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Trutrak autopilot servo arm

There are service directives from TruTrak concerning this, and many threads discussing ways to prevent.

When we use experimental equipment, it is imperative that we accept the responsibility to keep abreast of potential issues as well as to report incidents to the community.

The title of this thread sounded like it was TruTrak making a service bulletin announcement. You may wish to update that title so as not to unintentionally mislead.

[the thread title has been amended; S. Buchanan]
 
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Sam,
We posted this message in the spirit of EAA and our fellow pilots. It is impossible to anticipate how it may or may not be interpreted by everyone on this planet.

Be that as it may, I think TruTrak should have directly notified the original purchasers of their products, (me in this case) of this potentially dangerous situation.
 
High Fred,

Nothing wrong (in my book) with letting folks know about a problem, but it is true that this one has been discussed a LOT here the past year or two. the first report was an RV-8 who's pitch arm came off, and jammed his controls in a loop - very exciting!

If you want to get up to speed, here's the most recent thread on the topic:

http://www.vansairforce.com/community/showthread.php?t=57487

Paul (Hey, I want more pics of your servo installation!!)
 
Communicate!!

fredbauerjr said:
...
Be that as it may, I think TruTrak should have directly notified the original purchasers of their products, (me in this case) of this potentially dangerous situation.
Click to expand...

I so agree, Trutrak should have notified their customer base. Although I receive a lot of information through Vansairforce, I can not rely on it to be an authoritative sole source of "service bulletin" or "airworthiness directive" notices.
 
Service bulletin info

For anything related to service bulletins, please check here: http://trutrakap.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=17

It is the most up to date place to get information. Our main page has a link directly to this area when you click on "Service Bulletins" near the bottom of the page.

Barring that, you can always call or email for any info regarding it.
 
That is an excellent recommendation - however, you must also realize that TruTrak only holds contact information for a small number of their users. Others, who bought their equipment for vendors, they know nothing about.

They do have a public site and an excellent forum. They are also selling their equipment as "experimental." I'm all for encouraging them to take a more proactive role, but my original point is that as "explorers" we likewise have a responsibility to keep abreast of issues involving every piece of experimental equipment on our aircraft.

There is precedent for this in the A&P world, where the mechanics are charged with seeking out ADs and service bulletins for each piece of equipment they service, and also when performing an aircraft Annual Inspection. I'm sure it is also true for Avionics shops.

If our goal is to encourage TruTrak to notify their customers, the simplest suggestion I can think of would be to encourage every user to sign up on their Forums, and ask the moderators to automatically email everyone on the Forum list whenever a new bulletin is released. I know they post in the forum; it wouldn't be a big deal for them to also email that info to everyone signed up.
 
breister said:
That is an excellent recommendation - however, you must also realize that TruTrak only holds contact information for a small number of their users. Others, who bought their equipment for vendors, they know nothing about.

They do have a public site and an excellent forum. They are also selling their equipment as "experimental." I'm all for encouraging them to take a more proactive role, but my original point is that as "explorers" we likewise have a responsibility to keep abreast of issues involving every piece of experimental equipment on our aircraft.

There is precedent for this in the A&P world, where the mechanics are charged with seeking out ADs and service bulletins for each piece of equipment they service, and also when performing an aircraft Annual Inspection. I'm sure it is also true for Avionics shops.

If our goal is to encourage TruTrak to notify their customers, the simplest suggestion I can think of would be to encourage every user to sign up on their Forums, and ask the moderators to automatically email everyone on the Forum list whenever a new bulletin is released. I know they post in the forum; it wouldn't be a big deal for them to also email that info to everyone signed up.
Click to expand...

Bill, this is an EXCELLENT suggestion. And you are exactly right, a large volume of our products are sold through our distributors and we have no idea of the end user's name let alone their contact info. Of the contact info we have on hand for our customers, many of them are out of date as emails and phone calls get returned. We don't get notified of someone's new contact info unless they have a problem and call us directly.

I encourage EVERYONE to sign up on our customer forum. It is the place where you can get all the up to date information and ask questions regarding anything. I monitor it all day long M-F and sometimes on weekends. Unless I just miss something, you'll get a quick response from me.

I can certainly compile a database of email contacts from the forum users. I am willing to do that if we can get a lot of customers to sign up.
 
TrutrakTech said:
Bill, this is an EXCELLENT suggestion. And you are exactly right, a large volume of our products are sold through our distributors and we have no idea of the end user's name let alone their contact info. Of the contact info we have on hand for our customers, many of them are out of date as emails and phone calls get returned. We don't get notified of someone's new contact info unless they have a problem and call us directly.

I encourage EVERYONE to sign up on our customer forum. It is the place where you can get all the up to date information and ask questions regarding anything. I monitor it all day long M-F and sometimes on weekends. Unless I just miss something, you'll get a quick response from me.

I can certainly compile a database of email contacts from the forum users. I am willing to do that if we can get a lot of customers to sign up.
Click to expand...

Lucas,
Excellent idea!
Please understand that when we posted the experience we had with our TruTrak servo it was not intended to "bash" anyone or any company. Our post was to help anyone who may not be giving this situation the immediate attention it deserves. (In our case we inspected our installation, did not find any evidence of a problem since all seemed tight and airworthy, and we closed up our aircraft). Therefore, again in our case, we felt the problem was handled satisfactorily. What we wanted to say to all was, "get the fix from TruTrak and install it before flying the aircraft again".
We are very satisfied with our TruTrak autopilot and even more satisfied with the support we have gotten from Lucas, BUT! this fix needs to be accomplished before anyone's next flight.
 
your photo...

appears to show a strange alignment of the servo arm, as though the brass screw was screwed in to change the angle. I looks as though the short end of the arm might be very close to touching.

Is this just a weirdness in the angle of the shot? Isn't that brass screw basically the shear pin?

Jeremy
 
Filled out the web form some time ago but did not get screws, the web form does not appear to work now (get a error message). I checked the screws during the annual and they appeared to be fine so I decided to leave them alone. Do I Need to change them? If so how do I get a couple of screws (pitch and roll)
 
uk_figs said:
Filled out the web form some time ago but did not get screws, the web form does not appear to work now (get a error message). I checked the screws during the annual and they appeared to be fine so I decided to leave them alone. Do I Need to change them? If so how do I get a couple of screws (pitch and roll)
Click to expand...

The web form under the "Service Bulletins" link now redirects you to our customer forum. We deactivated the link quite some time ago due to an enormous amount of spam.

To request the retainers, please follow the instructions here: http://trutrakap.com/forum/showpost.php?p=895&postcount=1
 
uk_figs said:
Filled out the web form some time ago but did not get screws, the web form does not appear to work now (get a error message). I checked the screws during the annual and they appeared to be fine so I decided to leave them alone. Do I Need to change them? If so how do I get a couple of screws (pitch and roll)
Click to expand...

Also note - the old "replacement screws" service bulletin has been superseded with a new retaining bracket (I had the new screws and didn't know about this when I posted earlier in this thread, so I'm also guilty of not keeping abreast of the changes!).

Be sure and follow the link TT posted above. "Standard" servos get a field installable bracket; Capstan and torque amplifying servos must be returned to the company for a fix.
 
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