Most Common Squawks on the Avidyne EX500 Series MFD

In September of 2014, our repair service agreement with Avidyne Corporation was extended to include Avidyne's EX-500 series of multi-function displays (MFD). Although it has only been about six months since we began servicing these units, we have identified three of the most common squawk items.

1. Encoders. The knobs (encoders) on the front of the unit are one of the highest failure items on the Avidyne units. The squawk typically appears when the function screens will not advance to the next page or will skip pages.
2. Batteries. The Avidyne EX500 units are equipped with 10-year batteries. As the battery begins to fail, the unit clock becomes inaccurate and stops syncing with the universal GPS clock. When this happens, your XM weather may become unusable.
3. Memory card. The charts and navigation databases have gotten so large that the initial memory cards installed on these units are not big enough to hold all of this data, if there are multiple failed segments on the memory card.   We replace a lot of the flash drives. The replacement flash drives now being installed are 2GB, compared to original 512MB memory cards.

If you begin to experience any of these squawks, it is time to send in your unit for service and repair. To save downtime and expense, we are offering loaner and exchange units for the Avidyne EX-500.