Bad alternator on Acclaim

[RobertoTohme]

Last week, I was on takeoff roll at KELP and right after liftoff noticed the master warning flashing, checked the annunciator panel and found that the alternator wasn't charging...  after resetting the main alt field to no avail, went to the stanby alternator and surprisingly it didn't pick a load at all.  Went around the pattern and landed uneventuflly; took the plane to the shop and they diagnosed a bad regulator.  No problem, replaced under warranty.  Then yesterday went out to test the plane before going x-country, and again the same problem popped up.   The end of the story is that the alternator is over volting and frying the regulator, and now my plane will be AOG for a while since Mooney is out of alternators for the moment, and since it's a warranty item I don't want to go and buy somewhere else...

I'll call the factory tomorrow to see what kind of quicker solution I get to this problem, as the information about the lack of alternators was given to me by the shop.

Anybody has had this problem happened on your plane?

[Piloto]

Must likely the rotor winding is shorted to ground. This happens when there is insufficient cooling to the alternator. Check the alternator cooling baffles so it does not happens with the new one.

José

 

[GeorgePerry]

Mooney should pull an alternator off a unsold production bird.  They are sitting there collecting dust anyway. 

[RobertoTohme]

Quote: Piloto

Must likely the rotor winding is shorted to ground. This happens when there is insufficient cooling to the alternator. Check the alternator cooling baffles so it does not happens with the new one.

José

 

[RobertoTohme]

Quote: GeorgePerry

Mooney should pull an alternator off a unsold production bird.  They are sitting there collecting dust anyway. 

[Mcstealth]

Quote: RobertoTohme

 George,

That's exactly what I'm going to ask them for.  As of this tuesday when I stopped by the factory they still had 8 unsold planes, all Acclaims, so I can't see why they couldn't do it...  Although this year they won't have a booth at OSH, I wish them well and hope they can get some of those sold during the show through their dealers.

 

[Piloto]

Alternator most stress is at night while taxing. The landing lights current draw combined with minimum air flow can cause overheating, specially during summer. Check the rear of the alternator to insure you have good cooloing outflow. I think you probably got a defective alternator anyway.

José

   

[RobertoTohme]

Quote: Mcstealth

 ROBERTO!!!!

You were in town and you didn't let me know!!!!!! Bad boy!!

David............

[RobertoTohme]

Quote: Piloto

Alternator most stress is at night while taxing. The landing lights current draw combined with minimum air flow can cause overheating, specially during summer. Check the rear of the alternator to insure you have good cooloing outflow. I think you probably got a defective alternator anyway.

José

   

[Piloto]

Quote: RobertoTohme

 Now that you mention it, it's been stupid hot in ELP the last few weeks and I always taxi with lights on even on daytime...

[RobertoTohme]

Well, thanks to Ronnie and Stephanie, I got my new alternator and regulator and I'm back in the air again. I wanted to praise them both for kicking TCM's butt to get moving and get me the parts much sooner than originally quoted. A big thank you for both of them!