Melted Faceplate?!

[szicree]

While building my panel I recently installed a brand new Icom radio. All was fine until yesterday when I found that the upper portion of the faceplate has warped upward and looks real crappy. The plane has seen no unusual temperatures, just the usual sunlight through the bubble while working in the driveway. Anybody have a similar experience? Do you think Icom will replace it?

Steve Zicree
RV4

[gmcjetpilot]

I have an Icom A200 and not had a problem or heard of one. However the sun is powerful stuff and you may have been unlucky and had the sun at the wrong angle and magnified by the canopy at one spot. The curved surface of a canopy can act as magnifying glass. I know someone with a polished RV had his canopy melt from the suns reflection off the wing. So melting plastic in the sun is possible. You would think the radio would be protected somewhat from direct sun light from the glareshield?

It would have to get real hot to melt it. I think car plastics are made of Polypropylene. Plastics like this melt at pretty high 160C-170C (300F) temps.

The operating temp is around 180F!. You are getting close the the proverbial cooking eggs on your panel!

Some plastics below their melt point will ?flow? and get soft, sagging over time but to buckle all of a sudden, it must have got real hot. (Any polymer chemist out there?) Plastics like polypropylene tend to keep shape and NOT flow. They have a "sharp" melting points, where they are solid up to their melt point, than with only a small increase in temp, melt abruptly. I know cars can get to 140F even with the windows slightly rolled down. I would think the ICOMS hard plastic should handle 140F with out problem. Call Icom in Seattle, WA. I have got thru without much problem one or two times. G

[Bob Axsom]

It sounds like a manufacturing defect in the bonding. Had the same problem with my SL-60. Sent it back, they reglued it and no more problem. I would certainly contact the manufacturer.

Bob Axsom

[gmcjetpilot]

Originally Posted by Bob Axsom

It sounds like a manufacturing defect in the bonding. Bob Axsom

Good Idea Bob. I just looked at my ICOM and the face plate cover looks like it is solid plastic vs. plastic bonded on metal. Also the ICOM manual cautions not to place the unit in an area greater than 50C (122F). G

[Bob Axsom]

I have an older Icom hand held that has been very good to me but this sounds like the bean counters got into the design. Still they have a good reputation and this would be a good test of how they support their products - today! If you are like me (heaven forbid) you designed you instrument panel around specific hardware (avionics and instruments) and it would require an extreme problem that can't be worked around before you would change anything. That being the case, I would go back to the manufacturer and tell them exactly what happened (a photo would be good to start with) and see what their response is. Apollo was very good with the SL-60 problem. If they fix it free fine, if not I would bite the bullet and tell them to fix it anyway. It would be good to feed back the facts of you experience with the manufacturer in this forum when you have worked through the problem.

Once I got the unit back I would go to some length to minimize exposure of the unit to the sun. One of the options is to remove the unit from the rack until you are ready to test the systems and fly the airplane. When I built my plane Van had the upper fwd fuse skin truncated at the instrument panel but I extended it out about 4 inches to shade the panel. I bought a good avionics cooling fan to transfer the heat off into the passing air when the avionics are on. I installed an avionics master switch so the avionics are not sitting there cooking every time I turn the power on and forget to turn off all of the individual units. I also cut two round holes (maybe 3 in. dia) in the upper skin to vent the avionics. I cut two 1/2" ring doublers out of aluminum sheet and riveted them to the underside of the skin with some fairly fine mesh screen sandwiched in between to keep foriegn objects out. As a side benefit to the existence of these vent holes, I routed a defroster duct up to the left one for selectable windshield defrosting. I bought a canopy cover from Bruce's Custom Covers (I may have that name wrong but it's close enough to figure out) and cover the canopy when the plane is just going to be sitting out in the sun.

Bob Axsom