Aera 660 Power Up Issues

My Aera 660 is behaving erratically. The symptoms are:

1.) It has been failing to power up when connected to power.
2.) Battery tends to end up in a discharged state.
3.) Sometimes removing the battery then connecting in the cradle will get it to start up. (then you can add the battery back in and charge it up)

When it is working, the unit is great, but not being able to reliably get it powered up is becoming a major pain.

I tried updating to the latest firmware but that doesn't appear to have helped.

Any one else experienced this behavior?

I have had 4 aera 660 units. Down to 3 after selling the RV-3B. Also have an aera 760. Never had any kind of trouble with them of any kind, much less your power problem. I am sure this doesn't help your current problem but I would call Garmin and see if they have any advice.

sinflrobot said:

My Aera 660 is behaving erratically. The symptoms are:

1.) It has been failing to power up when connected to power.
2.) Battery tends to end up in a discharged state.
3.) Sometimes removing the battery then connecting in the cradle will get it to start up. (then you can add the battery back in and charge it up)

Click to expand...

Never seen this on any of my Aera 660/760 units. Having an unreliable source of aircraft power could cause this.

1.) On power-up the Aera doesn't get aircraft power, so it doesn't power up.

2.) Unit is then started on battery power (with no aircraft power present), and it runs on the battery until it is low.

Steve

Power source doesn't appear to matter. I have tried the cradle in my plane, another cradle in my car, and the usb power connector on my home power.

Same behavior on all three.

The thing that bugs me is that it is intermittent. It will work fine for a while. Three days of back to back flying, perfect.

Then three days later, it won't start no matter what I do. Wait another day and pull out the battery, and it starts right up when popped in the cradle.

Area 660

I have on in my -3 and when I was installing it, I crossed up two of the wires and let the smoke out. I called Garmin, and told them of my mistake and they said to send the unit back, when I did, they sent me a new one, no charge. So I would call them and send the unit back, they are great on customer service.

sinflrobot said:

Same behavior on all three.

The thing that bugs me is that it is intermittent. It will work fine for a while. Three days of back to back flying, perfect.

Then three days later, it won't start no matter what I do. Wait another day and pull out the battery, and it starts right up when popped in the cradle.

Click to expand...

I've seen this behaviour as well. Garmin cradle, and when it's running it always reports that it's got ship's power (when the master is on) so the power source is there.