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Garmin GTX330es HELP

Danny King

Well Known Member
I need a little help from the RV community.

I got a big scare the other day when the UPS guy came to my door with a certified letter from the FAA. After I signed for the letter, the normal 30 feet to the kitchen for a knife to open it seemed more like 100 yards. I had a big sigh of relief when I read of no personal violation, but the Doll was (NIC) Not In Compliance with its ADS-B out broadcast.

It took lots of reading to understand the rather technical information! After plenty of testing and checking the components and wiring harness, the only thing I can come up with is my GTX330es maybe intermittently transmitting my pressure altitude. The display keep blinking out and then re-displaying pressure altitude. Garmin has a flat fee of $700 dollars to repair the GTX330, so I'd like to confirm it is sick first.

Does anyone in the DFW area have a GTX330es I can slide in and power up to see if the pressure altitude is steady in the display. I will gladly fly to you. The test will take only a few minutes. I'm good for lunch.

Thank you in advance.
 
We're you doing anything "fluid" enough to have the problem the IAC aerobats have?

https://www.iac.org/news/2016-12-17-ads-b-update

INTERNATIONAL AEROBATIC CLUB

ADS-B UPDATE
Submitted by Michael Heuer on Sat, 2016-12-17 15:49

As I have previously reported, ADS-B Out cannot keep up with aerobatic operations and it shows up ?red? in the FAA's performance information, through no fault of the airplane?s operator or the equipment. Eventually, we hope for some sort of long-term fix which will likely be in the publication of additional FAA policy, yet to be decided.

As a follow up to articles in Sport Aerobatics this summer and fall regarding ADS-B Out equipment, we had a good meeting at AirVenture in Oshkosh in July with three FAA people heavily involved in ADS-B at the Washington level, outlining our problems with the performance reports. That led to a telephone conference with FAA in Washington on August 8th. Our conversation was with Jim Marks, ADS-B Focus Team Lead, Flight Standards Service, Avionics Branch (AFS-360).

The good news for IAC members is Jim Marks and other FAA personnel have informed us they are solely interested in making sure ADS-B equipment is performing properly. Enforcement or penalizing anyone with bad performance reports that result from aerobatic flight is not part of their job when collecting these performance reports. They do contact the aircraft owners to make them aware of the discrepancies but that is where it ends. IAC has also provided FAA with a list of common aerobatic aircraft used by members in order to help them more easily identify aircraft that are performing aerobatics with ADS-B equipment and generating unsatisfactory performance reports.

On December 6th, EAA reported the final Equip 2020 FAA/industry working group meeting was held and through this group, as well as other contacts, we continue to urge the FAA to publish clear policy guidance for aerobatic aircraft. To date, that written policy has not been provided though the problem is now well understood by FAA personnel.

IAC will be represented at an FAA/EAA Summit Meeting in Oshkosh on the 7th-8th of February 2017 and will continue to press this issue. More working group meetings are planned in Washington in March at which IAC will also be represented.



May 3, 2017 update

The information above pretty much stands. Bruce Ballew, Doug McConnell, and I attended the EAA/FAA Recreational Aviation Summit in Oshkosh in early February. We raised the issue there but nothing further was announced or decided by FAA personnel present. As the news article states, they are monitoring the performance data and we have provided them a list of aerobatic aircraft. So when the report shows a "green line" to the practice area and a "green line" back, they know what's going on. The department in Washington which monitors these reports does not do any enforcement action.

They are strictly interested in watching the reports and contacting aircraft owners if they see anomalies.

Our recommendation stands. After you install the ADS-B equipment, do a normal flight and download the performance report which you can now do on-line. Print it and put it in your airplane and carry it with you.

No written policy has yet been issued by FAA.

Mike Heuer
President, IAC

P.O. Box 3086, Oshkosh, WI 54903-3086
+1 (920) 426-4800 ? [email protected] (link sends e-mail) Copyright ? 2000-2018, EAA
All Rights Reserved
 
What?s is your altitude encoder source? What else is in your panel? If you have a GTN gps, it controls the transponder and gives the altitude to it as well. If it is getting the altitude via RS232 and from the GTN, it can do something similar to what you are seeing. As you propose, putting your unit in another plane and vice versa, that can help figure it out. Just make sure you copy settings correctly to go with the installation.
 
I got a working 330-ES

You are welcome to fly non-stop to T67 and plug it into the Doll and try it out.
If it matters, I have flown a couple of IFR trips with no issues but have never
flown the "certification" profile yet. It is currently in my C-172.

email me at [email protected]
 
Coupla things:
* Since the 330ES has the aircraft ID programmed into it, it's undoubtedly a violation of some regulation to just put one unit into another airplane and fly it without reprogramming the aircraft ID and possibly lotsa other parameters. (But going from one RV to another, those parameters might be the same). Be careful, there...
* Just in case, fill out a NASA ASRS form *immediately*. If things should happen to get ugly, being able to show that you've filed an ASRS form will be invaluable;
* I have a GTN650 providing position data to the GTX330ES, but my altitude data comes directly from the ADHRS. Make sure you know exactly how *your* plane is wired;
* An intermittent problem like that (pure speculation here, sorry) is more likely a connector or wiring than a hardware fault. I'd do lotsa checking of those before spending $700 to ship the box in.

Ed
 
What’s is your altitude encoder source? What else is in your panel? If you have a GTN gps, it controls the transponder and gives the altitude to it as well. If it is getting the altitude via RS232 and from the GTN, it can do something similar to what you are seeing. As you propose, putting your unit in another plane and vice versa, that can help figure it out. Just make sure you copy settings correctly to go with the installation.



Thanks for your response.

I have a GTN650. The pressure altitude source is a GDU73. The first NIC (Not In Compliance) was Baro failure of 49%. With help for Chris at SteinAir I switched the RS232 input to the GTX 330es from the GDU 73 to the GTN650. The displayed pressure altitude in the GTX330es went to a steady report. I thought I had solved the problem. After a couple of flights, I contacted the FAA. They reported that N80434 was still NIC. I studied the graphs and the Baro error was now 0% but the GEO error which had been 0% was now 39% fail and the VEL was 27% fail. I had eliminated one problem and caused another.

I'm going to return the setup back to RS232 GDU73 to GTX330es and see if there is a problem in the serial port of my GTX330es by trying another GTX330es.

Yes, I will take a picture of the setup before I change anything so it can be returned to the original installation.

One other factor that may be in play. I dove the aircraft a couple of times to activate the "Sink Rate Pull Up" warning. I may have triggered the GEO failure by doing that.
 
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Coupla things:
* Since the 330ES has the aircraft ID programmed into it, it's undoubtedly a violation of some regulation to just put one unit into another airplane and fly it without reprogramming the aircraft ID and possibly lotsa other parameters. (But going from one RV to another, those parameters might be the same). Be careful, there...
* Just in case, fill out a NASA ASRS form *immediately*. If things should happen to get ugly, being able to show that you've filed an ASRS form will be invaluable;
* I have a GTN650 providing position data to the GTX330ES, but my altitude data comes directly from the ADHRS. Make sure you know exactly how *your* plane is wired;
* An intermittent problem like that (pure speculation here, sorry) is more likely a connector or wiring than a hardware fault. I'd do lotsa checking of those before spending $700 to ship the box in.

Ed
Ed, thanks for your reply.
I am not planning to fly it. I just want to see if the pressure altitude will appear in the test GTX330es display window without blinking off/on like mine! If it remains steady on, then the problem is in my GTX. The intermittent report is what I believe is causing the 49% fail Baro NIC.
I agree with you and I have the panel out right now. I am checking the continuity of every wire between the GTX330es and the GDU73 and GTN650.
 
Last edited:
We're you doing anything "fluid" enough to have the problem the IAC aerobats have?

https://www.iac.org/news/2016-12-17-ads-b-update

INTERNATIONAL AEROBATIC CLUB

ADS-B UPDATE
Submitted by Michael Heuer on Sat, 2016-12-17 15:49

As I have previously reported, ADS-B Out cannot keep up with aerobatic operations and it shows up ?red? in the FAA's performance information, through no fault of the airplane?s operator or the equipment. Eventually, we hope for some sort of long-term fix which will likely be in the publication of additional FAA policy, yet to be decided.




As a follow up to articles in Sport Aerobatics this summer and fall regarding ADS-B Out equipment, we had a good meeting at AirVenture in Oshkosh in July with three FAA people heavily involved in ADS-B at the Washington level, outlining our problems with the performance reports. That led to a telephone conference with FAA in Washington on August 8th. Our conversation was with Jim Marks, ADS-B Focus Team Lead, Flight Standards Service, Avionics Branch (AFS-360).

The good news for IAC members is Jim Marks and other FAA personnel have informed us they are solely interested in making sure ADS-B equipment is performing properly. Enforcement or penalizing anyone with bad performance reports that result from aerobatic flight is not part of their job when collecting these performance reports. They do contact the aircraft owners to make them aware of the discrepancies but that is where it ends. IAC has also provided FAA with a list of common aerobatic aircraft used by members in order to help them more easily identify aircraft that are performing aerobatics with ADS-B equipment and generating unsatisfactory performance reports.

On December 6th, EAA reported the final Equip 2020 FAA/industry working group meeting was held and through this group, as well as other contacts, we continue to urge the FAA to publish clear policy guidance for aerobatic aircraft. To date, that written policy has not been provided though the problem is now well understood by FAA personnel.

IAC will be represented at an FAA/EAA Summit Meeting in Oshkosh on the 7th-8th of February 2017 and will continue to press this issue. More working group meetings are planned in Washington in March at which IAC will also be represented.



May 3, 2017 update

The information above pretty much stands. Bruce Ballew, Doug McConnell, and I attended the EAA/FAA Recreational Aviation Summit in Oshkosh in early February. We raised the issue there but nothing further was announced or decided by FAA personnel present. As the news article states, they are monitoring the performance data and we have provided them a list of aerobatic aircraft. So when the report shows a "green line" to the practice area and a "green line" back, they know what's going on. The department in Washington which monitors these reports does not do any enforcement action.

They are strictly interested in watching the reports and contacting aircraft owners if they see anomalies.

Our recommendation stands. After you install the ADS-B equipment, do a normal flight and download the performance report which you can now do on-line. Print it and put it in your airplane and carry it with you.

No written policy has yet been issued by FAA.

Mike Heuer
President, IAC

P.O. Box 3086, Oshkosh, WI 54903-3086
+1 (920) 426-4800 ? [email protected] (link sends e-mail) Copyright ? 2000-2018, EAA
All Rights Reserved

Thank you for this insight. On my test flight I did a couple of dives to see if the "Sink Rate Pull Up" warning would activate. I may have triggered the GEO fail NIC buy doing that.
 
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