G1000 FPL import - 'invalid' SD Card?

[akos.maroy]

Hi,

I'm flying a Diamond DA-40 with a G1000 / SVT version, and I'm trying to import FPL flight plans created with Jeppesen FlightStar via an SD Card. After I put the SD card into the upper card reader slot of the PFD or MFD, and I navigate in the FPL part of the G1000 and press the IMPORT button, I get an announciation that the SD card is 'invalid', and of course that no flight plans were found.

I wonder what the G1000 would mean by an invalid SD card.

I'm using a 32GB SD card which is otherwise used in a GoPro camera, like this: DESDC1032GB | B&H Photo Video (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search?Ntt=DESDC1032GB&N=0&InitialSearch=yes)

would there be magic restrictions on the nature of SD cards the G1000 can read, like restrictions in the card storage size, whatever?


Akos

[peterh337]

I can only speculate but a 32GB SD card is "really new technology" ;) and many older products out there cannot read them. The G1000 is about 10 years old, in design terms, and just maybe it doesn't support SDHC i.e. is limited to 2GB max.

I assume you are using the Jepp Flight Plan Migrator product to write the card?

[akos.maroy]

hm, so maybe I should find an old / small card somehow.

no, I simply copied the exported FPL files unto the card. should something special be done instead?

[tdbristol]

I am pretty sure that 2GB is the limit for the SD card that the G1000 will accept as it only takes FAT cards (not FAT32).

[stickandrudderman]

In my AFS system you cannot use more than a 2GB card and the manufacturer prefers you to use a certain brand. I don't know why in either case.
The other "gotcha" is that you must format the card before installing your data.
I'm sure your hardware instructions will contain such information.

[172driver]

This is an issue with a lot of older equipment (not at all limited to aviation products).

First, read the instructions, it should say somewhere which cards can be used. You may even have to drop down to some old <1Gb card.

Second, format the card, typically either in FAT or FAT32.

Thirdly, and this is important!, copy the data you want to transfer to the top level directory of the card. Typically, equipment like GPSs can't read folder structures.

[akos.maroy]

thanks for the tips. the card was formatted as FAT, and the files were in the top level, with 8.3 naming. but it was a recent / high capacity card.

so, my next step is to buy an older / smaller SD card...

[avonflyer]

I have just had the same problem on the TomTom in the car.


Beware there are 2Gig SD cards and 2Gig SDHC cards you want a SD one or else you will be back in the same problem (its the HC bit that causes the problem).

Good news is they are so old and common that they are dirt cheap I got one for £1 (it then cost about £2 for post and packing which was a rip off but thats another subject).

[peterh337]

the manufacturer prefers you to use a certain brand. I don't know why in either case.

This is usually because the mfg didn't implement the full SD card software driver.

When you are developing what is called an "embedded" product (a computer without the usual human interface i.e. screen, keyboard, mouse, etc) you need to look at what peripherals you want to talk to, and that drives the choice of the operating system, which in turn drives the choice of processor etc architecture.

If you want to support USB devices (i.e. you want your box to act as a USB controller), ethernet, SD cards, CF cards, mice, trackballs, keypads, you name it, then you will probably end up running an embedded version of Windows, because you get all this support thrown in. For example I believe Avidyne boxes run Windows NT Embedded (a version of NT4, stripped of stuff like network printing etc etc etc) and that is normally pretty solid.

But Windows forces you to use the 80x86 processor, which means you probably end up using some IBM PC compatible chipset, which is great and cheap but has a huge rapid obsolescence issue; I doubt any PC chipset is available for longer than a couple of years.

If you are using some other processor e.g. ARM then you may be using some other O/S, or possibly you may take the long view and get away from the "consumer-CPU" playground altogether and use say a Hitachi processor. We use these at work and the one we currently use (H8/323) has been available for 22 years in the exact same version!

But if you do that, you have to roll your own drivers for every damn thing which wants to be connected to your product, and you may well just hack something together which has minimal functionality and works only with a specific brand of SD card.

Then there are copy protection requirements. Every IFR GPS implements a nonstandard file system on the flash card - otherwise you could buy the database once and then just duplicate the flash cards and run a nice cost sharing club :) So manufacturers have made their card compatibility totally specific and tend to use obsolete cards which they can then sell with their own label for silly money; e.g. the KLN94 uses a 48MB CF card made by Sandisk. This card was discontinued many years ago, of course. Honeywell sell it for $200 :yuk:

akos.maroy - I thought that for the G1000 to accept ex-Flitestar routepacks they had to be processed via the flight plan migrator (http://www8.garmin.com/support/download_details.jsp?id=4471).

[FlyingStone]

I am pretty sure that 2GB is the limit for the SD card that the G1000 will accept as it only takes FAT cards (not FAT32).

The G1000 guide I have says:

The G1000 has the ability to record certain flight and engine parameters on an SD card with a maximum size of four-gigabytes.

It probably needs to be formatted in FAT or FAT32 - personally, I'd try with FAT first, since it's more likely to work, but one would expect that given the amount of money one pays for G1000, Garmin would give it some to Microsoft for FAT32 licensing.

[peterh337]

4GB is ambiguous, because AIUI you don't need SDHC to do 4GB. A "normal" SD card can do 4GB, but it is vendor dependent.

I would stick to 2GB ones; "4GB" is a dodgy area to play with.