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rnewman(at)tcwtech.com
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 Posted: Mon Jan 26, 2009 9:21 am Post subject: Alternator failure |
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Fellow builders,
I'd like to share a little adventure we had last week and how it may impact my RV-10 project.
My Dad and I were cruising along at 8500' enroute from PA down to FL in our Glastar when I noticed an annoying red light on the instrument panel. That little red light of course was a low voltage warning light, and sure enough we were on battery power at that point, the alternator was doing nothing useful at all. We requested a landing at Charlottesville VA, KCHO and within 15 minutes were on the ground. They let us bring our airplane inside a heated hangar to sort out our electrical problems. We'll we got the true southern hospitality treatment. A mechanic came over and offered us the use of any of his tools that we needed (although he was way to busy to work on our plane). We removed the cowling and then the alternator and ohmed out the field winding of the alternator, it appeared to be an open circuit. The alternator was a Ford Motorcraft as originally supplied with our 1960's vintage Lycoming 0-320. (however it had been rebuilt in 2001, and now had about 350 hours of run time) We asked the mechanic if he had any recommendations on a place to check and possibly replace our 'Ford' alternator. He said, "Sure, I'll call Advanced Autoparts, I think they have an alternator "spinner"". Sure enough, they did. So the mechanic gave us the keys to his truck and we visited the aviation department of Advanced Autoparts. Well the alternator was really dead and they actually had the exact replacement in stock! So $57 later we were back on our way to the airport. Well we put it all back together and sure enough we were back in business, the aircraft bus voltage was back up to 14 volts!. We thanked everyone over and over, took on some fuel and just over 2.5 hours after discovering the problem we were back in the air. We were incredibly fortunate that day to meet such wonderful folks as we did at KCHO. But we also really enjoyed the benefits of building and flying a homebuilt. There is no way that we would have been able to continue our journey that day if we were flying a certified aircraft, There were no mechanics that could spend their time working on our airplane on that day, And almost certainly they would have had to order a new alternator (that wouldn't have been $57!).
So the lessons learned that I'm going to apply to my RV-10:
1) Low voltage idiot lights work, they are a must have in my book
2) Although we were able to safely make it to an alternate airport on battery power, a back-up alternator equipped engine really ups the convenience factor. We were incredibly lucky to get our airplane fixed and flying again the same day. If we had a back-up alternator and were flying VFR as we were, we would have probably just continued on our way to Florida.
3) Bring a decent tool kit, We had the very basic tools in our airplane tool kit, but I'm now going to add a small DMM (multi-meter) to the kit.
4) A condensed set of basic wiring schematics for the airplane could have been a necessity. If the alternator wasn't the problem, I really would have had a difficult time trouble shooting much more as I was working completely from memory on how I wired the plane (almost 10 years ago).
Bob Newman
TCW Technologies, LLC.
www.tcwtech.com
RV-10 40176 - finish kit
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sportav8r(at)gmail.com
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| Posted: Mon Jan 26, 2009 9:40 am Post subject: Alternator failure |
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Good write-up. Thanks for sharing.
I've only diverted once to CHO, despite its proximity to my home base; didn't need mechanical help, just a place to lay low while the winds in the mountains expended their fury and the turbulence abated.
DMM and wiring diagrams not currently in the plane, but yes, they should be 
Bill B -6A, 730 hrs.
On Mon, Jan 26, 2009 at 12:19 PM, Bob-tcw <rnewman(at)tcwtech.com (rnewman(at)tcwtech.com)> wrote:
[quote] Fellow builders,
I'd like to share a little adventure we had last week and how it may impact my RV-10 project.
My Dad and I were cruising along at 8500' enroute from PA down to FL in our Glastar when I noticed an annoying red light on the instrument panel. That little red light of course was a low voltage warning light, and sure enough we were on battery power at that point, the alternator was doing nothing useful at all. We requested a landing at Charlottesville VA, KCHO and within 15 minutes were on the ground. They let us bring our airplane inside a heated hangar to sort out our electrical problems. We'll we got the true southern hospitality treatment. A mechanic came over and offered us the use of any of his tools that we needed (although he was way to busy to work on our plane). We removed the cowling and then the alternator and ohmed out the field winding of the alternator, it appeared to be an open circuit. The alternator was a Ford Motorcraft as originally supplied with our 1960's vintage Lycoming 0-320. (however it had been rebuilt in 2001, and now had about 350 hours of run time) We asked the mechanic if he had any recommendations on a place to check and possibly replace our 'Ford' alternator. He said, "Sure, I'll call Advanced Autoparts, I think they have an alternator "spinner"". Sure enough, they did. So the mechanic gave us the keys to his truck and we visited the aviation department of Advanced Autoparts. Well the alternator was really dead and they actually had the exact replacement in stock! So $57 later we were back on our way to the airport. Well we put it all back together and sure enough we were back in business, the aircraft bus voltage was back up to 14 volts!. We thanked everyone over and over, took on some fuel and just over 2.5 hours after discovering the problem we were back in the air. We were incredibly fortunate that day to meet such wonderful folks as we did at KCHO. But we also really enjoyed the benefits of building and flying a homebuilt. There is no way that we would have been able to continue our journey that day if we were flying a certified aircraft, There were no mechanics that could spend their time working on our airplane on that day, And almost certainly they would have had to order a new alternator (that wouldn't have been $57!).
So the lessons learned that I'm going to apply to my RV-10:
1) Low voltage idiot lights work, they are a must have in my book
2) Although we were able to safely make it to an alternate airport on battery power, a back-up alternator equipped engine really ups the convenience factor. We were incredibly lucky to get our airplane fixed and flying again the same day. If we had a back-up alternator and were flying VFR as we were, we would have probably just continued on our way to Florida.
3) Bring a decent tool kit, We had the very basic tools in our airplane tool kit, but I'm now going to add a small DMM (multi-meter) to the kit.
4) A condensed set of basic wiring schematics for the airplane could have been a necessity. If the alternator wasn't the problem, I really would have had a difficult time trouble shooting much more as I was working completely from memory on how I wired the plane (almost 10 years ago).
Bob Newman
TCW Technologies, LLC.
www.tcwtech.com
RV-10 40176 - finish kit
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t="_blank">http://www.matronics.com/Navigator?RV-List
tp://forums.matronics.com
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Tim Olson
Joined: 25 Jan 2007
Posts: 2879
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| Posted: Mon Jan 26, 2009 10:05 am Post subject: Alternator failure |
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Great report Bob! Glad it worked out for you.
Regarding your lessons learned:
1) Definitely. Most EFIS's and EIS's will have that in it
these days, so it should be easy to get warnings.
2) You MAY have been able to continue with a backup alternator,
but, for a long x/c trip, it might not be safe or practical.
But, it does bring up the idea of what exactly is a backup
alternator good for.... If you had the SD-8, it wouldn't
really buy you anything for continuing the trip...because
nobody wants to continue a long trip where they only can use
8A worth of equipment. If you had a 20A backup, you'd perhaps
be able to continue more or less unaffected, after shedding some
more minimal loads. That's not saying it's a good idea, but
it makes it more practical than an 8A alternator.
3) Absolutely! I've bought about a dozen of those Harbor
Freight cheap DMM's...it seems every time they go on sale
for $1.99 each, I buy one and give it to someone. I keep
one in my cars, my boat, the plane, the hangar, my desk
at home and work...basically handy everywhere. I even
used one on my first-flight day to find a loose alternator
connection.
4) Yeah, it's a good idea to have that documentation.
When I carry my tablet PC with me, I keep an entire
copy of my websites, and everything, which house all
of my drawings, database updates for my GPS's/EFIS,
software updates, and all that stuff. It's one of the
benefits of tablet PC's over stand-alone units...you
can program a memory card right in the field and fix
something if you need to.
Tim Olson - RV-10 N104CD - Flying
do not archive
Bob-tcw wrote:
| Quote: | Fellow builders,
I'd like to share a little adventure we had last week and how it may
impact my RV-10 project.
My Dad and I were cruising along at 8500' enroute from PA down to FL in
our Glastar when I noticed an annoying red light on the instrument
panel. That little red light of course was a low voltage warning
light, and sure enough we were on battery power at that point, the
alternator was doing nothing useful at all. We requested a landing at
Charlottesville VA, KCHO and within 15 minutes were on the ground.
They let us bring our airplane inside a heated hangar to sort out
our electrical problems. We'll we got the true southern hospitality
treatment. A mechanic came over and offered us the use of any of his
tools that we needed (although he was way to busy to work on our
plane). We removed the cowling and then the alternator and ohmed out
the field winding of the alternator, it appeared to be an open
circuit. The alternator was a Ford Motorcraft as originally supplied
with our 1960's vintage Lycoming 0-320. (however it had been rebuilt in
2001, and now had about 350 hours of run time) We asked the mechanic
if he had any recommendations on a place to check and possibly replace
our 'Ford' alternator. He said, "Sure, I'll call Advanced Autoparts, I
think they have an alternator "spinner"". Sure enough, they did. So
the mechanic gave us the keys to his truck and we visited the aviation
department of Advanced Autoparts. Well the alternator was really dead
and they actually had the exact replacement in stock! So $57 later we
were back on our way to the airport. Well we put it all back together
and sure enough we were back in business, the aircraft bus voltage
was back up to 14 volts!. We thanked everyone over and over, took on
some fuel and just over 2.5 hours after discovering the problem we were
back in the air. We were incredibly fortunate that day to meet such
wonderful folks as we did at KCHO. But we also really enjoyed the
benefits of building and flying a homebuilt. There is no way that we
would have been able to continue our journey that day if we were flying
a certified aircraft, There were no mechanics that could spend their
time working on our airplane on that day, And almost certainly they
would have had to order a new alternator (that wouldn't have been $57!).
So the lessons learned that I'm going to apply to my RV-10:
1) Low voltage idiot lights work, they are a must have in my book
2) Although we were able to safely make it to an alternate airport on
battery power, a back-up alternator equipped engine really ups the
convenience factor. We were incredibly lucky to get our airplane fixed
and flying again the same day. If we had a back-up alternator and were
flying VFR as we were, we would have probably just continued on our way
to Florida.
3) Bring a decent tool kit, We had the very basic tools in our
airplane tool kit, but I'm now going to add a small DMM (multi-meter)
to the kit.
4) A condensed set of basic wiring schematics for the airplane could
have been a necessity. If the alternator wasn't the problem, I really
would have had a difficult time trouble shooting much more as I was
working completely from memory on how I wired the plane (almost 10 years
ago).
Bob Newman
TCW Technologies, LLC.
www.tcwtech.com <http://www.tcwtech.com>
RV-10 40176 - finish kit
*
*
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rnewman(at)tcwtech.com
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Jan 26, 2009 10:48 am Post subject: Alternator failure |
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A couple more thoughts:
The back-up alternator I have in mind is certainly the 20 amp version.
I've had a few days now to think and rethink the situation we were in and I
came to the following conclusion: Even if we had a back-up alternator, I
would have still landed at KCHO, but I would have checked the main
alternator, ensured it wasn't a smoking mess hooked to the engine and then
made the decision wether to continue the flight. Given that in the the
Glastar I can get the running load to less than 20 amps, I would have
continued the flight as it was severe clear, day time , VFR.
I'm still using dual batteries in my RV-10, its this first hand experience
that has moved the 20 amp back-up alternator to the top of my list of things
to buy  .
One other side note, this was my first real long cross country flight
with our new IPS-12v-4a product installed and powering our GNS-530, It
worked like a charm, I did all of our flight programming on the ground with
the engine off then fire-up without turning the Garmin 530 off.
-Bob Newman
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