Living in Honduras (where GA is practically non-existent) I don’t have much opportunity to stay current. I have not dealt with Uavonix but have installed and debugged other manufacturer’s gear. Their internal and external magnetometer offerings are not necessarily of the same quality. The cheapest tech may work well enough for installations where the panel is sparse and no wiring or ferrous metals are within a foot or so of the unit. My experience is that the external magnetometer is required almost every time.
Placing the external one is an exercise in black magic. My installs were Velocities and each project was unique. Magn. placement in one plane often did not work in the next. Garmin specs called for a level of isolation such that there was no possible location meeting all the specs. I had to find the best compromise.
How these companies market their goods is based, wouldn’t you think, on what delivers the most profit. Certainly selling gear that would appear to have a working magn. onboard when it is nearly always useless, well, I would not predict that feature would be helpful for profit in the long run. Reputation catches up.
Having two units side in the panel means the two internals will have different levels of magnetic interference. I would be surprised if both would calibrate successfully, and even then they could easily be off on some headings.
Why not program them to use GPS heading when available? I am getting foggy on that detail. One reason would be that GPS takes far longer to react to the heading change. That could be a hazard in IMC. I would think that keeping track of the GPS heading in some sort of accumulated error statistic could help verify the integrity of the internal magn. and advise “Warning: magn. data is full of crap!”
Comment: I would not rely much on technical support given by a company for a product they have not manufactured…
Question: How is MGL doing these days? Ten years ago they had gear that looked great. Pilots who flew with them hated them as having lagging AHARS. I did several panel upgrades for MGL units to be scrapped as unacceptable.
Hopefully they have either overcome or faded into the sunset.
Hey Rick and Kevin, you know they should be giving us the damn things (remote mag) for free. Have you tried working on Uavonix for something to be done about this. I’m about to.
I have two AV30’s and they don’t agree after 15 minutes (when both are set to show DG’s) and forget maintaining the heading. I’ve talked to Uavonix before about calibration and did exactly as they instructed with the figure 8’s etc. but no bueno. The displays and other features are great but the DG feature isn’t reliable as is. I don’t get how they can sell them as a DG with smiles on their faces. As a side, I love the rest of the jam-packed features these little units provide. They have bright and clear screens that work well in direct sun light. Great for clear or tinted canopies.
