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GRT Product Support

Thank You for Acknowledging the Problem

Thank you for acknowledging that the problem was not our equipment. When troubleshooting it can be hard to know where the problem is likely to be, but it helps to remember that our equipment works, and has been proven in thousands of installations, and is not likely to be the problem.

I do not agree with your assertions about our documentation. It is quite complete and accurate.

As for our customer support at airshows, we can not guarantee that we will have time at these busy shows, and our head of technical support did not attend the show this year.

I also do not agree that our technical support is lacking. I have tried contacting a competitor, and never got a reply. If you call us, and we are busy, we do call back. With GRT you are also able to get assistance from our engineers, and myself. We can't provide 24 hour on call service, but we will get your problem solved. Most often difficult to solve problems are not the fault of our equipment, but we still do what we can to solve them.

I also disagree that I have one foot out the door. I started this company, I love my work, and I do not expect to ever retire. Airplanes and avionics are my passion. I do try to explore some other aspects of life and do more than work, but ultimately, it gives me great satisfaction.

I would also like to point out that we have been a powerful influence in this industry for keeping prices competitive, and for pushing the state of the art forward.

Greg Toman
President
GRT Avionics
 
I have watched this thread since inception
I also have a full grt system and installed it myself
Grt has been patient and alway helped correct my 100% installer induced failures.
As someone who has written install instructions for much simpler machines, it’s difficult to write instructions no knowing what talents the installer has. Obviously the grt instructions are good enough for the thousands of installs out there.
Almost nothing in life is 100% plug and play when you are doing something the first time

BJB
 
Are you willing to acknowledge this?

Thank you for acknowledging that the problem was not our equipment. When troubleshooting it can be hard to know where the problem is likely to be, but it helps to remember that our equipment works, and has been proven in thousands of installations, and is not likely to be the problem.

I do not agree with your assertions about our documentation. It is quite complete and accurate.

As for our customer support at airshows, we can not guarantee that we will have time at these busy shows, and our head of technical support did not attend the show this year.

I also do not agree that our technical support is lacking. I have tried contacting a competitor, and never got a reply. If you call us, and we are busy, we do call back. With GRT you are also able to get assistance from our engineers, and myself. We can't provide 24 hour on call service, but we will get your problem solved. Most often difficult to solve problems are not the fault of our equipment, but we still do what we can to solve them.

I also disagree that I have one foot out the door. I started this company, I love my work, and I do not expect to ever retire. Airplanes and avionics are my passion. I do try to explore some other aspects of life and do more than work, but ultimately, it gives me great satisfaction.

I would also like to point out that we have been a powerful influence in this industry for keeping prices competitive, and for pushing the state of the art forward.

Greg Toman
President
GRT Avionics

Greg,

Throughout the thread I’ve said GRT builds good equipment at a competitive price. However I honestly believe, as have others who’ve commented here, your product documentation is scattered, incomplete and not well organized. Since your customer base is the amateur market a useful tool form of installation communication is the use of UTube videos. Can’t say I’ve seen many current videos about GRT product installations or setup.

Jeff is your best technical support person but his work hours are generally not normal business working hours. Jon (sales) and Eric (your other support staff person) admitted to me at AirVenture they didn’t have the technical expertise it appeared that I needed. I’m not saying they didn’t want to help but that they felt like they couldn’t.

As for getting help from others at GRT, I emailed you several times without any response. The one time you did respond you admitted to not checking your mail for a while. Subsequent emails were either ignored or forgotten.

I agree GRT has been a powerful influencer in experimental avionics but that influence is waning. As I mentioned in earlier posts fewer avionics shops are willing to assist experimental aircraft owners with GRT equipment because of similar frustrations that I’ve expressed here.

I truly do hope GRT prospers and grows because there are a lot of Experimental Aircraft owners who have your equipment installed and need product support. Please study this thread and realize that a number of PM messages also were received expressing similar frustrations along with suggestions to address my problem.

GRT can again become a powerful trend leader in the aviation community but (IMHO) that requires you to honestly evaluate where it is right now and where you want it to be five, ten plus years from now.

I think it’s time to close this thread.
 
Lemme try and sneak in a lessons learned before the thread is closed:

To prospective buyers:

Touch the gear, read the docs, generate your own wiring diagram from the information provided on perspective vendors website. This is a good exercise in becoming familiar with each vendor's docs in a useful way, as well as generating docs for your own airplane which helps with trouble shooting.

To installers who have a problem:

Divide and conquer. Split the system into the smallest chunks until it works, then add pieces back in until it breaks. People that do engineering or technical work do this all of the time. Building a test harness that direct attaches gear should have been the second troubleshooting solution after checking the connections.

Now the stuff I didn't know:

walt said:
Make sure you use gold plated switch contacts for low level/signal switching.

That's new information to me which has been added to my avionics documentation. Walt, do you have a favorite switch vendor? Does the switch Stein sells have gold plated contacts?

I wonder what voltages levels the GRT stuff uses. In days of old RS-232 meant a -12v/+12v swing, now I'm seeing most stuff -5/+5v. I bet the old RS-232 would have worked through a crappy switch, at least intermittently.

schu
 
Another vote for GRT. I had a GRT Sport-EX in my RV-6 and loved it. I'm installing dual Sport-EXs in my current project. Yes some of their documentation is confusing, but anytime I've had a problem, GRT techs were happy to walk me through the situation.

I like that their equipment is compatible with almost all other brands, and map updates are free.

AND they offer Veterans a discount!
 
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I do not agree with your assertions about our documentation. It is quite complete and accurate.


Greg Toman
President
GRT Avionics

Sorry Greg, but I must disagree with the above statement.

I have just recently finished a dual 10.1 Horizon setup with Trig remote comm and xpnder. Also EIS feeding a WS used to monitor engine functions.

The supplemental documentation for using the 10.1 Horizon and the Trig transponder does not exist. I was referred to manuals for the earlier versions of the EFIS.

The earlier versions were written when you still used an adapter for the interface to the transponder. There is mention of the RS 485 lines for the transponder in the 10.1 Horizon manual------but they do not mention a couple of vital items that I had to make repeated contact with GRT support to get taken care of.

One is that the previously used adapter had an internal jumper for pin 13 to ground. This jumper is required to turn the xpnder on.

Another missing item is to set the squat switch to " use EFIS and GPS data". Very few homebuilt aircraft use retract gear, so who in their right minds would ever expect the squat switch needed to be set to anything but "off".

As I have stated in the past, and still continue to believe the equipment itself is fantastic. I really love that you openly support other brands of peripheral hardware.

But-----your documentation really needs help, and that is the truth.
 

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I have to agree with Mike. I think the GRT equipment has capabilities that match and in many ways, exceed their competition. However, not too many users know how to use many of these capabilities, because their documentation is so poor, and user interface is so obtuse that only computer engineers can appreciate all of the advanced capabilities that it was designed to do. Rather than being user friendly, like Garmin, I would have to say that the user interface with GRT equipment is “user hostile” - from a pilot’s perspective. Their operating system was obviously written by a computer programmer, not a pilot. When I went to initial training on my first glass airplane - B757/767 - I was amazed. It was so advanced, capable, and so incredibly intuitive. It was easy to learn. When I put Garmin G3X glass in my 2 RV8’s, the feeling was similar, in that it was very intuitive. I actually never went through any of the tutorials or manual written user how-to instructions. It was so intuitive (like the Boeing) that I didn’t need it.
Well, that’s not the way it is with GRT. When I tried to enter a route or waypoint and I got a full screen (blanking out everything else) with rows of letters and numbers, my exclamation was ‘YGTBSM’!! They really do this? This is just one example, but I think they missed on a few points when it comes to pilot interface.
All that being said, I still like their equipment because of #1 - cost; #2 - capabilities, thinking maybe I’ll be able to eventually think more like a computer guy, plus I’m into simple VFR capabilities, and the advanced capabilities available that I’ll never be able to figure out, won’t be needed anyway. My current RV6 build will most likely be a simple GRT glass display with one COM radio because I like the price, I like Greg and his crew at GRT, and I’ve had very good customer service from them on the two RV’s I’ve had with GRT equipment. I can deal with the seemingly (to me) backwards thinking on a simple VFR airplane to save a lot of money in the long run and still have a beautiful display with lots of useful information, an engine information system that is legendary, and have a lot of trust in reliability. I’ve never had a failure in the GRT equipment that I’ve used.
 
OK, I just have to wade in here...

Firstly, who am I and why am I commenting? I have an airplane which contains an HX, one of the first batch of Mini-X (early adopter!) and a Sport EX as well as EIS-66R. You could say I'm "invested" in GRT.

Greg, I will echo some of the comments made above. GRT documentation, even for a person who is an avionics professional, is sparse, out of date, sometimes wholly inaccurate, but much of the time just sadly lacking in sufficient detail to allow an installer to independently complete an installation with high confidence of success. Configuration items seen on the screen often have zero reference data available to explain what that configuration item does, and how it should be configured.

Which leads me to my next point.

I have experienced absolutely terrific support from GRT's engineers. Greg, if you're reading this, you need to clone Jeff DeFouw - his patience, combined with his technical competence, makes him a real gem. I can't tell you the number of times he and I have had email conversations late into the evening.

Now for the stinger... As excellent as GRT's support is (and especially that of Jeff), the current state of GRT documentation is "penny wise, pound foolish". Many of the emails Jeff has answered have come about as a result of significant gaps in technical documentation. Improve the documentation and you will see a large drop in the number of calls and emails. It's not an chicken-and-egg situation - it's a "feed the chickens or you will have no eggs" situation. In this case, feeding the chickens means bringing on a staff member, even if only on contract, to update product documentation. Ideally that person would be a homebuilder who has experience in both installing and flying the GRT EFIS products. When the Mini product line was being released we saw a step-function improvement in documentation while Katie was working on it. GRT needs that kind of person on staff to ratchet up the quality of product documentation.

Now I'm done slamming GRT so I get to tell the rest of the story. My experience with GRT products once the installation has been completed is excellent. They...just...work! I don't need to touch anything. Everything just works. Information that I need is available and is rationally depicted on screen. Third party devices work without there being any finger-pointing battles. And we can always count on GRT to be the first to bring the latest technology to market before anybody else.

I find there are always little "nigglies" with any product, issues which we would like tailored to our personal desires. Of course there are some of these with the GRT products. I've communicated these to Jeff and await their implementation in software. To that end, and in hopes that Greg is reading, I'll enumerate the more vexing ones here.

1) a formal release of software containing the fix for MAG CAL with multiple EFIS units and multiple magnetometers. Jeff has a Beta version of this fix, but please understand I don't fly Beta. Release it, please! (for background, my Mini-X has its own magnetometer because it's my backup instrument, the Adaptive AHARS has a magnetometer shared with the HX and Sport EX - in this configuration MAG CAL does not work properly)

2) a fix for those of us who run different vintage screens. The HX isn't nearly as bright as the Mini or Sport EX (the glass and backlight on the new glass is really quite wonderful). As a result we can't share dimming across the inter-display link because the Mini and Sport EX need to be set two full increments more dim than the HX in order to achieve uniform display intensities. What's needed is a " If you have an older screen installed and are sharing dimming on the inter-display link, insert an offset of X dimmer counts" - this would be configured on the inter-display link slave units (assuming the HX is master) so that one doesn't have to manually dim each of three screens. If it weren't for this little dimming challenge I literally would never touch the buttons on the Mini-X.

3) add the capacity to calibrate the internal MAP sensor in the EIS-66R. The standard EIS allows calibration of its external MAP sensor, but the EIS-66R does not allow calibration of its internal sensor. I live with a MAP reading that's constantly incorrect by 0.3-0.4inHg - that's just no fun.

To summarize, GRT's support is very good, however the unfortunate state of documentation means we have to rely on direct human support far too often. Once installed and running, GRT's products are fantastic and clearly are leaders in value and performance as well as broad 3rd party vendor integration.
 
Now I'm done slamming GRT

I dont think you were slamming them, I think you were expressing frustration and trying to offer constructive criticism-----just as I was in my prior post.

To summarize, GRT's support is very good, however the unfortunate state of documentation means we have to rely on direct human support far too often. Once installed and running, GRT's products are fantastic and clearly are leaders in value and performance as well as broad 3rd party vendor integration.

Exactly!
 
Agreed! Canadian Joy has summarized the situation precisely.

From the guy who updated the documentation back in 2007, most of it still on the website and relevant.

Jim Butcher
 
As a GRT user and supporter (since 2011) I pretty much agree with the previous posts, although I'm not quite as negative about the documentation (I managed to figure everything out, no calls, and it all worked, the first time - but then again, I have a technical background).
Off topic note for Greg, telling him how to run his business (-:)): What you really need to do is hire a politically savvy consultant, to push thru FAA approval for your gps approach system. The day you do that, your sales will quadruple!
 
As a GRT user and supporter (since 2011) I pretty much agree with the previous posts, although I'm not quite as negative about the documentation (I managed to figure everything out, no calls, and it all worked, the first time - but then again, I have a technical background).
Off topic note for Greg, telling him how to run his business (-:)): What you really need to do is hire a politically savvy consultant, to push thru FAA approval for your gps approach system. The day you do that, your sales will quadruple!

Agreed. That’s a big reason I’ll be using GRT on my new RV6 build. The synthetic approach, which will clone an ILS, while not IFR legal (yet), will fly an accurate approach, autopilot coupled if so equipped, and the accuracy is impressive. For my VFR airplane it will help me fly a safe approach to an unfamiliar airport in marginal VMC conditions to any runway in my data base and allow me to focus on important details outside of the cockpit, while my EFIS will warn me of deviations from my stabilized approach, obstacles in my flight path, and other traffic.
 
From the sidelines

I’ve been watching this thread since post 1. I did install all my GRT stuff myself but cheated a bit by using the Approach Fast Stack hub and cables and my friend James Clark is a guru on all things involving wire, processors and software. I started with the Sport and now have legacy HXr, EIS, dual Mini X’s with all the bells and whistles. Katie was still at GRT then and we burned up the email with questions and answers, suggestions, and input on how it worked, as well as should work. Greg and Jeff were, and still are a phone call away.
The manuals were a bit behind some things but changes were happening, and, I wasn’t mixing systems like different autopilots so I was able to get mine up and running very quickly.
And up and running is where GRT shines. I’ve been very satisfied with the day to day operation and reliability now for about 10 years. I got pretty involved with digging into IFR and approach operations with their systems. I still get many questions from my videos showing how I operated the system.
I guess my point here is how extremely reliable GRT products are and how supportive the company is and has been for years. They don’t have the best manuals but the do have some of the best equipment. I use my 8 as a traveling machine, hard IFR is always planned for because if you fly enough you know there is no such thing as light IFR, and their stuff, properly installed is stuff you can depend on.
 
Pile on!

I really like my Sport EX with EIS 4000. My installation is extremely simple and works well - Sport EX/EIS4000/Safe-Fly 2020/Magnometer/Trim Indicators/OAT/Measured AoA/autopilot.

Jeff is a star and has helped me several times. I have to confess that every time I needed support the info was there but I was just not processing it right - totally my bad!

I suggested a new feature and he delivered it to me in a beta version. I hope it makes it out to a general release because I think others will appreciate this feature.

The Jerry "Widget" Morris videos on how he uses the GRT system helped me a lot. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wckyQGhVq2Q
 
I found this thread because I have a magnetometer calibration issue brewing that I will start another thread to discuss.

I have to say I have had the exact opposite experience with GRT. Their support has been expert and timely. I regret anyone has the problems faced by the OP with any company. I hope I get my issue address solo, or with group help, or with GRT support! (smile)
 
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