Charging Issue

[MrBill]

Very sad to miss a fly-in that was too close to miss but too far for me at this point. The cylinders seem good. I could not go through with the gasket paste idea. I was close but it goes against my ideas of right and wrong.
Dealing with charging problems now. 1st run-up, way too much charge and now there is none. Grounded field wire? Anyway I just wanted to say thanks for the support.

[MrBill]

Very sad to miss a fly-in that was too close to miss but too far for me at this point. The cylinders seem good. I could not go through with the gasket paste idea. I was close but it goes against my ideas of right and wrong.
Dealing with charging problems now. 1st run-up, way too much charge and now there is none. Grounded field wire? Anyway I just wanted to say thanks for the support.

[Glen Geller]

Dealing with charging problems now. 1st run-up, way too much charge and now there is none. Grounded field wire? Anyway I just wanted to say thanks for the support.

Things to consider, does your plane have:
Generator or Alternator?
Original voltage regulator or modern solid-state?
Is there an over-voltage protector?

Probably some threads on the site that you can find with those key-words.

Good luck.

GG

[Gilbert Pierce]

Grounded field generator goes to max output and either blows a fuse or pops a circuit breaker.

[MrBill]

I am ..er was pretty sure I knew all about the antique ways of charging after the carbon pile method of control. Last thing I went and did before flying after my re-cover was replace the most gawd-awful looking field wire from the generator to the other side of the firewall. Things got hotter than I figured. I had a spare delco regulator just in case....I went to the airport to work on it. By the looks of that overheated reg. I thought that somehow I switched the field and armature wire at the generator. I walked down to a shop and asked to look at one of their Delco generators because mine did not have any markings at all just 2 posts. I found one in their closet just like mine with real good markings. I had it right.
The Gen wire went to the circuit breaker and did not look over heated and breaker was not blown. The field wire gets pretty small once inside the cockpit and it did not look like it was under any stress its whole life. Weird?
I did not feel like taking the gen off tonight maybe next time but it will have to come off and go under the microscope because the fault surely lies there...where else?

[MrBill]

Sorry Glen, I did not out right answer anything. Just drew it all out in a long puzzle. It is all original darn it. I should restate my last comment, generator has to come off because there is undoubtedly a problem with it NOW - after going through such extremes. All 3 coils inside the regulator housing shows signs of very high heat and stinks of it. The current regulating coil wires are all separated and curled up. I just do not get how nothing outside of the regulator shows any signs of heat. Circuit breaker didn't blow but by the looks of the regulator you gotta just bet the field wires in the generator have also reached that familiar overheated old melted wire smell like an old tube television right after it lets loose the mushroom cloud of smoke.
I suppose the field wire is like a sense wire and it only sends the information to the fields magnetism....ground that out somewhere and look out. I used to think I knew how it all worked, please jump in and right me if I am wrong...doesn't bother my ego. I gave that up when I bough a Toyota years ago. I am still pro-America just got tired of working on...well crap.

[MrBill]

Hey, I just watched the video I took of some t&g's after the new regulator install. The ammeter seemed to be showing everything was working but when RPM increased charging increased more than it should in my opinion. My battery was fully charged yet it showed a 20 amp charge on the gauge. This was all from start-up, taxi, run-up and only a couple seconds into take-off that is where the needle dropped to discharge.
What was strange was the ammeter needle was pulsating at idle and high (discharge/charge) rpm. Full RPM at take-off it looked like it jumped as high as 30 amps before losing it. Even after losing the charging system the gauge continued pulsating at a 20 amp, or less, discharge. This pulse was about 1 per second.
Even though I checked out another generator I thought was close to mine to see if the posts were marked and I had it wired correctly I still have doubts. On my gen. looking at it from the right side of the plane the Arm or Gen wire is the closer wire with the field wire the furthest. If anyone knows this to be true/false off the top of their head that would be nice to know but switching posts for a different gen. of the same type would be an odd thing for Delco-remy.
Cannot think of anything running electrical that would pulse like that?

[Jeff J]

I fought a pulsing ammeter for a few years on a Cessna. By the time it was over I had rebuilt the bus (it was corroded pretty bad), cleaned all of the grounds, replaced the alternator and regulator, and rewired the charging system. Replacing the master switch is what fixed it.

[MrBill]

I fought a pulsing ammeter for a few years on a Cessna. By the time it was over I had rebuilt the bus (it was corroded pretty bad), cleaned all of the grounds, replaced the alternator and regulator, and rewired the charging system. Replacing the master switch is what fixed it.

Always figures the problem was one of the last on the list huh? Was the problem just the pulsing or was it also discharging?
I was not expecting that kind of reply because I kinda wished I had not of brought that pulsing up after I posted. I was not thinking about my rotating beacon, duh? Most very likely what it is.
I know exhaust flanges do not generate or pulsate and I did not intend to go on about this here...only came back to say that my exhaust worries are most likely over. This should also be taken care of soon. Sooner if I did not have to travel to get to the plane.
Thanks for the input.

[Jeff J]

I think charging but as fast and far as the needle was moving it’s hard to say for sure if it made it to the negative side or not. At low rpm it would sometimes build slow to about 30 amps then snap back to zero and start back up but mostly the needle was a blur. The higher the rpm, the faster the needle moved and the smaller the range it covered. Increasing the electrical load would settle it down a little. The voltmeter was twitching as well but it stayed around 29-31 volts (28 volt airplane).