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New RV Flap Actuator - New Product Intro

Pat Hatch

Well Known Member
Advertiser
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We are pleased to announce the introduction of our new RV Flap Actuator. We have been testing 3 prototypes in our RV-6 aircraft for the past 6 months with excellent results.

We consider our new actuator to be an upgraded version of the stock flap motor. It has the standard 5" stroke, but the motor stops when it gets to the end of the stroke. So if you've ever thought about installing flaps-up limit switches to stop the flap motor, this unit is for you. Additionally, it has an internal position sensor, so if you've been thinking about mounting an external position sensor to monitor flaps position, this unit is for you!

Flaps extension/retraction speed is about the same, as is the amperage draw of the motor.

If you're interested in learning more details, please visit our web site and download a copy of the Installation & Operating Instructions. We detail the steps that we took to convert our old flap motor to our new actuator in our RV-6. We've included several photos of the changeover.

We also think this unit solves any issues you may have had with "grease migration", a problem that has plagued many of the stock flap motors. Additionally, the safety-wire service bulletin that was issued for the stock flap motors is not required for this actuator, obviously because it doesn't keep running when it gets to the end of the stroke.

Please compare the price of our actuator with the stock flap motor, which just might be the best feature of our new product!

Let us know if you have any questions. Thanks!
 
well, I've needed to clean grease from my flap motor twice in 600 hrs. and probably due for my third cleaning soon. it seems I need to do it each 200 hrs. this may be an upgrade. is grease in the motor a problem with these?
 
Nice product Pat. Question; What's the temperature operation range and how slow it gets in very cold weather?
 
well, I've needed to clean grease from my flap motor twice in 600 hrs. and probably due for my third cleaning soon. it seems I need to do it each 200 hrs. this may be an upgrade. is grease in the motor a problem with these?

Hi Steve,

Well only time will tell for sure, but in our opinion there is no way for grease to get from the jack screw area to the motor as they are in separate compartments totally sealed off from each other. I'm only speculating here, but I think part of the problem with the old flap motors is that in many instances they continue to rotate after reaching the end of their stroke, which may be one of the causes of grease being forced into the motor. I, too, had to clean grease out of the brushes a few times!
 
Nice product Pat. Question; What's the temperature operation range and how slow it gets in very cold weather?

Vlad: Operational temperature: -25?C to 65?C (-13?F to 150?F)
Of course, we have no way of testing in the actual airplane in cold weather here in Florida. We would be delighted if you would purchase one of these and take it with you on your next adventure to the far north (and west) and let us know! We suspect that it would operate just fine! Good question!
 
Pardon my ignorance...so all RV's use the same 5" stroke for the flaps?

The RV-6,7, 8 and 9 all use the same flap motor part number, ES-85615-157-1. (As indicated on "The List.")

The RV-10 uses a different part #, not sure about the -14.
 
Just ordered your trim relay board and received it today. Looks like i will have to buy this soon.
 
Well this is cool. I installed I have to assume a similar unit in my -7. I have had good results with mine on a simple test bed. I opted for the dumb actuator with no pos sensing. I still have to turn a new end piece as the supplied one had a hole in it.

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Hope this came up...
 
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RV-4 also uses the same motor, but different transmission configuration.

The RV-6,7, 8 and 9 all use the same flap motor part number, ES-85615-157-1. (As indicated on "The List.")

The RV-10 uses a different part #, not sure about the -14.
 
Vlad: Operational temperature: -25?C to 65?C (-13?F to 150?F)
Of course, we have no way of testing in the actual airplane in cold weather here in Florida. We would be delighted if you would purchase one of these and take it with you on your next adventure to the far north (and west) and let us know! We suspect that it would operate just fine! Good question!

If you really want to get one of these out in the wild and get it abuse tested, send one to Vlad. He'll put more cycles on that thing in all conditions and in a quicker timeframe than anyone else possibly could. :D
 
RV-10

Any chance there will be one available for the RV-10?

Having an internal position sensor would be really nice...
 
Any chance there will be one available for the RV-10?

Having an internal position sensor would be really nice...

Bob: Yes, we're looking at it now. I have an RV-10 customer here locally who is installing one of our relay boards--he's working on his flaps now. Stay tuned. :)
 
Photos

Here are a couple of photos from our conversion from the old to the new on our RV-6:

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IMG_9548ppWebsize
 
I looked at the installation instructions but they do not mention how many positions you can set or how to set them. Does it just have a position sensor that you hook up to your EFIS and hold the flap switch down and release it where you want flaps to be at?
 
I looked at the installation instructions but they do not mention how many positions you can set or how to set them. Does it just have a position sensor that you hook up to your EFIS and hold the flap switch down and release it where you want flaps to be at?

David, yes, you are correct. You hold the flap switch down until flaps reach the desired position and release. On the way up, just flip the switch up (locked position) and the motor stops when flaps are up.
 
David, yes, you are correct. You hold the flap switch down until flaps reach the desired position and release. On the way up, just flip the switch up (locked position) and the motor stops when flaps are up.

Thanks Pat!
 
If you are using a VP-X, it will allow preset flap positions based on the input from the position sensor.
 
If you are using a VP-X, it will allow preset flap positions based on the input from the position sensor.

Exactly, which is one of the many things I love about my VPX. With my settings, I bump the switch down once to get half flaps (flaps 20). Bump it down a second time and I get flaps full (flaps 40). Bump the switch up once and they go flaps up. The switch in question is the toggle atop my Infinity stick grip: It?s spring loaded in both directions to return to center.
 
Wii it work with the Garmin GAD-27?

Will it work with a standard momentary (up and down) toggle switch when using the Garmin GAD-27 to control flap position? The GAD-27 uses the Ray Allen POS to tell it what the position the flaps are in along with a momentary (both directions) toggle, so will this actuator talk to the GAD-27 the same way the Ray Allen POS does? If I?m not mistaken, you basically have an unlimited amount of positions that you can set with the GAD-27 if you want to.
 
Will it work with a standard momentary (up and down) toggle switch when using the Garmin GAD-27 to control flap position? The GAD-27 uses the Ray Allen POS to tell it what the position the flaps are in along with a momentary (both directions) toggle, so will this actuator talk to the GAD-27 the same way the Ray Allen POS does? If I?m not mistaken, you basically have an unlimited amount of positions that you can set with the GAD-27 if you want to.

Yes, it will work fine with the GAD 27, you would have to use a MOM switch up and down, as you suggest.
 
Vlad: Operational temperature: -25?C to 65?C (-13?F to 150?F)

That's good to know Pat. A sizable contingent of RVs are located above 45th parallel and I've seen some of them flying at -25C and lower. With cold soaked stock flap motor it takes forever to deploy that last notch. Of course there is a cockpit preheat solution but not for everyone and not for every flight. Monitor your customers in the North maybe get a motor lubricant for them down to -30C.

Just an observation using the factory installation for some insane amount of flight hours. :)
 
That's good to know Pat. A sizable contingent of RVs are located above 45th parallel and I've seen some of them flying at -25C and lower. With cold soaked stock flap motor it takes forever to deploy that last notch. Of course there is a cockpit preheat solution but not for everyone and not for every flight. Monitor your customers in the North maybe get a motor lubricant for them down to -30C.

Just an observation using the factory installation for some insane amount of flight hours. :)

Thanks for that, Vlad! I spoke to one of the engineers at the company that makes these for us and he said that it would definitely slow down at the lower temperatures, even freeze up if too much below -25?C. There will be situations when you won't be able to use flaps due to extreme cold. If the grease freezes it could burn out the motor if an attempt is made to use flaps with the gearbox frozen. Or you could just move to Florida. :)
 
Nice. An RV-10 version pretty please :)

Can you confirm whether you'll make an RV-10 version? (I've just ordered my fuselage kit, and it's the right time to delete the built-in flap motor, before they ship it :) )
 
Website down?

Hi Pat,

Looks like your phaviation.com website might be down? Requests to the server are timing out and I've tried from a couple of different computers and networks.

Dave
 
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Thanks, for the heads up, Dave! I'm working on it now. Should be back up shortly.

Site is back up. IP address issue...thanks again, Dave!
 
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My flap motor, after only 122 hours is now intermittently refusing to go below the first notch of flaps. Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't. Sounds like the old grease problem I've read about

If anyone has installed one of these in a -8, I'd love to hear how it went and what mods you had to make.
 
Hi Mark, here is a photo provided by one of our customers who installed our actuator in an RV-8. He said that all he had to do was position the upper bracket a little higher on the bulkhead and make the opening in the armrest larger to accommodate the increased size of the actuator. He said it was a relatively easy installation. Perhaps he'll weigh in here.

IMG_3939.jpg
 
Hi Mark, here is a photo provided by one of our customers who installed our actuator in an RV-8. He said that all he had to do was position the upper bracket a little higher on the bulkhead and make the opening in the armrest larger to accommodate the increased size of the actuator. He said it was a relatively easy installation. Perhaps he'll weigh in here.

Wow. That really begs for a cover doesn't it?
 
Just a photo of my install of Pat Hatch's flap motor in my RV-8. I chose to mount it with the motor in the upper fixed position. This allowed me to minimize the size of the hole. There is no apparent movement since the actuator arm is hidden in the arm rest area. Works great!

flapmotor.jpg
 
$299 seems like a huge markup for a firgelli linear actuator with a lollipop installed in the end. They only cost $139 from firgelli.....

https://www.firgelliauto.com/products/feedback-rod-actuator
I don't see a 5" stroke on any of those, but earlier in the thread it was said that these ones are the same 5" stroke as the stock actuator. Is it a 6" that's been limited somehow? Let's be sure we're talking about the same part...
 
$299 seems like a huge markup for a firgelli linear actuator with a lollipop installed in the end. They only cost $139 from firgelli.....


https://www.firgelliauto.com/products/feedback-rod-actuator

Shane, they are a lot cheaper than $139 if you look hard enough. Here's the one I used for my prototyping and it works great and it cost me less than $60 to my doorstep. There are mounting brackets galore on eBay for it. I built a digital flap controller to monitor the internal feedback pot to have 3 preset programmable positions. I dont have the VPX system to do that for me so I had to design my own. There is some modification to the shaft to drill and tap the end if you want the rod end bearing but that's very simple for anyone who's building. Or you can use it as it comes with any of the mounting brackets sold on eBay. There are dozens of options to chooses from. Even the seller of the actuator I bought has a few mounting bracket options.

This is the one I bought, a 12 volt, 5" linear actuator with feedback and 225lbs of torque/force. They are all made by the same company and different manufacturers apply their own label. Compare them all, it's the same actuator. For more details:

5" linear actuator with feedback.
 
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I don't see a 5" stroke on any of those, but earlier in the thread it was said that these ones are the same 5" stroke as the stock actuator. Is it a 6" that's been limited somehow? Let's be sure we're talking about the same part...

I dont think this is a 6" that has been limited. You can buy 5" actuators and they have NON-adjustable internal limit switches. The only way to limit it would be with a controller or an external limit switch. Could you dissect the actuator and move the internal limit switch, sure, but why?

These actuators with built in limit switches are the best to use that way they dont run on when they reach the end of the stroke. They just stop and wait for the reverse input from your flap switch. It's a safer alternative in my opinion.

The feedback is also great to supply your EFIS with the position so it can be displayed on the screen. I know you can do this with the Dynon (legacy and Skyview), I dont know about the Garmin. My Dynon display will show me flap position once programmed.
 
Shawn, great find. I just hate to see people throw away money for an off the shelf item that already exists with little to no modification. No sense in paying a middle man.
 
I dont think this is a 6" that has been limited. You can buy 5" actuators and they have NON-adjustable internal limit switches. The only way to limit it would be with a controller or an external limit switch. Could you dissect the actuator and move the internal limit switch, sure, but why?

These actuators with built in limit switches are the best to use that way they dont run on when they reach the end of the stroke. They just stop and wait for the reverse input from your flap switch. It's a safer alternative in my opinion.

The feedback is also great to supply your EFIS with the position so it can be displayed on the screen. I know you can do this with the Dynon (legacy and Skyview), I dont know about the Garmin. My Dynon display will show me flap position once programmed.

Be aware that limit switches can fail 'not-safe'. The advantage of an actuator that can't physically extend beyond expected length is that it can't damage structure. Even a 35-40 lb actuator could easily bend stuff if it extends outside normal range. Want to see the bent cross member on my steel tubing farm gate?
 
Be aware that limit switches can fail 'not-safe'. The advantage of an actuator that can't physically extend beyond expected length is that it can't damage structure. Even a 35-40 lb actuator could easily bend stuff if it extends outside normal range. Want to see the bent cross member on my steel tubing farm gate?
Thanks Charlie- This is a good note if going the roll your own-
Has Pat or anyone install one of these in an RV-4 as Yet? With the original manual torque tube or electric- ether one really
 
Correct, internal AND external limit switches can fail. It's very rare but it can happen if the actuator is in a harsh environment, like outside on your gate. :D

To your second thought, the key is to design the system so that the actuator CANNOT extend beyond the limits of the structure. You can stop it anywhere in between but never have an actuator that is too large for the design application. This can all be solved with the proper placement and linkage. If you dont size it properly you are asking for trouble, again, like outside on your gate. :D

They are very powerful motors and can do some serious damage if not installed properly.
 
I dont think this is a 6" that has been limited. You can buy 5" actuators and they have NON-adjustable internal limit switches. The only way to limit it would be with a controller or an external limit switch. Could you dissect the actuator and move the internal limit switch, sure, but why?
You're right. On further searching, I found that the sites offering them in the $100-130 range here in North America all offer that they can be made in custom stroke lengths and with custom end-fittings.

I suspect some of the cost will be in getting a custom length, and some will be in arranging for a small run that come with a threaded hole in the end to take an eye bolt, rather than a cross-hole for a pin.

The rest will be markup, which I don't begrudge someone running a business to charge. I may go look for the source parts and do it myself, but I suspect at the end of the day I would waste more than $150 in my time while doing it.
 
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