Microlighters

Hi Guys,

Flying back from Parys yesterday, the RPM indicator on my Skydat DX2, just went blank, while all other information were still displaying fine i.e. Alti, Speed, etc.



What is funny is that my electronic compass, seperate instrument, also went dead i.e. looks like no power.

Now I haven's started fualt finding yet, but hope someone can give some tips before I start, that might have had similiar RPM problems before.

Thanks in advance.

Regards
Rudi

Rudi

Might be able to help here.

a) Check the fuse between you instruments and the battery although the fact that the Skydat still switches on seems to rule that out.
b) Check the Skydat sender unit on the engine - I filled mine up with water the other day - inadvertantly of course - and got no engine info displayed on the display until I had opened it all up and dried it out.

Cheers

Sebastian

See children,

this is exactly why you have 3 primary analog, non-powered instruments, ASI, ALT, rev counter and potentially if you are doing long distances and need to navigate by map, compass. Electronics fail :D

My flight instruments still worked fine - just the engine instruments were on the blink for short while until I had worked out the problem. Still won't convince me to go the stone age instrument route! Just makes life interesting if it happens whilst you are up there

P.S. Stay out of the rain when flying with an electronic display.

P.P.S. Still looks cool though!

Havn't come across one of these darn things that I can actuallty see unless its pitch boody dark and the bloomin thing hasnt got itself hung up somehow

Seems as though it's a becoming non neg with 912/4 though...

Ok, I found the problem...it was not the Skydat...The rotax coil started to give up. I had a dead short between the Grey (RPM) Wire and the White (Mag) wire, which means that protion of the winding is non operational.

After opening it up we also saw that one of the coil end plates were coming loose. If it came of during flight, it would have taken out all the windings and then I would have experienced an engine out.

The bottom line is if you experience a small problem, sort it out ASAP, it could be signs if bigger problems lurking.

Regards
Rudi

PS: If there are interest I'll explain how I tested the coil with a simple Ohm meter.

PPS: For simple, light local flying I believe there is nothing better than one of these all in one instruments. Back it up with a small battery operated GPS. If you go long distance better buddy up with others, fly by map etc etc...

Loose wire somewhere, or the pick up in the engine is in the fritz.

Boet wrote:Loose wire somewhere, or the pick up in the engine is in the fritz.

No, A short in the windings, I replaced the coil.