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Oil contaminated spade connectors - Is this a problem?

Gash

Well Known Member
I recently spilled a bit of oil when removing my oil filter. Some of the oil ran down a wire bundle and got inside the 3 spade connectors for the Red Cube fuel flow sender. I cleaned it up with a rag as best I could, but didn't think much of it. There appears to be some oil inside the connectors that I couldn't get out.

When I cranked up the engine, my fuel flow indication was gone. Unless I just happened to get a failed Red Cube, it seems as if oil contamination inside the spade connectors might be the cause.

Can anybody confirm this? Do I need to R&R the spade connectors? Thanks.
 
To the contrary, some oil will actually help prevent contact corrosion, it will not harm connectors.
 
That's what I was thinking. Maybe this just happened to be the day that my Red Cube with less than 50 hours on it decided to die. I wonder if it's still under warranty...

I feel like that guy on an old Steve Martin movie who flushed the toilet and the phone suddenly rang. So in his mind, the two events were connected. He kept flusing the toilet, and the phone kept ringing, thus confirming to him the false correlation.
 
non-conductive

Unlike moisture, oil is not conductive and will to some extent protect the metal from oxidation. May be a mess to clean but electrically, it is not a problem
 
If your Red Cube is bad ...

... hopefully you bought it from an EFIS vendor and not EII. Believe me, you do NOT want to deal with EII on a failed or defective Red Cube. I just went through that in the last two weeks and it was the worst vendor experience I've had in the 6+ years of my build. Only the fine folks at Dynon helped me out - just this week. The EII response was reprehensible.
 
If it was working before the oil spill, I would revisit the wiring and connections first.
 
Just spray the connector out with some quick dry electronics part cleaner. Available at most auto part stores or walmart.
 
I bought the Red Cube from Stein, thank goodness. And thanks for the idea to spray out the connectors with parts cleaner--good idea there.
 
Karl,
As others have mentioned, the oil will not create an electrical issue and it can be cleaned using electrical contact cleaner or aerosol automotive brake parts cleaner. Either product will work.
One other possibility you should consider. Oil getting into a less than perfect crimp, may have allowed the wire to come loose from it's terminal. I would suggest giving a tug on all the wires, after you get them cleaned off.
Charlie
 
Oil is not conductive, electrically not a problem. Brake cleaner and electrical cleaner will clean it up. Please be careful with any type of cleaner that you use. There are some types of plastics and rubbers that brake cleaner/electrical degreasers will destroy.

bird
 
... hopefully you bought it from an EFIS vendor and not EII. Believe me, you do NOT want to deal with EII on a failed or defective Red Cube. I just went through that in the last two weeks and it was the worst vendor experience I've had in the 6+ years of my build. Only the fine folks at Dynon helped me out - just this week. The EII response was reprehensible.

I'm really surprised to hear that, EI in the past has had absolutely impecable customer service.
 
This weekend ...

... I hope to find the time to chronicle the never-ending problems I've had with my FT-60 red cube - and post said chronicle herein. EII has been the only negative (and BIGtime negative) transaction I've had with any of the myriad of vendors associated with my project. (Of course this occurred within two weeks after I made a VAF post singing the praises of our experimental aircraft vendors. :eek:) Oh well.
 
Are we talking EI (Electronics International) or EII (not sure who this is)?
 
Perhaps a little more back on topic here, I wonder if somebody could offer their "ideal" steps for trouble shooting a suddenly failed fuel flow indication from their Red Cube. I would like to take the most logical approach to this, and not having a very strong maintenance training background, I think it would be good to approach this trouble shooting task with the goal of not only fixing the problem, but also to exercise some maintenance best practices for the sake of learning.
 
There ain't much to em.

An impeller and a sensor inside to detect the vanes on the impeller.

Either the impeller is blocked from rotating, the sensor has been damaged or there is an issue with the wiring.

Clean oil is an insulator but I bet used oil is not. If some of that got into the guts, it could short out the sensor.
 
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One- oil will not in its self be a problem but the dirt that it collects will be eventually.

Two- disconnect the fuel line at the output of the cube and let it flow into a bucket with the system powered up. Time the start of the fuel flowing for a couple of minutes and accurately measure the amount of gas collected. It should match what the fuel flow device measured.
 
If the device can't handle spilled oil, it doesn't belong under the cowl. My guess would be that in cleaning, you knocked a ground or poorly crimped/connected wire loose. If a crimp is not quite right, the wire could be loose and is now displaced (on either end) or intermittent due to the oil contamination.
Thinking horses, not zebras.
 
spade connections

Shrink wrap over the spade connections keeps them clean. Also insulates from a contact.
 
Just a point of difference here folks.

Oil is not the problem, but in a hot and slowly dirty connection where the oil is say heat affected by being near the exhaust, this does create problems. I have seen this before, albeit not on my engine probes but on things such as CHT/EGT connections.

So do not discount contamination entirely. :)
 
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