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How much time is on your Plane Power Alternator?

Dave12

Well Known Member
I have read about the miserable experiences some have experienced with their PP Alternator. I have considered swapping mine for a B&C unit. I have about 550 hours on mine. I?m just curious if there are others who have racked up higher amounts of times on theirs. It goes a bit against my grain to fix the unbroken, but I do get the feeling it might be borrowing time.
 
300 hours

I got about 300 hours before the rear bearings failed. My buddies just got 200 hours and 600 hours before their regulators commenced to spike and cause the VPX to trip the Nav/Com and transponder circuits.

Alan
 
I have read about the miserable experiences some have experienced with their PP Alternator. I have considered swapping mine for a B&C unit. I have about 550 hours on mine. I’m just curious if there are others who have racked up higher amounts of times on theirs. It goes a bit against my grain to fix the unbroken, but I do get the feeling it might be borrowing time.

By all means keep running it, you may get a few more hours out of it.
Definitely best to wait until you're stranded somewhere, with no tools, on a trip with the wife before you replace it :eek:
 
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By all means keep running it, you may get a few more hours out of it.
Definitely best to wait until you're stranded somewhere, with no tools, on a trip with the wife before you replace it :eek:

Bad day at work?
 
By all means keep running it, you may get a few more hours out of it.
Definitely best to wait until you're stranded somewhere, with no tools, on a trip with the wife before you replace it :eek:

Lame post. A member asks an honest question and you barrage him with sarcasm.
 
587 Hrs and 6 years . . . .

. . . . . of trouble free operation so far. I guess it could fail tomorrow . . . . . :rolleyes:
 
Bad day at work?

Sorry can't blame it on that, I'm self employed, if I start having a rough day I just go home....

Lame post. A member asks an honest question and you barrage him with sarcasm.

Guess you're not from NY, and I've been called way worse than 'lame'.

Perhaps I should have said something a little 'nicer' like:

'do yourself a favor and replace that POS before it fails and leaves you stranded'.... there is that better?
 
I don't get all the fuss - There's over 500 hours on my $50 Suzuki alternator, and I can find a replacement at any autozone.

But to answer more productively, there was a poll a while back about alternator reliability, and it seems like theres a wide variety of experiences with every type. How much trouble will it be to replace your alternator if it does go bad? I don't recall it being a terrible job. Would it be a simple enough swap to just keep a cheap auto alternator on hand just in case you need something to get you home?

Chris
 
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I don't get all the fuss - There's over 500 hours on my $50 Suzuki alternator, and I can find a replacement at any autozone.

Chris

Last time I checked foreflight it didn't show the location of all the autozones in the USA or how to flight plan for that route. :D

Ok I'm gonna stop now...
 
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Last time I checked foreflight it didn't show the location of all the autozones in the USA or how to flight plan for that route. :D

Ok I'm gonna stop now...

It's in the super-secret, "cheapskate" version of FF. It's black and white and runs on my flip-phone! :D
 
Plane Power

Mine only lasted 125 hours. Switched to a B&C and wish I started out with one during my build.
 
600 hrs and doing fine.
blast tube on electronics on back end.
I have had an occurrence of the poor regulation from a high resistance connection in the modular plug. (see posts in the archives by DanH) I pinched the connectors a bit tighter, and waiting for the next occurrence of that issue to install a fully potted replacement plug. Otherwise, it keeps humming along.
 
Listen to the inner voice

I have read about the miserable experiences some have experienced with their PP Alternator. I have considered swapping mine for a B&C unit. I have about 550 hours on mine. I’m just curious if there are others who have racked up higher amounts of times on theirs. It goes a bit against my grain to fix the unbroken, but I do get the feeling it might be borrowing time.

Go ahead and listen to your inner voice. "Wee wee on the PP"

Unless there is great satisfaction to be gained in a keep alive experiment with blast tubes, cooling and TLC tricks and techniques disclosed by skilled posters.

VMMV- you might get 2000 hours if you put your mind to it.
 
I lost two before the aircraft was 200 hours. It was the regulator in both cases and I had cooling air on them, but I'm not convinced they died due to heat; the first one lasted two summers flying around Arizona. Either way, replacing it with a B&C external regulator did the trick. I'm keeping the last PP as a spare; I'll just bypass the dead regulator. I think the alternator itself is fine.
 
I have 525 hrs on mine, I have total faith in it....but I listened to Vic's advice and installed a B&C standby alternator just in case.:)
 
I don't get all the fuss - There's over 500 hours on my $50 Suzuki alternator, and I can find a replacement at any autozone.

NOT knocking the Suzuki choice, but do remember it has no built-in overvoltage protection. Nothing funny about fried avionics, and a serious overvoltage event has been shown to cause thermal runaway in a popular lithium iron battery.

A Plane Power features internal OV protection, while B&C makes it a feature of the external voltage regulator. It is possible to add an external OV device to a Suzuki installation.

To the OP's question...I'm on my third Plane Power in 940 hours. No blast tube, but neither failure appeared to have anything to do with temperature. I likely would have quit them by now, but the Hartzell starter/alternator facility is right here in Montgomery; parts and replacements have been drive-up convenient.

The alternators are made in China by Unipoint, a discount division of Bosch. Don't know who does the add-on regulator mod. I suspect it comes that way from Unipoint, as 6621 isn't a catalog part number.

Unipoint%206621.jpg
 
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I guess I'm a statistical outlier, at least according to Walt. I have just over 4 years and 650 hours on mine, WITHOUT cooling blast tubes, and it's running fine. I also have a considerably larger electrical load on it than most folks, with a full glass panel and electric fuel pumps, injection, and ignition.

Having said that, I'm spring-loaded to replace it with a B&C when it dies, and I run a backup alternator on the vac pad that will carry the full load of the airplane so I have some insulation against a failure.
 
There seems to be a general, rapid drop off in reliability on the newer PP units compared to the units of several years ago. This seems to roughly coincide with when Hartzell off-shored these.

I have a friend who has around 2000 hours on his roughly 10 year old one now with no issues. It probably had real OEM quality parts inside though...

When will PP bring production and assembly back to the US and put proper parts inside these? They must be losing substantial market share to B&C based on just the reviews here on VAF. This has been going on for a few years now.
 
I have 8 years on my PP with 662 hrs on it. I run a blast tube on the alternator and also have a B&C standby alternator on the rear of my engine. It has been rock solid so far.
Steve
N424JK
RV9A
904 hrs
 
My first Plane Power alt was still working when I sold it after 11 years (900 hrs) on my old Commander. I only got 130 hours on my newer RV14 backup PP. It failed at the mount base and could have caused other problems. I replaced it with backup B&C and regulator. Waiting for the other PP alt to wear out.

Thanks Walt for finding my DEAD PP backup Alt, I know you have seen a few.
 
Are you kidding . ?.. ??

Last time I checked foreflight it didn't show the location of all the autozones in the USA or how to flight plan for that route. :D

Ok I'm gonna stop now...

Why? You are on a ROLL . . ;)
 
There seems to be a general, rapid drop off in reliability on the newer PP units compared to the units of several years ago. This seems to roughly coincide with when Hartzell off-shored these.

I have a friend who has around 2000 hours on his roughly 10 year old one now with no issues. It probably had real OEM quality parts inside though...



Hartzell bought Plane Power in July 2014 - so about 6 years ago. The Plane Power alternator in my plane has been in SERVICE for 6 years/587 hours (no blast tube) - but I bought it over 9 years ago - back when Plane Power was still . . . well . . . Plane Power LTD. Mine has been flawless so far. Could be Ross is on to something . . . . . .
 
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Almost a year ago, I had my 7 year old van's supplied alternator, don't know what kind it was, fail when I was 100 miles from home. When I returned home, I replaced it with an alt from the local autoparts store.... on a SUNDAY!.... for about $90. I love the flexability of using local places and at least for an alternator failure will never be stranded again... not to mention the cost savings.
 
12 years and counting

Installed in 2008 and have around 600 hours, so far so good. Did install the blast tubes.
In discussing this failure thread with some buddies today one point came up about starting with the field switch off (I have the standard Cessna split master switch) being better for the alternator, I have always switched both on and then started the motor. What say the experts, I hate to change a procedure that has been fine for 12 years.
FRigs
 
It would be good if people can sound off on hours to date and when the alternator was purchased. See if there is a correlation on longevity vs. pre and post 2014.
 
It would be good if people can sound off on hours to date and when the alternator was purchased. See if there is a correlation on longevity vs. pre and post 2014.

serial number or manufacture date too. Particularly for failed units.

We don't know what specifically has happened to the 60 amp PP design to precipitate failures. I was kindly sent a failed PP 60 amp and took it apart to do an evaluation. It is actually pretty well designed, but appears to be machine assembled. This unit was Model AL-12-EI60/B SN-216-71941 with 510 hrs of operation.

At 510 hours the bearings were in good condition, lube was liquid, not loose and still sealed. The brushes were 1/3 to the replacement limit. The stator was tightly installed. The windings were epoxy coated. The rectifier bridge had one bad diode. It has a special bearing for the slip ring end. Patented and not available in the USA. I called the manufacturer in the US and had several good emails with detail with the factory that makes them in Taiwan. A quote for 5000 units was received at less than $3 per. I installed new bearings, rectifier bridge and modified the housing to use a standard SRE bearing.

If the supplier (PP-Hartzell) does not repair-replace-support the unit for premature failure and it continues to have a high failure rate. Like Walt says - change brands.

When the failures began in the PP a few years ago a poll like this was posted. I took all the failures and hrs and made a Weibull plot. It was bifurcated indicating two different populations meaning a manufacturing defect being built in for some reason. Hartzell worked on it at the time, but we never heard the affected serial number or date range. Shame on them.

I will commit 1 hour to take your failed unit apart if you want to send it. Your nickel on post to me and return if you like.

I have a EI60 alternator as does my friend. I have 125 hrs (no blast tube) and he, 450 hrs (with blast tube). No failures.
 
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Installed in 2008 and have around 600 hours, so far so good. Did install the blast tubes.
In discussing this failure thread with some buddies today one point came up about starting with the field switch off (I have the standard Cessna split master switch) being better for the alternator, I have always switched both on and then started the motor. What say the experts, I hate to change a procedure that has been fine for 12 years.
FRigs

With the ND internally regulated alternators, we have years of semi-collated , subjective, and anecdotal evidence that turning on the alternator field after the engine is turning is a good way to kill the regulator. That?s one reason that many have eliminated the alternator switch, and just protect it with a breaker that can be pulled if you ever have good reason to turn it off.

Can?t say it is scientific, but I generally get over a thousand hours on an ND alternator this way....

Paul
 
With the ND internally regulated alternators, we have years of semi-collated , subjective, and anecdotal evidence that turning on the alternator field after the engine is turning is a good way to kill the regulator. That?s one reason that many have eliminated the alternator switch, and just protect it with a breaker that can be pulled if you ever have good reason to turn it off.

Can?t say it is scientific, but I generally get over a thousand hours on an ND alternator this way....

Paul

Yet I've done this on mine for 15 years with a lot of short flights, still working fine after many hundreds of activations. Maybe we can explore that one here too?
 
Yet I've done this on mine for 15 years with a lot of short flights, still working fine after many hundreds of activations. Maybe we can explore that one here too?

And I do it on a regular basis as well - nearly every flight - and my "you're gonna die any day now" alternator is still running fine after more than 4 years and 650 hours.
 
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