Dynon recently released a major firmware upgrade to their products. The new firmware adds a few new features, and fixes some bugs. It might even solve my EFIS battery charging problem. Today I decided to do the upgrade.

The Dynon firmware updater only runs on Windows. They may be selling products that can only be used by people who are non-conformists when it comes to aircraft, but they only support the conformists when it comes to computers. We don't own a Windows computer, but fortunately Terry has an ancient copy of Virtual PC, a program that runs on OS X, and emulates the hardware of a PC, fooling Windows 98 into thinking it is running on a bog standard Intel powered box. It runs slowly, as every instruction must be translated from Intel code to Power PC code.

Dynon has provided several dire warnings about making sure that neither the EFIS nor the laptop losses power during the firmware upgrade process - apparently the EFIS would likely be rendered inoperative, and could only be resurrected by a trip back to the factory in Oregon. The EFIS screen displays a suitably strong warning while the upgrade is in progress.


Virtual PC does a very good job of emulating Windows, including the infamous Blue Screen of Death - it gave me a good scare today when Windows crashed in the middle of the firmware upgrade. I had depressing thoughts of having to send the EFIS back to the US for service. But, once Windows rebooted, and I made another attempt at doing the upgrade, the Dynon upgrade program picked up right where it left off and was able to successfully complete the upgrade. Now I am charging the battery, and hopefully it will hold its charge for more than a few hours.