Expensive lesson learned

Over this past first flight weekend, my Garmin 430 decided to go and smoke itself. Everything worked on the unit except the mic. It would open the circuit but no voice from the mic. We went from pilot to pasenger side, push to talk, the whole gambit of possibilities. No joy.

Well, me being the total electrical knowledge derelict, I just knew it had to be some of my wiring. Crawling under the panel offered no views of smoked, burnt, blacken or loose wiring. Hum, me be thinking but also Hum, this is going to be difficult to find. Mike has a 430 in his Super 8, so I removed mine in order to put it in his, just to check the unit itself. Upon pulling mine out, I could distinctly smell that burnt electrical odor coming from the plug in the back where the mik plugs in from the intercom. Into the Super 8 it went, same result as in mine. OK, I may still have to chase wiring down to find the source but at least we know the unit is bad.

After thinking about it a little more, I went to the airport yesterday and retrieved the 430. When I got home, I opened the top to see if I could see the damaged area. I didn't have to look very long. The burnt board area was just under the MIC GAIN hole in the top cover plate.

Here is the lesson: Lying on top of the burnt area, and another one close by, were two aluminum slivers................ One of the first pieces to go in my panel was the 430. Sometime during the building process I had cut a new hole, done some trim work, done some deburring, whatever, and not covered this hole up. One of these aluminum pieces turned into a conduit for 12v where it wasn't supposed to be!!

Result of my lesson learned: The flat $700.00 fee from Garmin. Since we are experimental, I had to get an RMA number from a local avionics shop. I can still ship the unit myself back to Garmin, but Garmin will only ship it back to an authorized dealer. No problem for me, as my FBO has an avionics shop about 30 miles away at LEX. Just out the bucks.

Lesson: vibration will bring things to the forefront when you least expect it........especially when I/you are an idiot and get in to big of a hurry and stop thinking momentarily

Your not an idiot Dana

Hence, my tag line; "Smart People do Stupid Things All the Time. I know, I have seen me do them." ( Paraphrased and Stolen from Ron White, comedian)
There isnt a sole out there that has not done something like this...
$700 from Garmin is a bit criminal in my opinion.

Is $700 a flat fee or a minimum fee? I suspect the latter.

Been there, done that. Glad it took a dump while you were flying VFR.

By you telling us this story, I'll guarantee you there are builders tonight taping over holes, vacuuming up chips, wrapping radios & other electronics with saran wrap, and cleaning up after each project to make sure this doesn't happen to them.

Geico266 said:

By you telling us this story, I'll guarantee you there are builders tonight taping over holes, vacuuming up chips, wrapping radios & other electronics with saran wrap, and cleaning up after each project to make sure this doesn't happen to them.

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That's the idea!!

BlackRV7 said:

That's the idea!!

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Thanks for passing it on.

Dana, is it a WAAS unit? The WAAS upgrade replaces most of the unit, including every thing except the bottom (com) module. Might be worth looking into the implications vs just a repair, which might go more than the $700 "have a look" fee. It is about $3k now though...

Me doing dumb things also...(don't feel bad Dana)

Let's talk over beers someday and laugh at how I washed my plane and toasted my GPS/Comm ($1 worth of sealing material under the panel would have saved it).

You're among friends in regards to this episode . Sorry it happened.

b,
dr

That flat fee is the one thing about Garmin that I hate. It will probably keep me from buying anything from them again.

Karl

Garmin flat rate fee

As an avionics dealer I run into this anytime I have to return a Garmin product. If the unit is out of warranty a flat rate repair fee is charged. Garmin went to this police about two years ago. I can tell you it is a flat rate not a minimum fee. Also sending in a legacy 430 for the WAAS upgrade includes replacing much of the units processors, however the Com board remains the same. You would not be able to send it in for the upgrade and expect any and all problems with the unit to be fixed for the upgrade fee. I ran into this recently when I sent in a customers 430 for upgrade and received a call from the Garmin repair department saying there was a problem with that particuliar units com. Garmin must test every unit undergoing the WAAS upgrade as if it were a new unit rolling off the assembly line to return it to service. In this case the unit was out of warranty and they couldn't send the unit back to me with a "known" problem. I had to call my customer and inform him he had to pay the flat rate fee in order to fix the com otherwise we couldn't get the unit back.

Jason

Thanks

Wow, what timing with this post.

I just fired up my panel yesterday, all O.K. so far.

But, after reading this thread, I realized that I had drilled holes in the glare shield for the GPS antennas, and some of the chips are very likely in the electronics right now.

I will remove the units from the trays in the morning, and do a bit of chip chasing.

Thanks again for posting this warning.

I was trouble shooting a problem with my 430 interfacing with another unit and finally traced the problem after several days of hunting, to a 1/8" long single strand of wire I cut. It shorted accross two pins inside of one of the connectors. Fortunately no damage. Be clean when working.

Jerry

I feel for you Dana. I'm chasing a few electronics glitches. On a less expensive note--

I was trouble shooting a bad grass blower so I could blow out the hangar today. I found the problem-- the extension chord had a black wire broke, right at the plug end. "I can fix that."

So I picked up the Avery tin snips off the table and cut the end off... bad idea.

SPARK;
good thing hangars come with resetable breakers.

I work for a material handling company. We had an incident where we powered up some extendable conveyors that had two PLC controllers. Smoke started boiling out of the panel and when we investigated we found a couple of wire strands that had fallen into the vents on the PLC while the electrician was trimming wires. The smallest things can cause a lot of damage.

Got the 430 back.

Thought I'd give a heads up, as I received my 430 back from Garmin. As I said, I was was able to UPS the 430 to Garmin, but only after going through an authorized Garmin dealer, who provided me with the RMA. It took exactly one week from the time I shipped the unit, to my local Garmin dealer receiving it back. Yes, Garmin does charge a flat $700.00 fee to repair the unit, they also reserve the right to replace the unit at their discretion. As per the authorized release certificate form 8130-3 Garmin did the following: Confirmed problem. Replaced the COM board to correct the discrepancy, Aligned unit for optimum performance, Unit passes all tests and is within normal limits, complies with Mod 1,2,3,4,5 service bulletins 0019,0101,0203,0207,0211,9901,9902,9903,9906,9907,9908,0003,0004,0007,0009,0011,0014,0016,0020,0021,0022,0105,0107,0116,0204,0205,0216,0218,0114,0308,0309,0502,0515,0521 and 0706.

That's a lot of service bulletins..............I'm just Sayin'

The Main and GPS software is at the latest revision. They also sent a new manual to reflect the change in the unit's operation per software update.

Garmin also states on the 8130-3, "All repaired or replaced Garmin units have a 90 day warranty or the continuation of the original factory warranty from the original purchase date, whichever is longer".


I just wish I would have got a hug and kiss along with the "affection" given to me by Garmin.

Totally my fault!! Whoever said aviatin' was cheap............

BlackRV7 said:

That's a lot of service bulletins..............I'm just Sayin'

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Which just makes their ad in this month's Sport Pilot all the more amusing.