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Got a real head-scratcher on a G1000 install in a Cessna 182 last month

We were buttoning up the panel after a full glass cockpit upgrade. Everything tested fine on the bench, but the moment we powered the plane, the PFD screen stayed black. No error codes, just nothing. My partner was ready to pull the whole unit, but I remembered a forum post about a similar issue. We checked the dedicated avionics bus breaker, and sure enough, it had tripped. The weird part? It only tripped under the plane's full electrical load, not on our test bench. We traced it to a tiny nick in the main power line insulation that was grounding out against a fresh screw from the new panel mount. Fixed the wire, replaced the breaker, and it fired right up. Has anyone else run into a problem that only shows up under real aircraft power, not during bench checks?
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3 Comments
harperp24
harperp2422d ago
Our old Piper's strobes only failed above 8,000 feet.
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paige166
paige16622d ago
Oh man, that's wild. My buddy had a Cessna that did the SAME thing, @harperp24. He'd climb through seven-five and they'd just quit. Turned out to be a bad ground wire that got worse with the cold.
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holly709
holly70922d ago
Check the new panel screws for hidden wire damage.
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