GNS530 gs requires service

Hello,

Well my rv became a plane last december and I purchased a gns530 new from a builder that decided to another route. Well I missed the boat on the 1500 waas upgrade and I thought it would be fine since if the wx was bad I would just shoot an ILS. Well after a total of 60 hrs on the unit the internal battery died and GS requires service message appears. I called GARMIN and they said it will be a 1000 charge plus shipping. Upgrade to WAAS for 3000+. I guess the lesson is to wait until the last possible moment to order avionics!!!!! It just really sucks that this unit is has 60 hours on it with a failure, seems to me that it is a manufacturer defect and GARMIN will not do anything about it. I have GARMIN products all over my plane other than the skyviews, I just thought their products are great and I thought their customer service would be equally as good.

Well just wanted to share my experience and hope it helps someone.

Since it is out of warantee, I would call a few avionics shops. Surely they can replace the battery for less than $1K. Maybe they can decode and fix the GS error, too. Could it just be a wiring problem to the indicator/efis?

thks

Thank you Bob. I called garmin and found the part number for the board. He said since you shot an ILS he doubts it is wiring, I asked that too. He said it is more than likely the board. so I figured I would try to hunt one down. I found a parts supply place but they are sending a quote for the board. PN S12-00212-11

I am very surprised that there is any parts source other than Garmin.

Also, a tricky legal question: if you replace anything inside the box with a non-Garmin part, is the GPS TSO still valid?

Take a good look down the road folks

Single source, emerging technology, limited market, multiple unique evolving designs, software/firmware/hardware/build environment requiring configuration control, foreign based critical component manufacturer, etc. - what could possibly go wrong?

Bob Axsom

its a genuine garmin part

I found two companies who have the part number listed, just waiting for a quote. Seems like this board is used in quite a few units. My thoughts were to have the battery changed and the board at the same time by a garmin dealer locally.

How many hours was on the unit when you bought it? Are you saying the unit only has 60 hrs on it total time? Also, it's approaching 7+ years since it's been made and was about 6 years out of production when you bought it. If it only had 60 hrs on it over 7 years, then that's not a good thing....

I always tell people if they are buying something that hasn't been in production for 5+ years, they better negotiate or figure in the price of a repair/overhaul/service in the price because once they approach that age (6-7 years) it's likely things like internal batteries and other things will likely need maintenance. I do agree that $1K is a lot of money, but finding someone at a shop to fix it for you should be doable and is likely a good route for you to take.

In the end, my recommendation for others looking at used avionics (and to Bob's points), try to purchase a unit that is at least currently in production, or within one generation of being current, or only a couple years old. Once you get past 5 years without any service done to them, then it's a gamble and the price should reflect that.

Just my 2 cents as usual.

Cheers,
Stein

0 hours

it was new, no hours at all on the unit. Thanks for your input as the reason behind my post is to help people with their choices or at least understand what could happen to them. If I had to do it again, I would wait until the last possible moment and get all the avionics at once.

Thanks Stein.

Stein, can the memory battery be done by someone else beside garmin?

turbo said:

Stein, can the memory battery be done by someone else beside garmin?

Click to expand...

To be honest I don't recall. We used to do a bunch of battery replacements in 480's, but that's been years now. For non WAAS boxes we don't like to do too much to them, because as I noted next year they will be going on 8 years since they are out of production. I'd have to take a closer look and see how big of a deal the battery in it is, but it might not be a huge problem. I think I might have a Maintenance Manual for one of them floating around here, but I'll have to dig around and see.

Just my 2 cents as usual!

Cheers,
Stein

Fact is, even when you try technology can pass you by. For me, I sent in the avionics check (to Stein!) exactly 3 years ago, and 9 months before flying. I now have:
Trio autopilot: great autopilot, but now available for $1K less.
GRT EFIS: great EFIS, but now available for more than $1K less
Garmin 420W: now obsoleted by new GTN series
Garmin (Apollo) SL-30: imho the finest nav-com ever made, still better than the new Garmins (because of the VOR multiplex feature) but now obsolete.
Garmin 327 mode C transponder: works fine but for a bit more I could now get a Trig mode S-ES and be ready for 2020.

Hopefully service will continue to be available for a while.....

Just to be clear, I am perfectly happy with my choices. It's just the nature of these things that they change rapidly.

turbo said:

Stein, can the memory battery be done by someone else beside garmin?

Click to expand...

On eBay, if you search for "Garmin 430W", there are 2 avionics shops that list battery replacement service. Don't know anything about them but might be worth looking into if you don't have a local avionics shop you use.

Swapping internal battery

You can buy the battery on line for less than $20. Battery replacement requires soldering ( three leads I think..)., but can be done by yourself. If you goof up, put it back together and send it to Garmin for $1,000 to repair. . I think I found an earlier post that directed the battery P/n.

Just be careful if you decide to try swapping the battery yourself. If you don't know what you are doing and it doesn't work it is very possible Garmin will be able to tell someone worked on the unit. I work on circuit boards all the time and would consider this a minor repair. However the skill level of the soldering and whether the flux is cleaned off the board following soldering may give away that the board has been worked on. Every once in a while I get a board back from one of my techs with flux that hasnt been cleaned off properly. It would be very obvious to quality conscience minded people that this job wasn't done in a strict quality controlled environment.

The other risk if you don't have an anti-static work area is you may damage something else that isn't already broken.

Just my 2 cents too.

repair shop

I recently had an old GNC-250 repaired by Avionics Masters, Inc. Located at: 1001 W. Cypress Creek Road, Suite #309, Ft. Lauderdale, Fl. 33309
phone: 954-491-2580

FAA CRS VIMR095K

No affiliation, just a satisfied customer.

Memory Battery Replacement

Here is a thread on replacing the memory battery.


www.vansairforce.com/community/showthread.php?t=89709&referrerid=8935