Alternator Reliability Poll

[BillL]

Originally Posted by GigAir

A followup on, previously reported, post #136 in this thread, failure of PP 60Amp IR alternator, at 115 hours. I shipped the failed unit to PP for warranty. Today I found out their determination of failure was due to "The stator epoxy was loose". Agent said sometimes bubbles get into the epoxy and it leads to early failure. I had never heard of that one. To their credit, they are sending me a new unit, even though it is slightly outside the warranty period.

Greg Novotny
RV-14a N14ZP
Tacoma Narrows

Thanks for the followup Greg. It is good that PP actually looked at your unit, and good to know that they are using epoxy. I wonder if they are using epoxy for stator-to-case for retention or impregnated windings to get better cooling and prevent wire shorting issues. A few years ago PP had issues with the stator motion failing the (stators) attachment wires.

[Jasonm]

Originally Posted by GigAir

A followup on, previously reported, post #136 in this thread, failure of PP 60Amp IR alternator, at 115 hours. I shipped the failed unit to PP for warranty. Today I found out their determination of failure was due to "The stator epoxy was loose". Agent said sometimes bubbles get into the epoxy and it leads to early failure. I had never heard of that one. To their credit, they are sending me a new unit, even though it is slightly outside the warranty period.

Greg Novotny
RV-14a N14ZP
Tacoma Narrows

That is exactly the same thing they told me when mine failed at 100 hrs.

[CDN]

I posted on another thread the symptoms of my alternator failure. Anyway, my Plane Power alternator that came with the RV-10 FWF kit failed at 25 months old and 245 hours. It was a broken stator wire.

It's currently at an alternator shop to see if they can repair it but if they can't I'm going to B&C. I'm not spending my money on another plane power since it looks like 1 in 3 are failing under 250 hours. I fly my RV all over western North America and reliability is paramount when crossing the rocks.

[912ry]

Originally Posted by Bill.Peyton

I had an interesting conversation this morning with Hartzell/Plane Power. A quick summary:

They have no insight whatsoever in regards to the design, other than is starts out as a Nippondenso alternator. The manufacturing rights were purchased from the previous developer, Plane Power. +

The product is not even produced by Hartzell in house. It is produced by a vendor and shipped to Hartzell essentially complete.

There are no service and repair procedures, nor parts. A warranty is simply a new unit.

They are totally unaware of field failure data.

They have no plans to investigate the high failure rate of this product.

I have a 60 amp version PP that was provided with my RV-10 kit. It now has over 500 trouble free hours. I am leaning heavily towards a proactive replacement with the B&C, although it will require installing a voltage regulator.

I had a similar experience with them. But here's the rest of the story.
At just over 500 hours, my PP 60 amp alternator began struggling to provide voltage under load. With everything running my voltage would drop to near 13v.
I pulled out the paper work on my alternator, the stuff I received from vans, and low and behold it said to check/rebuild the alternator, and it listed a part number for the rebuild kit!
I called pp (hartzell) and they had no idea what I was talking about. I then plugged the part # into the aircraft spruce search engine. A full page of results came out, With no way to tell which one was the one for me.
Finally, I called the nice folks in Ft Worth Aero performance. The gentleman was also quite perplexed. He said he would get back to me.
He did! He was able to figure out which overhaul kit I would need, and offered to sell it to me or let me buy it from aircraft spruce, as apparently they are partners. The overhaul kit is basically one unit which incorporates the brushes and the regulator. This was a very simple rebuild. My alternator is working fine again. I have the part# and info on the rebuild kit if anyone wants them. No guarantee it will be compatible with your model though.

[912ry]

Originally Posted by Bill.Peyton

I had an interesting conversation this morning with Hartzell/Plane Power. A quick summary:

They have no insight whatsoever in regards to the design, other than is starts out as a Nippondenso alternator. The manufacturing rights were purchased from the previous developer, Plane Power. +

The product is not even produced by Hartzell in house. It is produced by a vendor and shipped to Hartzell essentially complete.

There are no service and repair procedures, nor parts. A warranty is simply a new unit.

They are totally unaware of field failure data.

They have no plans to investigate the high failure rate of this product.

I have a 60 amp version PP that was provided with my RV-10 kit. It now has over 500 trouble free hours. I am leaning heavily towards a proactive replacement with the B&C, although it will require installing a voltage regulator.

I had a similar experience with them. But here's the rest of the story.
At just over 500 hours, my PP 60 amp alternator began struggling to provide voltage under load. With everything running my voltage would drop to near 13v.
I pulled out the paper work on my alternator, the stuff I received from vans, and low and behold it said to check/rebuild the alternator, and it listed a part number for the rebuild kit!
I called pp (hartzell) and they had no idea what I was talking about. I then plugged the part # into the aircraft spruce search engine. A full page of results came out, With no way to tell which one was the one for me.
Finally, I called the nice folks in Ft Worth Aero performance. The gentleman was also quite perplexed. He said he would get back to me.
He did! He was able to figure out which overhaul kit I would need, and offered to sell it to me or let me buy it from aircraft spruce, as apparently they are partners. The overhaul kit is basically one unit which incorporates the brushes and the regulator. This was a very simple rebuild. My alternator is working fine again. I have the part# and info on the rebuild kit if anyone wants them. No guarantee it will be compatible with your model though.

[CDN]

The alternator shop that I mentioned in post #163 was able to replace the stator and all was good with the PP alternator. That was until last week when the voltage regulator failed in it and triggered the over voltage protection circuit.

I just finished installing the B&C 60 amp alternator and LR3C-14 external voltage regulator. It was an easy retrofit. It was more than I wanted to spend but the failure rate of new plane power units is unacceptable.

[TShort]

I just replaced the PP alternator on the -10 with a B&C 40A (to go along with the pad mounted B&C backup alternator).

We lost the PP alternator on a night XC ~10PM.

Sent it back, turns out it was a mechanical failure of some component of the front bearing components (per their report).

<150h on the unit.

[RVDan]

Front bearing failures are typically related to over tightening the belt. Was the belt tension set using one of the approved methods?

[TShort]

Yes - and I actually checked it with a torque wrench as per the install manual.

I?m one of those that always reads the directions and tries to do stuff like that by the book...

[Mousse]

I installed a copy of the Nippon-Denso equivalent to part # 14684 one year ago and after 99 hrs the bearings are gone. The local shop is replacing the cheap Chinese bearings with better ones.

And no warranty support from the supplier.

Alternator Bosch, model AL430N. (You guessed it, made in China.)

Michel