New AI Needed

[MikeOH]

Over the last month, or so, my AI has been taking up to 5 minutes to stabilize.  It doesn't shake, just doesn't level up for a long time.

I do NOT, repeat, DO NOT, want an electronic AI.

Just looking for recommendations on where to buy, new or OH.  Not sure I want to wait for mine to be OH'ed.

And, what is typical, labor wise, to get it installed.

 

Thanks!

[Skates97]

I had mine overhauled at Aircraft Quality Instruments in Corona a couple of years ago. They were reasonable and it was a quick turn around. 

http://www.aircraftprecisioninstruments.com/

I have the overhauled one from when I put in the G5's. It has about 211 hours on it. It may be sold, I'll know next week. If it's not and you're interested I can let you know when I find out. I'm just down the road from you. 

[carusoam]

What model instrument do you have Mike?

Bearings have a tendency to wear, and get dirty, slowing things down a bit...

Getting it cleaned and OH’d sooner rather than later will avoid something crashing inside... crashes break a bunch of things... adding to the cost...

You might find something the same as what you have, that works better, on the shelf of the reaper...  @Alan Fox

The cool thing about digital AIs.... so many are getting installed, leaving a few of what you are looking for in really good condition as take outs...

Best regards,

-a-

[MikeOH]

9 minutes ago, Skates97 said:

I had mine overhauled at Aircraft Quality Instruments in Corona a couple of years ago. They were reasonable and it was a quick turn around. 

http://www.aircraftprecisioninstruments.com/

I have the overhauled one from when I put in the G5's. It has about 211 hours on it. It may be sold, I'll know next week. If it's not and you're interested I can let you know when I find out. I'm just down the road from you. 

Yes, please let me know.  Thanks!

[Ragsf15e]

56 minutes ago, MikeOH said:

Over the last month, or so, my AI has been taking up to 5 minutes to stabilize.  It doesn't shake, just doesn't level up for a long time.

I do NOT, repeat, DO NOT, want an electronic AI.

Just looking for recommendations on where to buy, new or OH.  Not sure I want to wait for mine to be OH'ed.

And, what is typical, labor wise, to get it installed.

 

Thanks!

Ahh just do it.  You’ll love an eADI!

[AerostarDriver]

If I can ever seem to liberate my airplane from east texas I have a serviceable AI that was literally just installed by Don Maxwell that I will be replacing as soon as it makes it back to Atlanta for a G5 upgrade. Should be within the next week or two.

Edited December 29, 2020 by AerostarDriver

[Skates97]

3 minutes ago, Ragsf15e said:

Ahh just do it.  You’ll love an eADI!

If you don't want an electronic AI because you like the simple look without all the extra stuff the RCA 2610-3 is great. I replaced my turn coordinator with it but it is approved as primary AI. It can come with a backup battery, slip/skid, and turn rate. 

8 minutes ago, MikeOH said:

Yes, please let me know.  Thanks!

Will do. 

[Ragsf15e]

An AV-30, G5, or GI275 (in order of $$) might be worth at least considering while you’ve got the primary out.  I know you don’t want it, but I honestly think an eADI is safer (much more mtbf, and better failure mode/annunciation).  You can just do one as a drop in for your ADI and wait on anything else for later. And, it would let you get rid of the vacuum system at your convenience.  

I know you don’t want it, so I’ll stop now.  

[Ragsf15e]

And just to show I mean it, I have an aerotek adi removed working from my G5 upgrade. PM me and I’ll shoot it your way.  It’ll probably work until you decide on something else.

[MikeOH]

19 minutes ago, Skates97 said:

If you don't want an electronic AI because you like the simple look without all the extra stuff the RCA 2610-3 is great. I replaced my turn coordinator with it but it is approved as primary AI. It can come with a backup battery, slip/skid, and turn rate. 

Nah, it's a career as an electrical engineer; I don't trust half the stuff out there...I've seen a lot of scary designs in my time!  I actually think a vacuum driven gyro is about the simplest and most reliable instrument in the panel.  It's the damn vacuum pump that's the weak link.

[MikeOH]

12 minutes ago, Ragsf15e said:

And just to show I mean it, I have an aerotek adi removed working from my G5 upgrade. PM me and I’ll shoot it your way.  It’ll probably work until you decide on something else.

PM sent; thanks!

[carusoam]

Waiting for the mechanical engineering response...   

-a-

[0TreeLemur]

One engineer response: the certified mechanical AI is rock solid.  Usually they provide warning before failure as OP noted.  Inattentive pilots get burned.  Having an electronic backup is a warm blanket in case that pesky vacuum pump goes T.U.

[Immelman]

About the only good thing (These days) about a vacuum AI is that the R&R is pretty easy and should not be time consuming.

If you do keep it, it might be wise to consider replacing the vacuum system's filters as well, if they weren't done recently. Those were more effort to change because of the other junk nearby back there. Also have a good look at your hoses... one vacuum line to my gauge was turning itself into rubber swiss cheese a number of years ago.... who knows, maybe that would solve your problem?

Edited December 29, 2020 by Immelman

[EricJ]

2 hours ago, MikeOH said:

Over the last month, or so, my AI has been taking up to 5 minutes to stabilize.  It doesn't shake, just doesn't level up for a long time.

I do NOT, repeat, DO NOT, want an electronic AI.

Just looking for recommendations on where to buy, new or OH.  Not sure I want to wait for mine to be OH'ed.

And, what is typical, labor wise, to get it installed.

 

Thanks!

The type of AI and whether it has any outputs matters.   e.g., mine is an auto-pilot driving AI that has both roll and pitch outputs, so to get it overhauled when it rather suddenly died was about $1500 at the local instrument shop.   If it only has roll output it is cheaper, if it has no autopilot outputs, it's cheaper still.

Sadly, my autopilot has not worked since, even after reinstalling the overhauled AI.   After a lot of debugging, I still wasn't sure whether the A/P had a problem or the AI wasn't driving it correctly.   One consequence of covid has been that a lot of used stuff like this on places like ebay dropped a LOT in prices, so I picked up a fully functional second AI with the same specs and p/n for $200, so I could put it in and do an A/B test between the two AIs and see whether it made any difference.   It did not make any difference, so I think my a/p is toast.

I said all that to say that I found a fully functional AI replacement on ebay for $200 after spending $1500 to have mine overhauled.   And that's for a pitch-and-roll autopilot output unit.  For $200.    I flew with the ebay unit in there for several months and it's a bit more stable than the freshly overhauled unit.

So, yeah, ebay, offerup, hangar clean-outs, wherever.   The non-a/p units seem to go pretty cheap on the used market, and it doesn't seem to me to be that difficult to sort out the likely bad ones from the likely decent ones.

And it takes me less than an hour to swap them out in my airplane, so it shouldn't be too expensive.

Edited December 29, 2020 by EricJ

[Seth]

There's a shop in TN that, forgetting the name but I'll go find out, that has a wall with all the major AP components in GA aircraft built in. Kind, Century, etc. Bring your airplane there, they'll pull the different units and plug them in. It takes them not that long to isolate what the issue is. It may be worth it to go that route to figure out what's wrong. Then again, with the new AP's on the market, it may be worth it just to pull the old system and install an new one. Do a price analysis after calling this shop in TN. I'll update this post soon once I do my research and name the shop.

Update: Pretty sure it's Carpenter Avionics near Nashville: https://www.carpenter-avionics.com/

They are located 10NM SE of KBNA at KMQY

And yes, I recognize this is thread drift. 

However they also overhaul avionics so the OP can call for a quote as well. In addition they have used avionics for sale which may include a unit that works in your system.

-Seth

Edited December 30, 2020 by Seth