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Yeah I thought the same thing. I'm going to rip out all the gobs of wire that are not needed and stick with the piper drawings how it is supposed to be wired.
That's odd. It's a double poll, double throw switch. Originally one side of it was the battery master and the other side was the generator field. When your alternator was installed they probably disconnected the generator field. I don't know why they would bother to cross connect both sides of the switch.
If you are planning to re-install a generator, I would think that you would want the original wiring for the generator field.
Why on my master switch there are a bridge between the two sides. In the picture I drew red marks where they are bridged together. Do some switches have an internal bridge? This was connected to a system with the interav alternator but I am going back to the old generator wiring. Should I take off the bridges?
Where is your alternator field 12volt signal coming from?
As above post states when it had a generator the field voltage ran from the generator to one pole of the master and than on to the voltage regulator. That circuit was isolated from the battery master circuit. Its possible that during the alternator conversion they reused the generator field circuit of the master switch and put the bridge from the battery pole to the field pole to power the alternator field.
Crude diagram attatched is I believe how Piper wired it, field circuit was wired with a bridge between the outer terminals 2 and 6.
It's obvious from your picture that whoever put bridges across all three terminals was trying to power the field circuit, they didn't realize all that was needed was to bridge the center terminals.
I took those bridges off and wires everything according to the drawings. Everything seems to be working except when the master switch is off, the starter button is still able to engage the starter. Anyone know why?
when the master switch is off, the starter button is still able to engage the starter. Anyone know why?
That's normal. The starter current does not go through the master switch. On more modern systems the master has to be on to operate the start solenoid, but on ours the simple push button does not require the master to be on.
The wire off the center part went to the landing and taxi lights. I got everything working now. I took the bridges off. I don't have an alternator, just the old generator.