FYI I have the 540 440 set up in my SR22 G3T and I did the upgrade myself last Saturday.  Downloaded the bulletin, followed all the instructions with regard to downloading all the data that existed in my units. Took photos with my phone of each and every set up and maintenance screens of each unit.  Made sure my tail number was in each unit (if not the Syn and wifi will not work)  Shut off both units (VERY IMPORTANT) and then proceeded with the upload first on the 440 then the 540.  Took about 90 minutes each and they have to be done separately with the other unit OFF!!!  The only thing I had to put in after the upload was to change the GPS antenna height back to 6 ft. I then had to go in a set up all the user stuff from before like fuel tank reminders, set up the data blocks where I wanted them etc. Again this was easy and took less than 5 minutes because I just referred to my photos and set things back to how there were before the update. 

Did have an issue with the 440 where Syn and wifi did not work.  Tail number was in the unit.  Contacted Avidyne on Saturday!!!  The contact I have there gave me their cell phone number on Friday (don't abuse it I was told)  I texted the issue with the serial number of the unit and the tail number.  15 min later they emailed me a small file. I loaded it into the 440 and everything was great.

I simply cannot say enough about the great service and the help I was giving walking me through this. Hell it I was close to you, I would do yours for a beer.

As far as the equipment goes WOW is all I can say. The Syn is great for the flying I do here in mountains and foothills on the eastern slopes in Alberta Canada as well as Montana.  I have put on 10 hours since Saturday.  Doing lots of IFR training and the Syn is fantastic doing approaches.  I really like the situational awareness the Syn gives.  The "pink line" is vivid and the "pink white" lines for each future leg seems to relax me I think because the brain computes 3D so much better than 2D.

I flew a couple hours last night (more IFR training) What I have quickly come to appreciate with the Syn on the 540 is the information on the screen with regard to towers.  Lots of them in the area where I was training.  At night (and the day sometimes) they simply are not very visible with all the other lights.  The Syn "paints" a big yellow inverted V on the screen with the tower hight above.  I have the AGL data block at the top of the screen and a quick glance confirms tower clearance.

 My IFD has been updated with, (I think!) 10.2.0. It was done with the unit on a ground power supply. The battery on my airplane is NOT in the circuit when ground power is being used. I wonder if it might not be a good idea to just put the ground power in parrallel with the ships battery for the update. We do get a fairly large number of electrical power outages in this area. Usually only lasts a few minutes, but happens often enough to be a worry.

Would just hooking the GPU in parallel with the battery be a BAD thing to do?

Would appreciate an opinion by one of you youngsters!

Happy Skies,

Old Bob

George

I do not have a pick up truck and both of my automobiles use twelve volt power.  <G>

The Bonanza is twenty-eight volt.  My ground power unit will supply 28 or 14 volts.

Guess I will just hook the ground power unit to the ship's battery next time rather than hooking it up to the ground power receptacle. Sure would hate to get a $1200 power loss during an update process!

Don't know why, but Beech has changed their mind as the years go by as to whether or not the battery is in the circuit with ground power hooked up.

Happy Skies,

Old Bob

Actually, I guess I do have something close to a Cessna. 

My V35B was built by Beechcraft before the two companies were combined. 

I did not use a battery maintainer. I purchased the same model power supply that is used by my Avonics shop. They have a half dozen or so of them. That shop is JA Air at Aurora, Illinois. What is good enough for them seems reasonable for me! <G>

As I said before, Beech has changed it's mind over the years  as to how their auxiliary power plug feeds into the system. 

Thank you for the comment.

While I will check with JA before I do it, my thought is to apply the power supply direct to the battery so it will be in the circuit in the event of a line power failure to the Power Supply.

If my memory serves me correctly, several of my earlier Bonanzas had their external power plugs wired that way. However,  would not be the first time I have been wrong.

Happy Skies,

Old Bob

Spoke with shop in AZ yesterday; was told the shop ownership has declined to do the 10.2 update because of the $1200 "liability".

Going to speak with their owner Monday.

It seems this shop really doesn't want to do Avidyne so not much leverage, but I will post their name here and on the Beech board.  In my opinion, they got the commission on the install of all my Avidyne products, sold me some others, and are getting their shop rate on all the panel updates which have been done to my Bonanza.  That creates some sort of relationship.

What does Avi Live think?

Off with their heads.

Don't most of IFD owners feel that $1200 is very excessive for doing a upgrade of the software that goes bad. Could do everything right per the instructions and something still goes wrong= $1200. Think if it is that critical that we should be able to ship unit back to Avidyne and let them do the update.

My 440 took 107 minutes and my 540 took 101 minutes.

15 minutes after you start the update you have to push a button, then an hour later push a few more buttons. It is pretty simple if you follow the instructions exactly. No one needs to be sitting there looking at the screen for 3+ hours.

You know, I just line by line analyzed this update procedure.  My conclusion = It is a big nothing.

I am not sure why Avidyne chose to include the "if this, then $1200" messages all over the place; that decision is causing me a large amount of grief when the bulk of this is lack of understanding.

As I look at this, the bulk of this is in preparation.  Once those issues are addressed, I believe the actual update is _zip_.  In the unlikely circumstance where it fails, or bricks, it goes back to Avidyne.

I have spent more hours than is reasonable in trying to get this upgrade done.  Such a waste of angst.

My backup is KAVQ if all else fails.

David

The avionics shop at AVQ "can't get to it for a few weeks."

Regards,

Bob Siegfried, II

After the previous software upgrade where reloading configurations saved from the version before the upgrade caused issues, Avidyne stated they learned that lesson and would prevent that from happening during future upgrades.  Why so many $1200 brick opportunities?  Pretty much all modern electronics have ways to fall back in case there is an issue.  I can see the software getting corrupted if power is lost during the upgrade, but why isn't there a way to recover in the field?  Could you imagine if Microsoft/Apple/Google operated this way?

His comment:  The issue I have is the $1,200.00 per unit should the software fail. If it failed who would be responsible? To me it just sets up a conflict between the owner and the shop doing the work. Garmin doesn’t do that, Collins doesn’t do that, no other Avionics OEM does.

Ended up sending the unit back to Avidyne - on a Quarantine RMA.  I have been told

thank so far they are getting about 1 failure for every 3 units they update.  However,

to be fair, we were all early adopters up here so there may be some hardware issues....

I was told that Christina IS AWESOME to work with and very helpful.  I hope to get the 

unit back soon. 

Pat.

Yikes.

A failure rate that high would argue against the failure mode being noncompliance with the SB.

I have searched the Avidyne site, and I am unable to find it.

If anyone has a copy, they could send to me, (for archival purposes, of course....)

I would appreciate it.

Regards,

Randy

****************edit*****************

Thank you for the replys, and the item requested.

Regards,

Randy

It took some discussion, and some compromise agreements about path forward if unit or units got bricked, and the shop took its time working up to the 10.2 update, but I am happy to report that I just received word that both IFD540s were successfully updated.

So now we can move on, and hopefully the shop will be retained as an Avidyne dealer.

Woo-hoo!

This shop said would be glad to do the upgrade my 540 for about 2hrs of labor, also warned me to allow some extra days in case my unit has the memory problem.

Perhaps I am a pain, but I stayed with it regarding the original shop who did the install.  We reached this agreement:

If tech bricks unit because didn't follow bulletin, and Avidyne charges, shop pays.

If unit bricks without the above, I pay (which means I duke it out with Avidyne).

Both units did fine.  And, unbelievably, they charged me 1.5 hours to update 2 units.

I understand the purpose of all of the "if...then $1200" statements in the install bulletin, but from a strategic point of view, Avi didn't do anything to solidify its dealer network, and this may amount to another lesson learned.  At least I hope so.

Not sure why they don't want business....

* Orest

How much did Smart Charge for the Update?

But, there is a glitch in trying to tune the satellite radio stations with the latest software, if you have that subscription. Personally I doubt it was really G doing something prickly, and I understand that A is working on a software update that will address this in any case.

* Orest

1 out of 5 brick) Absolutely not true. If that was the case there would be an uprising on here and other forums. The instructions are explicit and if followed work very well. I have done numerous software updates on 540 and 440 and now own a 550, even the big update a couple years ago where the micro sd card had to come out and be updated. No problems whatsoever, but I took my time and followed instructions to the tee and checked off the steps after they were completed. During software updates I've never had to call Avidyne support but I have called them once on configs and they were outstanding.

Here I sit with old software . . . I worry about mine) There is a possibility of failure in every aspect of life, including flying, but that fear doesn't paralyze us . .  we're pilots. Don't forego the benefits of 10.2 over concern about this. If the instructions are followed the odds are overwhelming that it will work. If the instructions were followed and something bad happened I'm confident that Avidyne would take care of you.

$1,200 charge) I haven't heard of anyone that has actually been charged $1200. I would guess that they don't want just anyone doing the updates haphazardly. If you don't follow the instructions and leave steps out it could happen.

It took quite a bit of discussion to get the installing shop to do the updates because of all the red letter $1200 warnings.

The solution I came up with was that if there was bricking because of shop error, they were on the hook for the $1200.  If because of system or software, I was on the hook, but understood that I would be seeking redress from Avidyne.

Finally they got around to doing the updates on my two IFD540s.  No issues, no bricks.

Getting 10.2 installed gave new functionality and in my case fixed some I/O initialization issues which were a 10.1.2.3 or something like that update which I didn't get.  So actually my units work better now.

One thing is certain - all of the red letter $1200 warnings got everybody's attention, which I think was Avidyne's purpose.  Would I have done it that way, no, but I'm not Avidyne.

And FWIW I don't think the $1200 charge has been applied, at least where the unit itself was the issue.

YMMV.

The key to that is to NOT POWER DOWN the unit, if it happens, and to call Tech Support.

* Orest