply

And more of the same. Here's the next level of the exchange - probably the last.

Robert,

I'm not sure if I want to go through the ADAHRS swap again. It's a pain to work in the tailcone at a 100+ degF with my head below my feet to swap a unit that's working at this time. The offer is not that tempting considering the effort I would have to put in on my side, to just get what I should have had 2 swaps ago if the new unit would have been working. And you'd probably expect me to pay for the shipping again, too.. Sounds more like a continuation of what I have criticized before.

The OAT in my previous ADAHRS was consistently not working as documented in my building blog. I tried everything to not having to take it out and I was very thorough when debugging it, so I wouldn't remove something that's in working order.
I just hope you don't send this ADAHRS unit to someone else as perfectly working and tested.

Anyway, this discussion doesn't seem to go anywhere and you're not really offering me anything to make up for the issues that I have addressed in my previous email. Obviously, you feel that your policies are working out for you and I don't. I suppose you'll move on continuing what you're doing and so will I and my decision to choose a different avionics manufacturer with my next project still stands.

Torsten.

On 07/03/2012 04:49 PM, Robert Hamilton wrote:
> Torsten,
>
> Thank you for the detailed reply. I know you feel strongly about this, and I truly am sorry that you had any problem with Dynon equipment. And as a consumer myself, I know I have high expectations of companies I purchase from.
>
> The disturbing thing you told me was that the ADAHRS brass pneumatic connections were corroded. They are supposed to be in new condition before being put in the re-manufactured inventory. If you want me to swap you a new ADAHRS for that reason I will.
>
> So now I have two choices here. I can leave it at an apology and the offer above. Or I can tell you the facts at my disposal, at the risk of making you even less satisfied with us. My choice is the latter, because you paid a lot of money, are interested, and deserve all the facts. Which are:
>
> * We do a complete burn-in on all of our electronics. On the ADAHRS it receives a 24 hour burn-in plus a 48 calibration cycle including temperature extremes. On selected equipment we also perform a 45 hour HASS type test. The owner of our company made his fortune at semiconductor manufacturing, and we know electronics very well.
>
> * On the servo we got back, the problem was that the 485 data communication chip was burned out. The most likely cause for that result is that a voltage was applied to the data lines. I am at a loss to explain why that chip would go bad for any other reason. It did not have the appearance of a random chip failure, which in any case are extremely rare after burn-in.
>
> * On the SV-ADAHRS-200 we received back, the OAT port and circuitry is in perfect order. It worked immediately upon an OAT being plugged in. We then subjected it to -50 deg C and +150 deg C, and it worked perfectly. We then subjected it to vibration and manual poking and prodding and there were no problems. We visually inspected the circuitry and there are no breaks or cracks.
>
> Because I was interested in this, I was physically there while these tests were performed, and so can verify the results first hand. There was absolutely no interruption in the OAT data, no matter what we did to the connection.
>
> So that is the information I have, and what I face on a daily basis. Often we can point to a product defect. Often we can't.
>
> -Robert

Dynon Responded

Remember my problems with the avionics and the Dynon return policy? You know, the one where you buy new equipment at full price but then end up with refurbished stuff that looks like crap and that only after much more time and money? Yes, that one!
So, without a contact point at Dynon to complain about my issues other than Tech Support and them stonewalling, I published my experience here as well as on Dynon's Facebook page. Someone must have finally read it and wrote me an email. The email is from Robert who's the Director of Sales and Marketing at Dynon.
What do you think he told me? An apology? Are you kidding me? They are the industry leader in experimental avionics! They don't apologize for nuthin'!
He explained their return policy again, detailing the problems of the vendor. Well, these problems are not unfamiliar to me. However, I am the customer in this case and their problems are really not mine. While I am sympathetic to their problems, I still end up with the short straw when they send broken units to customers.

Here's our email exchange which I assume to be part one - if they have any decency at all:

July 3rd, 2012

Robert,

thank you for replying to my report of bad experience with Dynon.
As you took the time to explain your reasons for the replacement policy I have so much grief with, let me explain how I feel as a customer.

I spent around $16000 on avionics for my RV-12 build. Some of it contained non-Dynon parts but for the most of it these are all Dynon Skyview parts. Overall there where 7 Dynon units, the SV display, EMS, ADAHRS, transponder, GPS and two servos. I put everything together as per plans and although this is my first airplane build, building an ELSA is not comparable to a full EAB approach where you had to invent your own electrical layout and wiring. Even if that would have been the case, as a software and electrical engineer, I had had enough background to tackle that as well.
The servos went into the plane a year ago when access was still easy but they couldn't get tested until the rest of the avionics was installed which was delayed about half a year due to Van's.
However, a couple of months back I was able to finally purchase the rest of the avionics and I finished the installation. When I was testing the system, I experienced very odd behavior related to the autopilot bus. I did a full check on the wiring, I traced every single signal through the bus up to the servo connections and I even swapped the Van's Control Module as I wanted to make sure it wasn't a problem with something I had my hands on. Finally, after around 18 hours of tracing signals, I could narrow it down to one servo being the culprit. Getting at these servos now is major pain and I'd rather had found a problem in my wiring! I contacted Dynon to get the servo replaced (remember, this is a unit out of the box, brand new that had never worked a minute before it failed and screwed up the bus so bad that when enabled it made the ADAHRS and EMS disappear!). They sent me a refurbished one which I didn't care too much about at that time. The servo I received was ok but not exactly what I would expect for a brand new unit for which I paid full price. I put it back in and everything worked - or so I thought.
After a while of learning the SV functions I noticed that my OAT display never showed a temperature reading. So I learned what type of probe this is and saw that it should just provide a varying resistance with changing temps. I traced the wires again, made sure that I got good and solid resistance readouts and that they made sense with the ambient temps at measurement. All this with the help of Dynon Tech Support. It turned out that the sensor appeared to be working fine and it was suspected that the connector was faulty, so they sent me a pre-wired connector which I crimped on, verified for a good crimp and connected it to the ADAHRS - to no avail. I analyzed the problem a bit more and with more hours of debugging invested, finally found that the culprit appeared to be a bad solder joint or a crack in the PCB of the ADAHRS as the problem disappeared when the ADAHRS was chilled down and then reappeared and was persistent when the unit reached a certain heat level. We swapped the ADAHRS with a refurbished one. The unit I received had brass connectors for the pressure line hook-ups that were so oxidized that they looked like the unit was installed on a boat instead of an airplane. I can't say that I was happy at that point.

Let's summarize, shall we?
I paid $16000 for avionics. I suppose that $12-13k went for Dynon products. I received 7 units of which 2 failed out of the box. One of them is a unit that is pretty important for the safe flying of an aircraft. I spent shipping expenses to have these unit sent back that should have never been faulty out of the box. I even debugged the problem for the techs to a level where they could quickly verify that issue and fix it.
I spent around 30 hours on determining the problems and ensuring that they were problem with Dynon and not with me or Van's and I wasn't coy about letting Tech Support know what I did, why I did and what I found, so they could tell that I knew what I was doing and that I didn't just sent stuff around to cover up my own incompetence.

What did I expect to receive from Dynon for my money? How about tested equipment? It's well known in the electronics industry how electronic products fail. There's a high failure rate in the beginning of its use which can be dramatically reduced in shipped products by providing a burn-in test to eliminate duds before they get to the customer. I am sure you are aware of this as you mentioned 'burn-in; yourself. So, I came to ask myself, how is it possible to receive 2 defective units out of the box from the industry leader in experimental avionics? While only you can answer this truthfully, I wonder if Dynon does perform burn-ins on new products. I wonder if the burn-ins are long enough to avoid a failure rate of 2/7 = 28% in my case. Is Dynon really testing all the functions of a unit before shipping or just browsing over some of them quickly?
After all you charge $1200 for an ADAHRS unit. Is it too much to ask for if I expect a unit that has been fully tested to specs and that is working right out of the box and hopefully for quite some time in return for this huge amount of money? I don't think so.
Instead though you took the money, you kept it even after I told you that this just not acceptable for me (for the above reasons) and even made me pay for shipping in addition to hours of debugging time (which in other cases would have been much longer with less experienced builders).
Why did I not opt for the repair option for my faulty equipment? Simple! After spending so much time locating the root cause of the problems, I didn't want to spend even more time shipping in the stuff, waiting for the repair and shipping turn around on top of what I had already lost. The point is simply that this equipment should just not have been broken out of the box to begin with. I discovered the ADAHRS OAT problems when I had taken time off from work to get forward on my build. Wasting this time by waiting for Dynon to repair brand new equipment was simply not an option.

I understand that you have to be sure that you're not swapping working units for new ones due to builders making mistakes. In my case, I can assure you I gave Tech Support no reason to believe that I hadn't done my part of the end to ensure that there was no other possible cause for the issues I had seen. With the OAT I even took the old, cut off connector and soldered on a 10k Ohms resistor to ensure that it was neither the connector nor some funky OAT sensor problem and let the Tech Support people know that I did that.

So, what was my summary of these incidents?
As mentioned above I paid a large amount of money and I did not receive from Dynon what I should have received. I feel ripped off and taken advantage of as I do not have an option to go with an avionics package from a competitor when building an ELSA project that calls for Dynon avionics. The Tech Support was helpful but did not direct to anybody else at Dynon to address my complaints about these policies. No attempt from Dynon was made to address the issues mentioned above, nor was I told who to talk to.
It also left me with that bad taste of distrust in the QA process at Dynon and the reliability of the products. If they fail at 28% right out of the box, what can I expect when the plane finally goes flying? If the products are reliable, where do all the refurbished items come from?

Anyway, Robert, if you got that far, I think you understand why I am still upset about this. And believe me, I understand you side of the problem as well. However, I am the customer in this scenario and it's my hard earned money that I spent for expecting working products when I receive them. And Dynon did just not deliver their end of the deal. No, they cost me even more money and a lot more time to fix what I shouldn't have had to fix.
An apology would have been nice. A check to compensate for the trouble, the time and my expenses would have been even more appreciated.
Nothing like that was offered. I felt like it was all my fault and I should just be darn happy that I was sent refurbished equipment, that looked like it went through a war in one case, so I could get a working system.

Sorry, Robert, that just doesn't do it for me. My decision to not chose Dynon in my next project results directly and only from this experience. When it works, it works nicely, as I said. But 28% failure rate out of the box? Not acceptable!

Regards,
Torsten.

On 07/02/2012 04:43 PM, Robert wrote:
> Dear Torsten,
>
> I think I talked to you at one point about your OAT probe, and your need for a two-pronged plug. I just read your post on our Facebook page, and apologize that we didn't live up to your expectations about sending new units to replace defective units. We take product issues seriously, and work hard to have the highest quality products on the market. I flew a certified plane for ten years and had plenty of problems with my certified avionics, so I know the bar isn't very high in the industry. But we try to get as close to perfect as we can.
>
> I do have a question for you. Please tell me what you think of this policy after I give you the details.
>
> We sell to thousands of builders working on hundreds of different types of aircraft. Most of the builders are working on their first aircraft. So it is understandable that when there are product installation problems, the majority of the time it is induced by the builder. When we face a problem we always give the builder two choices; either we will look at their equipment and fix the problem if there is one, or we will send immediately a "re-manufactured" unit that is functionally the same as a new unit. Most often it has new components, and has undergone the same or better inspection, burn-in, calibration and test than even "new" units.
>
> If we didn't do this, then most often we would be sending out a new unit for a perfectly good but used unit, and soon would have thousands of returned units stacking up in the warehouse. I hope you can see our dilemma. We want to help customers as quickly as possible, with the best solution possible, but the nature of it is that we can't send a new unit every time. Numerically it doesn't work. And we hope it is fair, because the customer has the choice to have us look at their equipment if that is the best option for them. We pay for the cost of testing and inspecting and shipping the unit back to the customer, even when there was never a product problem.
>
> Does that policy make sense? If not, how do we improve it, without raising prices to cover the cost of thousands of perfectly good products being sent back to us?
>
> Best Regards,
> Robert

Repairs, Repairs, ...

On Friday, all the outstanding items were coming in. Van's sent the additional set of elevator cables for matching the best pair, Dynon sent the shitty looking refurbished ADAHRS unit, a 2200 serial number with oxidization on the brass fittings, and I got my little oiler can to try to bleed the brakes the right way.

I started with the ADAHRS. Before taking my new one out, I wanted to run it first and see that the error still existed.


So I ran the unit and to my big surprise the OAT showed right up.


Yes, clearly early in the morning and working. I don't believe in magical healing, and I know what I saw before, so I was wondering what was different. Well, I ran the system off the power supply this time as the backup battery of the SV had let me down after two minutes into running the system. And it was a pretty cool morning for Tucson.
I decided to let the system run and prepare the work on the brakes. I had decided to bleed the brakes from the bottom up as the vacuum method was sucking air through the bleeding valve along with the oil. And because Don told me so :-)

While I was preparing that work and greeting the locals...




The OAT suddenly failed and it failed consistently. Fiddling with the plug didn't do anything just like before. It was about half an hour into continuous operation. I decided to crawl into the tailcone and see how warm the ADAHRS had become and to hook up the refurbished one to see if that was doing any better.
Yes, the failing ADAHRS was significantly warm and playing around with the plug didn't change anything. This indicates that the PCB has a crack or a back solder joint which disconnects the OAT due to thermal changes.
I hooked up the refurbished unit and connected it to the bus and the OAT probe.


Powering up the system brought he OAT reading back right away. Well, my unit had done the same so I kept the refurbished one running while re-bleeding the brakes.


Bleeding the brakes from below is much more effective and it does show that the valve leaks a bit when open as it also allows a little amount of oil to bypass it and leak on the hose. Getting the air out of the main cylinders was a bit of a struggle until we found out that all you have to do is to continuously push oil through the system while a second person is changing the attitude of that cylinder a bit by moving the rudder. That seems to allow the air to escape more easily on the top and then to get flushed into the brake reservoir.
It took a while but finally the system was clean of any air and the brakes have a rock solid feeling now!



The oiler can I used came from Amazon, it has a fixed nozzle that fits perfectly into a silicone tubing of 1/4" OD, which also perfectly fits onto the bleeding nozzle. It's not big enough to hold enough oil for flushing one side without refilling once, so maybe there's something better out there.


It's the brown can in the center of the picture if it wasn't obvious and the following picture shows the stuff I used to fill the system. It's fully synthetic brake fluid (MIL-H-83282).


By then the OAT was still showing on the SV display and this was a 1.5 hours test. So I decided to get my shiny but broken one out and the crappy looking but working unit in. I did it all working from inside the tailcone, although I considered to drill out the rivets again and to do all the mounting outside. However, I had to disconnect and re-connect the pressure lines and that had to be done from inside the cone anyway. That's why I decided to do it all from inside.


It went in nicely and everything hooked up ok. More importantly everything seemed to work fine when the SV came up. I didn't have a chance to test the airspeed indication yet but I consider ok for now - until proven broken.

So, again, my Dynon equipment out of the box had a failure rate of 33.3% as a 1/3 of the devices were broken before being used. There's no way that Dynon does a reasonable quality control at this time. With important equipment like avionics, even experimental, I just require that the devices are all tested for 24 hours under extreme conditions. Which means high humidity, and at maximum and minimum allowed ambient temperatures. This is standard practices for electronic equipment which in a case of a failure can endanger human life.
If there had been any noteworthy testing occurred with my servo and my ADAHRS, both problems should have been detected and I wouldn't have had these issues and a lot of lost time and faith.
What is even more irritating, is the lack of responsibility and the complete absence of interest in listening to my complaints that has been shown by Dynon. This is certainly not the attitude of a long-time market leader.

Outlook: I couldn't check the cable lengths today and I also didn't trial fit the canopy. So as a result these tasks are scheduled for tomorrow now.