DocToss

Today I noticed an orange square light in the HUD, then all the lights in the HUD lit up, then it started working ok. Is this an early sign of something? Have others had the HUD go out and what were the first signs?

SpeedyZ

That is definitely a sign of something, but I don't know what. I can tell you there is NO orange light in a stock C5 HUD! Maybe something is smoking in there! It may be something going wrong with the VFD (Vacuum Florescent Display) or controller in the HUD causing a single segment to heat up. To light a segment the HUD controller pulses the segment with a pulse 2us-300us in length at a rate of 250Hz. The shorter the pulse the dimmer the display. If for some reason the controller stopped pulsing the segments and just sent DC to a segment it would probably start to glow orange. But I would think this would burn up the display in a second or so, but those VFD are designed to be driven hard, they are the only VFD I have ever seen with a heat sink on them. Any idea about where in the HUD you seen the light? My guess is if you seen orange in there, it not a good thing! Here is what is inside a C5 HUD.

Shylor

Did this happen during the day or night? If during the day, I'm wondering if you just got some sun reflextion on the HUD VFD screen.

99blackFRC

DocToss

It was during the day, and the orange was the square in the left lower quadrant.

Shylor

I'm still thinking it was sun reflection. I know the first time I saw it in mine, I was concerned. Until I realized what just happened.