836x Board failure

[Mach7]

Hello Guys, here is a clip of one of my long endurance test flights to get some fuel burn data on the Quality WIngs146 product.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Irv7nv-Qd0

On another note...my Bodner 836X board gave up the ghost yesterday for no apparent reason. I booted up the computer and a start up balloon advised me that one of my USB devices had failed. I had flown the day before with no issues...and spent most of the day trying to troubleshoot the problem.

There was no overheat issues, and I have not added or subtracted any switches from the board since install, so I am a bit miffed as to why it stopped working and why the computer would not recognise the board after countless restarts. I even changed out the USB cable and connected it to another hub...but no joy.

The only issue I have had was the computer would sometimes not boot past the windows start up page, but that occurred maybe 2 boots out of 100, so I am not sure if this was "board" related or not.

Luckily I had a spare, so I wired it in and everything works back to normal.

This new 836X board appears to have a different chip set as compared to the old one, so maybe there was an issue with these boards that was not publicised but needed to be addressed (?)

[sagrada737]

It is not unusual for the Bodnar 836 to "lose its mind" and give the indication that it is no longer working.  In fact, that is exactly the case when there is a glitch in the 836 firmware.

Go to Bodnar's web site and download the firmware for that version of 836 that you have.  Then UPDATE the firmware to the Bodnar 836 per Bodnar's specific instructions, found on their website.

When that is complete, connect the 836 to a Windows computer and check that it is recognized.  To further test the 836, you can connect a potentiometer and switch to determine that it is responding correctly.  After testing, put it back into service in you Sim.

It's possible that you might have to re-calibrate things in FSUIPC.

I have had to do this several times with my two Bodnar 836 modules.  This procedure has restored operation every time.

Mike

[Mach7]

Thanks for the info Mike,

I have tried the firmware update in the past but it never seemed to work for me. In my 10 years I  have actually gone through 2 boards so far, both of the two failures were directly my fault, the first board fried due to a short that was undetected from a thrust lever pot, (wires had chaffed and exposed a 1/8 th inch bare spot which contacted the sim frame), and the second was improper wire placement from the landing light switch to the board itself.

The first failure was had to find as it didn't happen all the time, so I ended up re-wiring any item that went to the board and that's where I found the thrust lever wiring issue.

Product support form Leo (Bodnar Electronics) is excellent and we emailed back and forth years ago to try and find the solution to my overheat issue. He was certain it was a short in my system, and he of course was correct.

Leo sent me one free of charge, (even though it was self inflicted), with the new chip set years ago, so that is the board I have installed now.

I love the product and performance the 836X board gives, you just have to be very careful how you wire it and make sure that you are sticking a wire into the correct inputs. And once you do make sure you double check all the connections before you plug it in.

My only suggestion is to make the board a bit bigger giving the inputs a bit a distance from one another. The small size of the board is very streamlined, but in reality it makes it harder to set up.

My experience is that if you overheat a board, don't try and salvage it, just replace it.