S7 (formerly V7) software bugs?

[Matt Herron Jr.]

The latest release (V4.99) of software for the S7 vario is exhibiting some unusual behavior in at least two different aircraft. Has anyone else noticed any of the issues below?

SETUP: Oudie II, PowerFlarm brick, S7 vario, Flarmview. S7 is version 4.99, vario is version 4.98 Flarmview is latest version.


1) In speed to fly mode (SC), the sound is behaving strangely. As the mechanical needle rises between 0 and 0.5 knots, the tone pitch rises rapidly. Above 0.5 knots it suddenly drops back down in pitch and begins to rise again (more slowly) as the needle climbs higher.

2) The volume of the vario resets/changes on its own and I have to keep re-adjusting it louder in flight.

3) During my last flight, during cruise, there were several occasions where I attempted to adjust the MC setting on the S7. The needle would suddenly pitch up to 10 knots of climb and get stuck there, and the speed to fly indicator would drop all the way down (showing I was flying too fast). I had to turn the S7 off to get it to reset. Adjusting the MC via Oudie did not produce this result.

Any additional observations would be appreciated.

Matt Herron

[SoaringXCellence]

Matt,

I'm current flying with a similar set up and have been plagued by resets and other odd behavior. I've got Richard Pfiffner of Craggy Aero corresponding with the factory and we're trying a few things, including a factory reset before today's flight. I was still getting the unit freezing at the most inopportune times!! Apparently there is a possible hardware tweak but you need to send it ti the factory or an authorized dealer (CraggyAero can do it).

When the contest is over Richard is taking mine home to do the tweak and see if that solves the problem.

[[email protected]]

On Friday, June 19, 2015 at 12:26:52 AM UTC-4, SoaringXCellence wrote:
> Matt,
>
> I'm current flying with a similar set up and have been plagued by resets and other odd behavior. I've got Richard Pfiffner of Craggy Aero corresponding with the factory and we're trying a few things, including a factory reset before today's flight. I was still getting the unit freezing at the most inopportune times!! Apparently there is a possible hardware tweak but you need to send it ti the factory or an authorized dealer (CraggyAero can do it).
>
> When the contest is over Richard is taking mine home to do the tweak and see if that solves the problem.

I had the same glitch at Region V North. In SC mode vario told me to fly faster, faster, faster with pegged needle. I sent it back to Richard and he could not duplicate. Since that time I have flown an additional contest and no issues.

Lane

[Matt Herron Jr.]

On Thursday, June 18, 2015 at 9:26:52 PM UTC-7, SoaringXCellence wrote:
> Matt,
>
> I'm current flying with a similar set up and have been plagued by resets and other odd behavior. I've got Richard Pfiffner of Craggy Aero corresponding with the factory and we're trying a few things, including a factory reset before today's flight. I was still getting the unit freezing at the most inopportune times!! Apparently there is a possible hardware tweak but you need to send it ti the factory or an authorized dealer (CraggyAero can do it).
>
> When the contest is over Richard is taking mine home to do the tweak and see if that solves the problem.

I had that same problem. It would reboot in flight and kill the power to the whole system including Powerflarm. Finally sent it back to Richard and he did the hardware fix. That seems to have fixed the hardware problem, but not the software issues mentioned above.

The software issues appeared with the latest upgrade of all boxes at the beginning of the season. Prior to that, I also had an issue with V7 not displaying Flarm warnings. That seems to have gotten fixed in this release.


Matt

[Luke Szczepaniak]

On 06/19/2015 10:03 AM, Matt Herron Jr. wrote:
> On Thursday, June 18, 2015 at 9:26:52 PM UTC-7, SoaringXCellence wrote:
>> Matt,
>>
>> I'm current flying with a similar set up and have been plagued by resets and other odd behavior. I've got Richard Pfiffner of Craggy Aero corresponding with the factory and we're trying a few things, including a factory reset before today's flight. I was still getting the unit freezing at the most inopportune times!! Apparently there is a possible hardware tweak but you need to send it ti the factory or an authorized dealer (CraggyAero can do it).
>>
>> When the contest is over Richard is taking mine home to do the tweak and see if that solves the problem.
>
> I had that same problem. It would reboot in flight and kill the power to the whole system including Powerflarm. Finally sent it back to Richard and he did the hardware fix. That seems to have fixed the hardware problem, but not the software issues mentioned above.
>
> The software issues appeared with the latest upgrade of all boxes at the beginning of the season. Prior to that, I also had an issue with V7 not displaying Flarm warnings. That seems to have gotten fixed in this release.
>
>
> Matt
>


I am running with Powerflarm>S7>IOIO>Dell Streak 5(XCSOAR). All devices
are on the firmware and software revisions and have not experienced
these issues.

I had three power failures in flight this season, these shut down
everything not just the S7. I think they were related to battery glass
fuse holder failing - these have been replaced by automotive blade fuses
now but I haven't had a chance to test in the air...

Luke

[Luke Szczepaniak]

On 06/19/2015 10:15 AM, Luke Szczepaniak wrote:
> I am running with Powerflarm>S7>IOIO>Dell Streak 5(XCSOAR). All devices
> are on the firmware and software revisions and have not experienced
> these issues

Sorry for replying to myself but that was supposed to say

"are on the LATEST firmware and software revisions"

Luke

[John Orton[_4_]]

I can't comment on the inflight reset issue.
However I have seen the SC speed to fly problem occur when the glider polar weight parameters somehow get reset to zero. Makes sure that the glider mass is set correctly in the settings. There are several settings to make.

[Richard[_9_]]

Reset to factory default Password 00666 You will need to setup all your settings again.

Richard
www.craggyaero.com

[Matt Herron Jr.]

On Friday, June 19, 2015 at 8:32:19 PM UTC-7, Richard wrote:
> Reset to factory default Password 00666 You will need to setup all your settings again.
>
> Richard
> www.craggyaero.com

Factory reset was tried by Morteza, and he still had this vario issue of speed to fly indicator going nuts. I will check some settings today and report back.

[[email protected]]

Glad to hear this is a widespread problem. Richard gave my V7 the shakedown on the bench and pronounced it healthy. Great customer service. I am glad to hear I wasn't in dreamland when the thing went screwy on last day of region V North. Still won contest ( my first win ) but it was like the water torture drill trying to ignore the baritone chord on the audio.

Lane
XF

[David Hirst]

Any indication as to what the "hardware fault" was? The in-flight re-boot sounds like a bad solder joint or bad connector somewhere. I have a brand new (V)S7 in front of me, so if there are some things I can check before it goes in the panel, I'd be interested to hear.

I'd also be interested in hearing how old the problematic units are. Or maybe LXNav have sold thousands of good ones and we're just hearing about the outliers.

David

[MQ]

The factory reset seemed to have sorted me out. Oudie IGC, flarmbrick, V7
Also, I did the update with an oudie II to work around the IGC update issues...before the reset step.

I love this setup and so far probably spend the most time playing with flarmbrick updates and making sure it is performing optimally.

Geoff

[Matt Herron Jr.]

Update:

I reviewed the settings on my V7 yesterday in detail. Apparently after upgrading the V7 software, some setting survived and some didn't.

I found that my Polar screen settings were completely lst. They now showed a "Default" glider type, class " unknown". It also showed stall speed at 10 Kts., the polar showed A=1.94, B=-2.9, C=1.6 glider weight --lbs, max glider weight --lbs, empty glider weight --lbs,

I have corrected these settings, but have no way of testing wether they fixed problem #3 (see first post) without doing a flight test. Stay tuned for more info.

Matt H

[Morteza Ansari]

In my case I *did* reset the unit and set all the configuration parameters including glider polar to the correct setting. Almost all my problems were fixed after that but I still have the intermittent cruise mode craziness where speed to fly is obviously wrong. The other problem I have is audio level being random and going up and down throughout the flight.


Cheers,
Morteza

On Sunday, June 21, 2015 at 3:09:39 PM UTC-7, Matt Herron Jr. wrote:
> Update:
>
> I reviewed the settings on my V7 yesterday in detail. Apparently after upgrading the V7 software, some setting survived and some didn't.
>
> I found that my Polar screen settings were completely lst. They now showed a "Default" glider type, class " unknown". It also showed stall speed at 10 Kts., the polar showed A=1.94, B=-2.9, C=1.6 glider weight --lbs, max glider weight --lbs, empty glider weight --lbs,
>
> I have corrected these settings, but have no way of testing wether they fixed problem #3 (see first post) without doing a flight test. Stay tuned for more info.
>
> Matt H

[Greg Delp]

I want to clarify something just in case you don't realize it like I originally did not. The volumes for climb vario mode and cruise speed to fly mode are completely independent of one another. Even though there is only one vario volume slider in the menu section, the volumes for each mode are independent. If your volume is changing exactly the same time as the climb/cruise mode changes then that is your issue. That was never clear to me in the manual.

[Morteza Ansari]

In my case this is not about a switch from cruise to thermal mode. While in cruise it would go up and down on its own. I never had this before and only seen it since the upgrade to the latest version.

On Monday, June 22, 2015 at 4:22:02 AM UTC-7, Greg Delp wrote:
> I want to clarify something just in case you don't realize it like I originally did not. The volumes for climb vario mode and cruise speed to fly mode are completely independent of one another. Even though there is only one vario volume slider in the menu section, the volumes for each mode are independent. If your volume is changing exactly the same time as the climb/cruise mode changes then that is your issue. That was never clear to me in the manual.

[Eric]

First of all I would try to downgrade to a previous FW version (if that was running without issues)

[Richard[_9_]]

On Tuesday, June 23, 2015 at 3:14:51 PM UTC-7, Eric wrote:
> First of all I would try to downgrade to a previous FW version (if that was running without issues)

The RAS is a really bad place to get advice on instruments.

I would send the concerns with the Firmware Version number and the Serial number of the V7 to:



Richard
www.craggyaero.com

[Eric]

True. LXNAV is very coöperative and they take customer complaints serious.. Uros once even send me an "in between" firmware version, just to solve a problem I had with the white arc.

[Matt Herron Jr.]

been there, done that. just get questions back...

[Matt Herron Jr.]

update: june 24 2015

After correcting the trashed Polar and glider weights after a software upgrade, I flew a 6 hour flight today out of Bishop. The V7 (S7) performed without a hitch. I was able to change MC, and bugs without ill effects. The vario never changed volumes. It never pegged. It did not display the weird change in pitch in cruse.

Yay!

However, it would be very helpfull to know which parameters are preserved and which are rest to "default'" when one does an upgrade. Also, Preservation of parameters is (i think...) dependent on which of the two V7 file you update first. Do it backwards and nothing is preserved (a royal pain, as there are soon many settings to configure.)

I wil be flying all week, and will update if issues arrise

Matt H,

[Pete Startup[_2_]]

HOT TIP - print off a hard copy of the manual and write all your settings
in it. Saves much memory searching for settings that you did XXX time ago!

Pete

At 05:43 25 June 2015, Matt Herron Jr. wrote:
>update: june 24 2015
>
>After correcting the trashed Polar and glider weights after a software
>upgr=
>ade, I flew a 6 hour flight today out of Bishop. The V7 (S7) performed
>wit=
>hout a hitch. I was able to change MC, and bugs without ill effects.
The
>=
>vario never changed volumes. It never pegged. It did not display the
>weir=
>d change in pitch in cruse. =20
>
>Yay!
>
>However, it would be very helpfull to know which parameters are preserved
>a=
>nd which are rest to "default'" when one does an upgrade. Also,
>Preservati=
>on of parameters is (i think...) dependent on which of the two V7 file
you
>=
>update first. Do it backwards and nothing is preserved (a royal pain, as
>t=
>here are soon many settings to configure.)
>
>I wil be flying all week, and will update if issues arrise
>
>Matt H,
>
>

[Matt Herron Jr.]

quick photos of each screen works well to.

Another day of flying without any S7 incidents. I was able to adjust Mc, Bugs, and ballast without incident. I think the Polar and associated settings was the culprit.

Matt


On Thursday, June 25, 2015 at 12:15:07 AM UTC-7, Pete Startup wrote:
> HOT TIP - print off a hard copy of the manual and write all your settings
> in it. Saves much memory searching for settings that you did XXX time ago!
>
> Pete
>
> At 05:43 25 June 2015, Matt Herron Jr. wrote:
> >update: june 24 2015
> >
> >After correcting the trashed Polar and glider weights after a software
> >upgr=
> >ade, I flew a 6 hour flight today out of Bishop. The V7 (S7) performed
> >wit=
> >hout a hitch. I was able to change MC, and bugs without ill effects.
> The
> >=
> >vario never changed volumes. It never pegged. It did not display the
> >weir=
> >d change in pitch in cruse. =20
> >
> >Yay!
> >
> >However, it would be very helpfull to know which parameters are preserved
> >a=
> >nd which are rest to "default'" when one does an upgrade. Also,
> >Preservati=
> >on of parameters is (i think...) dependent on which of the two V7 file
> you
> >=
> >update first. Do it backwards and nothing is preserved (a royal pain, as
> >t=
> >here are soon many settings to configure.)
> >
> >I wil be flying all week, and will update if issues arrise
> >
> >Matt H,
> >
> >