Strobe Power Supply is Dead...Suggestions

[deltchief]

New member owner of 62 M20C. Power supply to wingtip strobes is dead.  Anyone have an extra laying around for sale or any options on a reasonable conversion to LED?  Thanks

[Raptor05121]

Find the part number on it and scour eBay. Plenty of airplane junkyards with hundreds of them for cheap

[ArtVandelay]

Define reasonable?

[Guest]

5 hours ago, deltchief said:

New member owner of 62 M20C. Power supply to wingtip strobes is dead.  Anyone have an extra laying around for sale or any options on a reasonable conversion to LED?  Thanks

There are generally 2 different systems, one with a power supply at the wing tip and tail, and one with a central power supply in the fuselage behind the cabin.  Have you switched leads or boxes to determine the trouble? It can be power supply, wires, or flash tube.  As noted parts are readily available.

Clarence

[MBDiagMan]

I would check input voltage first before replacing the box.  If there is voltage being supplied to the box and no output from the box, THEN, go to the trouble and expense.  If there is no voltage being supplied, go back to the switch and see if there is voltage there.

 

hope this helps.

[deltchief]

It's under the belly skin below the passenger seat. Yup it's dead had it checked out.

[tigers2007]

Mine was just sent out today directly to Whelen Aviation. It is intermittent; sometimes it'll blink like normal for about two min then it will stop. I can hear a very high pitched squeel when it locks up. I even tried switch the plugs to alternate instead of blinking together and that didn't fix anything.

Per the Whelen service manual, only the vintage strobe packs from the early 90's need to be "regenerated" if they sit for a while. You have to apply like 11V to it for 15 min to regen the guts. Mine is dated 2013 so that didn't apply. They all come with a 2YR warranty. If you have the rebuild service done within 5yrs of initial purchase then it gets another 12mos warranty.


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[deltchief]

Thanks tigers2007...that helps!

[jetdriven]

I've got a whelen 3-strobe power supply I'll part with. 

[tigers2007]

12 hours ago, deltchief said:

Thanks tigers2007...that helps!

I just got off of the phone with Whelen. During inspection they found nothing wrong with my 2013 vintage HDA-CF supply and ran it on a two hour test - $125 fee. After speaking with the actual technician, he suspects a voltage supply issue but it could even be bad strobe tubes. The wiring at the supply (located under the belly) appeared normal, was very clean and was without contaminates. My finger points at the toggle breaker-switch. I want to have all of them replaced at this point as they seemed to be tripping below their rated loads. The problem with mine is that there are intermittent failures. It'll work great for a few minutes then just stop. Then blink a few times then stop again and so on. They didn't do any sort of rebuild as they said it tested and functioned excellent so no additional warranty.

 

[carusoam]

Take a picture of the strobes?  Sometimes they show discoloration caused by age/use...? Is the glass tube clear or have a deposit on the inside surface?

PP idea/questions...

Best regards,

-a-

[mooniac15u]

6 hours ago, tigers2007 said:

I just got off of the phone with Whelen. During inspection they found nothing wrong with my 2013 vintage HDA-CF supply and ran it on a two hour test - $125 fee. After speaking with the actual technician, he suspects a voltage supply issue but it could even be bad strobe tubes. The wiring at the supply (located under the belly) appeared normal, was very clean and was without contaminates. My finger points at the toggle breaker-switch. I want to have all of them replaced at this point as they seemed to be tripping below their rated loads. The problem with mine is that there are intermittent failures. It'll work great for a few minutes then just stop. Then blink a few times then stop again and so on. They didn't do any sort of rebuild as they said it tested and functioned excellent so no additional warranty.

 

Some folks with vintage Mooneys have reported that the instrument panel can start to sag and physically push down on the switch.

[tigers2007]

I checked the vintage of the actual strobe tubes. One side is 2012, which matches the logbook, and the other side is 2005. Regardless, I went ahead and ordered two new A610 tubes from the Spruce. I examined the Klixon style 10A breaker-toggle switch. It is crap. Soft like the rest of them; no authoritative "snap" into place like others speak of. Old and junk. When I found this thread here, I almost fell out of my chair after seeing the $169/ea price (Peerless Electronics). This guy here on eBay has a ton of them for $35/ea! He has other AMP ratings too. 

Anyone know the different between the 7270-5-10 and the 7270-1-10 besides the toggle "end" design?

[carusoam]

Try the klixon website. It s very informative.  There are subtle differences with the various switches.  Some may be surface mounted to the panel, others are sub surface mounted so the switch body is hidden better.  The switch name is coded to capture all the important detail.

Best regards,

-a-

Edited February 22, 2017 by carusoam

[tigers2007]

1 hour ago, carusoam said:

Try the klixon website. It s very informative.  There are subtle differences with the various switches.  Some may be surface mounted to the panel, others are sub surface mounted so the switch body is hidden better.  The switch name is coded to capture all the important detail.

Best regards,

-a-

Thank you for the advice! I printed out the engineering drawings for the 7270-1 and 7270-5 series and the dimensions and performance characteristics are exactly the same. The only difference appears to be that the 7270-1 have the "globe" end and the 7270-5's have the "baton" end. That eBay guy has tons of new surplus genuine 7270-1's (5AMP and 10AMP) for almost 80% off of what everyone else wants for them.

[tigers2007]

I want to update this thread on my problem resolution. So I received the Whelen HDACF supply back from Whelen who thoroughly inspected it and found it to be working just fine. Upon bolting it back to the belly, I noticed the aluminum spacers were quite sticky - more than old oil, varnish, etc. I think the original installer used some sort of adhesive to hold the half-inch aluminum tubing spacers to the belly so they wouldn't naturally fall off when trying to install the strobe pack. It is my belief that this "stick" crap is shielding the strobe pack from a solid connection to ground. If you reference my photo above, you can partially see the ground eyelet crimp that is fastened with one of the AN bolts. I inspected the bolts to be sticky as well. I went into the cockpit and saw that there are some thin aluminum reinforcement plates on the top surface of the belly. The bottom of them was sticky.

All the sticky crap was cleaned off. I sprayed all of the ground contact areas down with aerosol Deoxit D5 contact cleaner. I then applied a thin light coating of Deoxit D100 "Power Booster" lubricant/enhancer to the contact surfaces. Guys this Deoxit stuff is amazing. They advertise how it "improves conductivity" etc. and I've witnessed this work for other applications using an ohmmeter.  I recommend cleaning up your antenna connectors and such with this stuff too. Regardless, I painstakingly installed the spacers (a real P.I.T.A.) and tightened everything up. I then cleaned all of the connectors with the D5 spray and then coated them with the D100.  All I can say now is that everything is working GREAT now. I even plugged the strobes back in to Alternate instead of flashing together - it is almost double the brightness per Whelen's spec sheet (42 vs 21 joules). I'm surprised the last owner didn't do it that way.

So Deltchief - check your connections! I'm surprised that it appears to have been something so trivial in my bird. Well I'm hoping that was the problem...