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Charge current and shimmy

H

Hotscam

Well Known Member
PH-SEP #120519 made its maiden flight last week.
Great plane to fly, but have to get used to landing. Pretty sensitive controls and easy to over steer.
After 5 landings a lot better.

Few problems need to be solved :

The brand new Icom A210 radio( selected for 8.33 khz channels) does not squelch, also not when powered on the workbench.. It works well but the constant noise is annoying..anybody has a hint?

The test day was absolute zero wind and difficult to get the 12 down at full flaps and minimum power. I needed the brakes not to overshoot , but a bad nose wheel shimmy pops up. It disappears when the brakes are released.
The sideload adjustment is according to spec.

The discharge current on the skyview works as expected and conform consumption specs of the individual components.
However when the engine runs it shows no charge current, whilst the battery voltage increases during flight so it must charge.
Looking at our diagrams (upgrade version) the shunt should see charge and discharge but it does not for some reason. VAN's say this is normal but i do not see why. It look conforn to version A on page 35-7 of the Dynon manual which is the charge/discharge version..
What are your readinds like ?

Other than these little issues a great plane !!!
 
Squelch on A210

I also have the ICom A210 transceiver and the squelch is automatic but can be manually adjusted after pushing in the volume button. It will go into test mode and you will hear the static. Push it again and it will go back to normal. If you are in test mode the word test appears. You may have it in test mode and not know it. Hope this helps. It is also listed on page 20 of the manual.
 
Front wheel issues - -

I found balancing helps all 3 wheels. They all seem to need help. Best suggestion I have.

John Bender
 
Thanks for the tips sofar.
Will try the wheel balance. Have to find how to do this.

Regarding the Icom.
I read the manual carefully several times and it is not in test mode.
I can adjust the AM squelch level via the menu. When it was just installed i could just mute by going to level 10, but it seems to have shifted and 10 is not enough. I suspected interference sources, but on the workbench now it is the same. Searching the web i found a lot of people having the same problem but no solutions.
 
Page 7-38 of the SkyView System Installation Guide shows 3 possible locations for the ammeter shunt. With the shunt in location A, the ammeter shows battery charging or discharging current, not the current used by aircraft loads and not alternator output current. Since the engine starts so quickly without much drain on the battery, there will be very little battery charging current. And there will not be any battery discharging current as long as the alternator is working. Therefore the ammeter will usually indicate close to zero amps.
Joe Gores
 
Thanks for the wheel balance tip and movie. Will do this weekend.

Joe Gores

I realize we are in position A with the shunt as far as I can see from the conversion diagram, but I see no charge current as I would thus expect.
I hope the diagram matches the real thing, but this is difficult to check with the mystery box in the middle.
There can hardly be anything wrong with the dynon if it shows the discharge correctly.
Will continue the search as long as I am sure others with the same system do see the charge.
 
Sideload

One more "2 cents". You said the side load set up on the nose wheel was to specs. This is one case where more is better than less. You may want to tighten this up some...or not. It does influence the front wheel movement, brakes or no.
 
Jack Netherlands,
If you want to see charge current, run the battery down quite a bit before starting the engine. I have no doubt that Van's wiring diagram is correct with the ammeter showing only battery current, not load current. Battery charge current is useless information on the RV-12 because it is usually near zero. As long as the voltage is normal, the battery is being maintained at the proper voltage. I have not heard of anyone saying that their ammeter shows significant charge current. I do not expect to see any battery charging current because the engine starts after only a second or two of cranking. In fact, I would be concerned if there was a significant amount of charging current. I would be puzzled as to what was discharging the battery when the airplane was not in use.
Joe Gores
 
Congratulations!

Aside from the small hickups, congratulations with the first flight! This makes two RV's at our homebase, EHSE.
 
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