iFly GPS Forum

I was all excited this past weekend. I needed to make a flight from Charleston, WV to Morgantown, WV and planned to use my newly received Clarity SV. The weather was shakey leaving Charleston and forcasted to be worse coming home later in the day. At the last minute, I threw my garmin 396 into the flight bag. Upon departure from Charleston, I received ads-b weather on my 720 for about 10 miles at 3000 ft. Then the signal dropped out and I never could get the signal back the entire route. I had my companion fire up the 396 with nexrad and it immediately locked in and showed me the bad weather areas i needed to avoid. later that day, on the return flight, the same thing happened....ads-b for about 5 minutes then dropped. I definately needed the nexrad to get home . AHRS never did come up on either leg.

This morning (Saturday) I took a commercial flt to Tulsa via Chicago. I decided to take my IFly and Clarity along. . After departure from CRW, I fired up the clarity and then the 720 (with external antennae set in the window). The 720 never locked on to gps the entire route. While sitting in the gate area waiting for my next flight, I re-read Shane's instructions to ensure that I had been using the combination correctly. Just for giggles, I fired up the clarity and then the 720. The 720 failed to connect so i plugged in the external antennae. Almost immediately, the gps locked in and ads-b weather popped up on the screen. The alarm on the clarity was screaming (scared the crap out of people sitting near me) because it was upside down in my lap. I am eager to try this again once I get airborne and will report back later.

---Sunday morning in Tulsa---- I am sitting outside at the pool, bright sunshine, clear view of the sky--Decided to continue the evaluation of the Clarity aI nd Ifly...

i set the Clarity about 4 ft away and energized it. It took about a minute before it went thru all its gyrations. I then turned on the Ifly...it did not energize immediately (even with 3 green lites on the battery) so I wiggled a few wires, pulled out the plugs on both ends and reset them...ahhh, Ifly energized. Once energized the took about 3 min before it got a gps lock (without the external antennae) . However, once it found itself, it was rock solid. The Clarity was showing 3 lites, AHRS, GPS AND 1090. i looked at the map and saw several triangles of aircraft (we are about 13 mi south of TUL),, all moving. This was a good sign...I then went to the instrument page and found that the AI was live. I played with the Clarity, changing pitch and bank and it performed flawlessly. My companion came out and she played with it also (she is a pilot also). At that point I had almost decided that everything was good. I decided to plug in the external antennae and activate the WAAS on the gps page....this was about 20 min after initial start up. WHAM!! GPS lost its lock and lost the AHRS. I went to the "ABOUT" page and checked the wifi connection--no wifi connection. Damn! I tried a series of combinations trying to get things to work again including reseting the ifly numerous times and resetting the Clarity numerous times. E ventually the Ifly connected (without external antennae) but never could get thewifi with the clarity to connect.

I decided to shut down the clarity for at least 20 min (actually by now its 40 min) and try everything again. First thing I will do is shut down the Ifly....done. (plugged in the battery charger). Now, I am turning on the Clarity. The gps lite came on immediately. It took about 60 secs for the AHRS lite to settle down and lock in. Now I will turn on the Ifly--hmmmm, Ifly didn't come on immediately so I wiggled the plug on the ifly side--ifly then game on. The first screen to show was the vector map, things look good....appears to be a gps lock (without external antennae). time is 1:45 pm... Switch to the instrument page and the AI is live which means the AHRS is working. Played with the Clarity to show that the AI is respnsive. I've switched back to the vector page and everythng still looks good....1090 lite is not on the Clarity and I dont see traffic on the vector page. I want to let things sit idle for at least 20 min before plugging in the external antennae. WHAM!!! Went to the ABOUT PAGE to check if the wifi was connected; as I was watching the AHRS disconnected alost immediately time10:51. Damn! Damn! Damn!

Apparently gps is still ok. Connected Devices shows "Clarity ADSB Receiver" yet on the instrument page the AI shows a red "X"" thru it with a msg AHRS DEVICE NOT CONNECTED". At this point, I'm not sure what triggered the problem:

1) the wifi signal disconnects due to time --this time only about 6 min either from Clarity or Ifly

2) just switchng to "ABOUT" page did something within Ifly to disconnect the wifi connection?

3) something totall random

Ok, lets start over....denergize everything for 30 min, go get a beer , come back with Part 4 befoe I go, I'll plug in the external antennae to see if it has any impact on the gps lock ...AHRS stll on connected....Plugged in external antennae, did not seem to affect gps lock or AHRS, AHRS still not connected. Shutting everything down now, going for that beer...2:00 pm

I'll be damned!!! Having given up after my previous post, I stayed out by the pool and cruised the internet for about an hour....and of course, drank another beer or two (hey, its Sunday)....I left the Ifly and Clarity hooked up...after an hour I looked over just as the Ifly-Clarity connected....I had done absolutely nothing....the AI was live and gps was locked...It stayed on for about 15 min and then the Ifly battery died. I got the charger and plugged it back in and everything came back on all by itself. Its been running about 1 hour since with no problems....

However, there may be a clue.... the sun has shifted around so that the Clarity is in the shade of the house. I felt the Clarity and it was relatively cool. Therefore, there may be a new theory.... the Clarity may have temperature problems may interupt the wifi signal...supposedly, Clarity resolved this problem with cooling fins on the top of the device. If this is true, I wonder how to mount the clarity inside the airplane--clarity recmmends mounting on the dash which during the day will always be in the sun on a piper cherokee....

of course, this new theory doesn't explain why it wouldn't work in my cherokee last weekend on my flight to Morgantown nor on the airline flights from Charleston WV to Tulsa via Chicago. The first leg of that trip was a 5:00 in the morning and the sun was barely up--certainly not bright sunshine heating up the unit

I decided to run another experiment...I moved the clarity to the sun; needed to go about 20 ft away... it immediately disconnected; crap, there must be a minimum distance for the device to talk to the Ifly--I moved it 5 ft closer and it reconnected automatically itself. The unit is about 15 feet away but still in the shade....AHRS is working fine. The 1090 lite just came on on the Clarity and now I see an airplane signal on the map which shows an airplane about 13 mi south of my location moving toward the TUL airport--I guess its not landing TUL since it passed by and now off --the map.

Another hour has gone by-- I'm becoming more convinced that there is a temperature issue with the Clarity....AHRS is working fine, external antennae with WAAS is working fine...the Clarity is 15 ft away in the shade with clear skies above