1998 Encore recurring issue: landing gear won't retract

[ilovecornfields]

17 minutes ago, chriscalandro said:

Anybody that can read an electrical drawing and has certification to fix it should be able to sort it out without much issue. 
 

it seems crazy to me to fly a distance to a MSC with something disabled. It’s electrical. Not anything the Mooney gods would have better experience with vs anyone familiar with basic electronics. Don’t fly it if you don’t have to. You’re assuming the issue doesn’t effect extension. Find someplace local or have someone come to you. 
 

everything needed is in the manuals. Do what you want but you don’t need a Mooney service center to fix this. I suspect this time it will be a limit or squat switch.Trouble shooting should be pretty straight forward while on jacks. 

True, just like taking out an appendix isn’t anything that you should have trouble with if you have a basic knowledge of anatomy. Yet some people prefer to have the “experts” do it. Seems like a waste of time and money to me! After all, I know my appendix way better than some random stranger with a scalpel.

I’ve never called an MSC for advice and wished I hadn’t but if you want to go mess around with the gear on your own, that seems like a perfectly reasonable and legal alternative to me. After all, gear up landings rarely result in injury so what’s the worst that could happen?

[chriscalandro]

Several non MSC mechanics have worked on my airplane. According to your logic it’s a miracle it hasn’t fallen out of the sky. 
 

but then again, your logic is what compared troubleshooting a limit switch to invasive surgery....

 

what I’m suggesting is that flying a disabled airplane a distance to a specific place to troubleshoot basic electronics is silly. You can agree or not agree, it doesn’t matter to me, I’m just trying to help the decision making process. 

Edited October 28, 2019 by chriscalandro

[larryb]

The Encore has an airspeed safety switch, not a squat switch. I have also had problems with that switch, but since the OP has pressed the override button in the air and the gear still did not retract it is not likely the airspeed safety switch. The OP's problem at the moment is that it is not failing on jacks, only while in the air. That makes troubleshooting a bit more difficult.

[ilovecornfields]

33 minutes ago, chriscalandro said:

Several non MSC mechanics have worked on my airplane. According to your logic it’s a miracle it hasn’t fallen out of the sky. 
 

but then again, your logic is what compared troubleshooting a limit switch to invasive surgery....

 

what I’m suggesting is that flying a disabled airplane a distance to a specific place to troubleshoot basic electronics is silly. You can agree or not agree, it doesn’t matter to me, I’m just trying to help the decision making process. 

Perhaps you missed the original post which said “My A&P is out of ideas” which suggested he’d already exhausted the local options. I’m sorry if my logic seemed illogical to you. Both are examples where I would defer the procedure to an expert despite the possibility that I may be able to do it myself because doing it incorrectly could result in personal harm.

Personally, I would call Top Gun and, if they agreed, fly over there with the gear down. I didn’t mean to imply that a non-MSC A&P cannot safely work on Mooneys, but I personally prefer to have my problems diagnosed and treated by those who have particular expertise in that area.

I respect your right to have a different opinion. 

 

[chriscalandro]

It’s cool, I didn’t realize there was only one a&p in Southern California. 

[Yetti]

We used to build a test set out of a car tail light bulb.   Alligator test lead cut in half and then solder each half to + and negative.   The beauty of this rig is you can see if things are working without someone watching the VOM needle.    Now that you have your test rig start at the gear solenoid and clamp on to the up contact that goes to the motor/actuator.    Keep moving up stream in the wires till you find the light bulb lights. Now you know what you have to fix.

 

On the ground on jacks

Edited October 28, 2019 by Yetti

[chriscalandro]

7 minutes ago, Yetti said:

We used to build a test set out of a car tail light bulb.   Alligator test lead cut in half and then solder each half to + and negative.   The beauty of this rig is you can see if things are working without someone watching the VOM needle.    Now that you have your test rig start at the gear solenoid and clamp on to the up contact that goes to the motor/actuator.    Keep moving up stream in the wires till you find the light bulb lights. Now you know what you have to fix.

 

On the ground on jacks

Are you a Mooney service center mechanic?

[j3gq]

On 10/28/2019 at 6:12 PM, ilovecornfields said:

I’ve never called an MSC for advice and wished I hadn’t but if you want to go mess around with the gear on your own, that seems like a perfectly reasonable and legal alternative to me. After all, gear up landings rarely result in injury so what’s the worst that could happen?

If it's a bad day, this is what might happen: your speed a little too high because you were preoccupied when the gear squeaked, you skid and slip off the rwy, hit a pole, a little fire on the side where the door is, some frogs killed, your wife insists you will never go flying again. The prop is not covered by your insurance because it is't from 2007 and the next day you call your lawyer and  explain that the Radioshack expert you hired to fix this "worldly electric problem" was perfectly qualified to repair any electric systems in the whole wide world. And your lawyer says "if you insist and you pay me ... I'll sue him for working on your plane".

My excuses for this little bit of entertaining malicious gossip.

[Yetti]

On 10/28/2019 at 2:26 PM, chriscalandro said:

Are you a Mooney service center mechanic?

No.  I am providing you basic troubleshooting techniques for electrical circuits.  Same methodology would work for say trailer lights.

[chriscalandro]

39 minutes ago, Yetti said:

No.  I am providing you basic troubleshooting techniques for electrical circuits.  Same methodology would work for say trailer lights.

But surely Mooney electronics are highly specialized as suggested in previous posts above! Such skills can only truly be mastered from many years of study under the Mooney monks at the Kirville Mooney temple. 
 

Else your airplane will undoubtably burst into flames. 

Edited November 1, 2019 by chriscalandro

[EricJ]

17 minutes ago, chriscalandro said:

Else your airplane will undoubtably burst into flames. 

I thought that was from touch-and-goes? 

[Yetti]

1 hour ago, chriscalandro said:

But surely Mooney electronics are highly specialized as suggested in previous posts above! Such skills can only truly be mastered from many years of study under the Mooney monks at the Kirville Mooney temple. 
 

Else your airplane will undoubtably burst into flames. 

gineers can't admit that electrons flow from negative to positive.  their little heads will burst into flames if they did.

[EricJ]

1 hour ago, Yetti said:

gineers can't admit that electrons flow from negative to positive.  their little heads will burst into flames if they did.

Everybody knows which way electrons flow, but some can't grasp that electricity is charge and not just electrons, and that the math only works if it's consistent with every other physical system in the universe.   e.g., Heat flows from hot to cold, fluids flow from high pressure to low pressure, rocks roll down hill from high potential energy to low, but the FAA want us to believe that current flows from low potential to high.

The FAA and the Navy don't get it, basically.    The rest of the world seems to, though. 

[larryb]

The problem with many mechanics is they lack a robust electronics background and are not great at troubleshooting to the component level. Add in poor documentation. Yes, we have schematics. But they are hard to follow and lack a “theory of operation” paragraph. I spent a few hours redrawing the flap circuit until I could 100% understand it. The result is throwing parts at the problem until fixed.