Garmon 430 Buttons

Ronnie Godfrey

Ronnie Godfrey

Pre-takeoff checklist
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Oct 1, 2017
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Longview, TX
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Ronnie Godfrey
I just purchased my plane sight unseen from a guy. The plane is awesome, but there’s one small issue: none of the buttons on the bottom of the Garmin 430 work (OBS, PROC, FPL, etc.). Any ideas on what can be done to fix it besides bending over for Garmin to fix it?
 
Might be a connection or wiring issue? What kind of shape are the wires in and how do the terminals look? If those two things check out, than it’s more than likely a problem with the unit itself.
 
Find an avionics shop or someone that has a functioning 430, pull yours out of the tray and swap it. You'll be able to determine if the problem is internal or external to your box. That might narrow the probabilities of whether you will or won't escape the Garmin tax. ;)
 
Send it to out for the WAAS upgrade and it will come back perfecto. It'll cost closer to $3500, but then you're under warranty and much better condition than if you 'save' $2600.
 
GRG55 said:
Find an avionics shop or someone that has a functioning 430, pull yours out of the tray and swap it. You'll be able to determine if the problem is internal or external to your box. That might narrow the probabilities of whether you will or won't escape the Garmin tax. ;)
Click to expand...

I can't imagine how anything external could cause the issue. The buttons are part of the unit and integral to it. I'm afraid you are going to have to bite the bullet and send it to Garmin. You might get lucky and have someone open it up and find a loose cable or edge connector (I've no idea how they are physically constructed) but swapping units etc. to "isolate" the problem to the unit seems a waste of time to me.

John
 
After talking with my partner, the eventual plan is to upgrade to WAAS, but since we just dropped a wad of cash on the plane itself, a few months of buffer in between now and the next few thousand dollars would be nice. If we can somehow "clean" the buttons and get them working again, I'd like to try that as a temporary solution. My main thing right now is that I don't know how to take the unit apart to look at it. I'm not afraid to take things apart and get my hands dirty, but I'd like to have a guide of some sort to make sure I don't screw anything up. Does anyone know where I might find such a thing?
 
Ronnie Godfrey said:
After talking with my partner, the eventual plan is to upgrade to WAAS, but since we just dropped a wad of cash on the plane itself, a few months of buffer in between now and the next few thousand dollars would be nice. If we can somehow "clean" the buttons and get them working again, I'd like to try that as a temporary solution. My main thing right now is that I don't know how to take the unit apart to look at it. I'm not afraid to take things apart and get my hands dirty, but I'd like to have a guide of some sort to make sure I don't screw anything up. Does anyone know where I might find such a thing?
Click to expand...

http://static.garmin.com/pumac/GNS430W_GNS400WSeriesMaintenanceManual.pdf

It's got basic disassembly instructions towards the back.
 
Those buttons operate using a membrane and frequently fail over time. I suspect your only option is to send it back to Garmin.
 
jsstevens said:
I can't imagine how anything external could cause the issue. The buttons are part of the unit and integral to it. I'm afraid you are going to have to bite the bullet and send it to Garmin. You might get lucky and have someone open it up and find a loose cable or edge connector (I've no idea how they are physically constructed) but swapping units etc. to "isolate" the problem to the unit seems a waste of time to me.

John
Click to expand...

If it was one button I would agree with you. But the OP listed at least 4 that were not working, including FP. That seems highly unusual. One would think once one important button fails the rest wouldn't get used much any more. ;) Swapping the unit takes but a few minutes and might identify a problem that sending it to Garmin at significant expense won't fix.
 
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