Hi
I am not very popular to say the least. I have broken my Air Nav box, not sure what happened really, had it on the desk, and turned round to answer the phone, and crash, it fell on the floor, and broke, it was only carpet on the floor, and did not fall very far, took it down to maplins, who said it could not be repaired.
So my only hope of not being in the dog house for the rest of the year, is that l can claim from the home contents insurnace, we have full accidental cover, and have had insurance with the same company for 20 years, and never made a claim, so here's hoping.
Bill
What are the symptoms of the failure. Are there any lights showing on the box, or is it completely dead? It could just be a failed USB or antenna connection.
Quote from: bill5 on January 11, 2009, 06:06:59 PM
Hi
I am not very popular to say the least. I have broken my Air Nav box, not sure what happened really, had it on the desk, and turned round to answer the phone, and crash, it fell on the floor, and broke, it was only carpet on the floor, and did not fall very far, took it down to maplins, who said it could not be repaired.
So my only hope of not being in the dog house for the rest of the year, is that l can claim from the home contents insurnace, we have full accidental cover, and have had insurance with the same company for 20 years, and never made a claim, so here's hoping.
Bill
Are you sure it's really broken? The construction is such that it would be difficult to break it easily, so may be one of the connectors is damaged. A screwdriver will suffice to open the box at one end and slide out the PCB for visual examination. A good magnifying glass will be useful, jeweller's loupe for instance.
RB does not have any moving parts, so you may have been unlucky in terms of it may have fallen on the SMA plug and thats been damaged. Give us more details as Tarbat has mentioned.
Be warned that if you do as Fenris says you will void any warranty on the product.
Quote from: AirNav Support on January 11, 2009, 06:15:08 PM
Be warned that if you do as Fenris says you will void any warranty on the product.
I would have thought that the warranty was already void due to the way the damage occurred.
Quote from: AirNav Support on January 11, 2009, 06:15:08 PM
Be warned that if you do as Fenris says you will void any warranty on the product.
I didn't know you warrantied it against accidental damage. So Bill just has to send it back for a free repair?
Tom
Well, if it was minor socket damage we may have allowed him to get it repaired however if he opens the box and accidently damages the board that will mean more costly and we may not be so nice :) and ask for a charge to fix it.
It all depends how damaged the box is.
It's certainly worth checking the connections, etc. BEFORE even attempting to open up the box. Others have had lose SMA connections in the past, and it would be a shame to void the warranty if the problem is the antenna cable, for example.
Hi Bill, I kicked a Realistic 2005 scanner down a flight of stairs (just completed 200 mile journey, busting - upstairs toilet - didn't want to leave scanner outside in car) - considerable visible damage, plastic case broken etc. lcd display not lit or working. Tandy (and I suspect, Maplins also) were not interested in repairing the unit, but selling new ones. Thay issued a note saying it was beyond economic repair, we'll sell you a new one at £399, did claim against household insurance - NW paid out with no problem in 1992ish. A lot of insurance companies now have larger excesses and load the policy at renewal time if you've claimed.
I would've hoped that AN would be ** offering a repair at actual cost, rather than just saying "Be warned that if you do as Fenris says you will void any warranty on the product.", which is a relevant comment, but you're being open in here has probably blown any chance of a "warranty" repair. Not knowing the structure of AN, it may be a case that they commission and purchase the units, rather than actually being involved in production/repair/maintenance of the actual electronics, and this may not be a realistic expectation.
If Maplins won't play ball, it may be worth a call to W&S. Let us know how you get on.
**Not having bothered to look through the replies in the mean-time, I see AN Support are on the case and replied again - Good Work AN Support.
PS I actually bought the replacement parts from Realistic and repaired the unit myself for about £30, still working well now.
I think you missed our posts above before you posted CoastGuardJon :)
Hence my edit AN Support - superbly quick response - wouldn't get that on the Dark Side - I think I may've put my gonads on the chopping block in there as well - someone was asking about an aircraft symbol
http://www.kinetic-avionics.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=8775&sid=f95fa9958ae518da8131dcf0aeeb9055
Think l have started world war 3 here as well at home, my wife reckens it is the last christmas she is buying me.
Have not taken the box apart, as would not know what l was looking for anyway. It is the usb conection that is broken off, and seems to be in the box, Maplin said it would need to be souldered on again, and may still not work, offered to sell me another one.
So not sure if it can be repaired or go through insurance. I have £50 excess to pay.
Quote from: bill5 on January 11, 2009, 06:59:50 PM
Think l have started world war 3 here as well at home, my wife reckens it is the last christmas she is buying me.
Have not taken the box apart, as would not know what l was looking for anyway. It is the usb conection that is broken off, and seems to be in the box, Maplin said it would need to be souldered on again, and may still not work, offered to sell me another one.
So not sure if it can be repaired or go through insurance. I have £50 excess to pay.
Highly likely that damage serious enough to break the USB connector off the board has torn PCB tracks off or even broken the PCB.
My suggestion would be to send it to Airnav and ask if they would be prepared to replace just the box at cost, remember that although you are buying hardware much of the cost of the product is actually the software development so a replacement box ought to be significantly cheaper as you are not buying another software licence and network licence.
CoastGuardJon, it would be worth letting the other side know that we can change our aircraft symbols to a box if we want ;-)
Quote from: Fenris on January 11, 2009, 07:12:22 PMCoastGuardJon, it would be worth letting the other side know that we can change our aircraft symbols to a box if we want ;-)
I think I've probably pushed my luck far enough already!
The USB is fixed to the board as can be seen in the photo of the insides accompanying this article.
http://www.airnavsystems.com/download/anrb/RadarBox%20-%20Silicon%20Chip%20Australia%20-%20Review%20November%202008.pdf (http://www.airnavsystems.com/download/anrb/RadarBox%20-%20Silicon%20Chip%20Australia%20-%20Review%20November%202008.pdf)
Nevertheless, it must be worth a telephone call to Waters & Stanton in the morning.
Quote from: nortonbeak on January 11, 2009, 08:09:54 PM
The USB is fixed to the board as can be seen in the photo of the insides accompanying this article.
So, if the USB lead is rotated downwards then if the connector shell is not strongly soldered to the PCB the connections at the back can be torn off the PCB even by an impact with carpet from a small height?
Quote from: Fenris on January 11, 2009, 08:38:14 PM
Quote from: nortonbeak on January 11, 2009, 08:09:54 PM
The USB is fixed to the board as can be seen in the photo of the insides accompanying this article.
So, if the USB lead is rotated downwards then if the connector shell is not strongly soldered to the PCB the connections at the back can be torn off the PCB even by an impact with carpet from a small height?
What are you trying to say Brian?
I don't remember anything in the RB spec about it being guaranteed to be indestructible if dropped :-0
Excuse my post, but you do always seem to be trying to find fault ............
Quote from: Allocator on January 11, 2009, 08:48:48 PM
So, if the USB lead is rotated downwards then if the connector shell is not strongly soldered to the PCB the connections at the back can be torn off the PCB even by an impact with carpet from a small height?
What are you trying to say Brian?
I don't remember anything in the RB spec about it being guaranteed to be indestructible if dropped :-0
Excuse my post, but you do always seem to be trying to find fault ............
[/quote]
You misunderstand me, I'm an engineer (which makes me naturally suspicious) that builds products for the consumer market and I know what they are expected to stand up to, but perhaps an incident like this with a mini-USB lead plugged in is more severe than I thought.
I'm not trying to find fault (and what else have I tried to find fault with except government actions?), but I think I'm justified in determining whether the risk of damage is high for a simple mistake. The force applied is unusual in that a vertical force would cause the connector to be driven against the case end, reducing the force applied to the connector/PCB whereas a rotational force has no such benefit so the force is applied directly to the connector mount points.
So this is probably how it happened to Bill5 and hence we should be aware that it can happen and take more care with our RBs.
There is of course the possibility that the soldering was inadequate in this case, but I can't diagnose that (especially from this distance) and it will be up to W&S (I presume) to determine whether an incident like this is classed as reasonable handling or not. The box is quite light and hence a lot easier to knock flying than if it were heavier.
Quote from: nortonbeak on January 11, 2009, 08:09:54 PM
The USB is fixed to the board as can be seen in the photo of the insides accompanying this article.
http://www.airnavsystems.com/download/anrb/RadarBox%20-%20Silicon%20Chip%20Australia%20-%20Review%20November%202008.pdf (http://www.airnavsystems.com/download/anrb/RadarBox%20-%20Silicon%20Chip%20Australia%20-%20Review%20November%202008.pdf)
Am I the only person here who recognizes RadarBox being run on an Apple MacBook Pro in the article link Nortonbeak kindly posted?
I'd like to know where I can get the OS-X version of RadarBox...
Apologies for taking the topic sideways.
No, it's the graphics department of the magazine that have got this wrong - the screen shot looks like it's pasted onto the picture of the laptop :-0
Quote from: Fenris on January 11, 2009, 09:10:35 PM
I'm not trying to find fault (and what else have I tried to find fault with except government actions?), but I think I'm justified in determining whether the risk of damage is high for a simple mistake. The force applied is unusual in that a vertical force would cause the connector to be driven against the case end, reducing the force applied to the connector/PCB whereas a rotational force has no such benefit so the force is applied directly to the connector mount points.
I have the same problem with toast - it always lands jam side down, but I don't see any warning about this on the wrapper. It's just not good enough!
It must be "clumsy Sunday". I dropped my binoculars last night, and appear to have damaged the prisms, since the two eyes no longer line-up. Going to be expensive to replace :(
Bill, before claiming on the insurance consider the impact on next year's premium. My advise would be to contact Airnav direct and see if they can help first.
Quote from: Allocator on January 12, 2009, 12:30:55 AMI have the same problem with toast - it always lands jam side down, but I don't see any warning about this on the wrapper. It's just not good enough!
Or as we used to say in Glasgow, 'Gin ye drap a jeely piece, it aye fa's jeely side doon'
Quote from: Allocator on January 12, 2009, 12:30:55 AM
I have the same problem with toast - it always lands jam side down, but I don't see any warning about this on the wrapper. It's just not good enough!
I wasn't asking for a warning, it's just that I'd never considered the relative sizes of a mini-USB plug's body and the inserted part before. By the time you add in the strain relief on the cable it's about 4 times the length so any force applied to the cable is multiplied 4 times on the inserted end.
I wonder if I can find a cable with a shorter mini-USB connector body?
Oh and the toast problem is easily fixed by attaching the slice with butter/jam on it to a cat. When it falls the whole assembly sits a foot or so off the ground trying to work out how to land with both the jam and the cat's feet on the ground at the same time.
Dave,
Liked your Glasgow quotation. I take it then that you are somewhere in Glasgow. I must be located near you as I am in East Kilbride. Clear blue skies today and I can hear the overflights which are also registering on the RB but coming over with no trails showing. Why is that ? Bit of a bummer as an Aeromexico came over earlier.
Quote from: EK01 on January 12, 2009, 11:57:10 AM
Liked your Glasgow quotation. I take it then that you are somewhere in Glasgow.
Nope, I'm an expat living in Berkshire now.
Not all aircraft show up as trails on RadarBox (or in the sky, come to that). Depends on the avionics fit.
Dave
Quote from: Fenris on January 12, 2009, 10:36:04 AM
Oh and the toast problem is easily fixed by attaching the slice with butter/jam on it to a cat. When it falls the whole assembly sits a foot or so off the ground trying to work out how to land with both the jam and the cat's feet on the ground at the same time.
That's an excellent idea Brian, all I've got to do now is to convince the cat .......
That did make me smile :-)
Regarding the shorter USB connector, I'm sure somebody posted a picture here on the forum of a RB (or was it an SBS-1?) mounted inside another box with fly-leads to the outside of the bigger box. Maybe a bit of overkill, but if you plan on going out "in the field" then it might be worth considering.
The sort of cable I'm thinking of is one of the two at the bottom right on this page:
http://www.usbfirewire.com/ucablecam5b.html
That would reduce the bending moment, but might be a bit awkward if the cable went downwards.
I think more care is probably the best thing, I do plan on taking mine out in the car for use when parked up. At home it sits on the floor, so it can't easily fall.
Hi Brian, thanks for the link - not the cheapest, esp. with current US$ to GBP rates, but well worth some very serious consideration.
Quote from: Fenris on January 12, 2009, 06:23:46 PM
The sort of cable I'm thinking of is one of the two at the bottom right on this page:
http://www.usbfirewire.com/ucablecam5b.html
That would reduce the bending moment, but might be a bit awkward if the cable went downwards.
I think more care is probably the best thing, I do plan on taking mine out in the car for use when parked up. At home it sits on the floor, so it can't easily fall.
I cannot remember where the quote was either. What I do remember is that the user had encased his Arbie in a clear video box with pigtails feeding through to the connections.
I have looked at getting a Peli case for mine, but the video box solution is much cheaper.
This is the link to the thread for video box pics: http://www.airnavsystems.com/forum/index.php?topic=1505.0 (http://www.airnavsystems.com/forum/index.php?topic=1505.0) (the last post)
Rod
Hi Bill, did you get this problem resolved?