Sounds good Bob. Glad to hear that another EC2 ran more or less OK
out of the box.
The natural resonance of the drive train is around 800 - 1000 rpm so don't
be surprised if you can't get things perfectly smooth there. An idle of
1200 - 1500 is perfectly acceptable in most aircraft (including mine).
That's about 460 rpm at the prop which is less than most Lycs idle
at.
Tracy (finally out of Soob SVX controller hell)
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, January 07, 2006 8:44
PM
Subject: [FlyRotary] First Engine
Start
I'm happy to report that I actually started my engine
today. The only
terrifying event was due to a momentary brain fade on
my part. For
some reason I was thinking the throttle had to be all
the way in to be
off. Not sure why I got that into my head.
Maybe because I've kept it
in that position just so it was out of the way
while I worked on the
electrical for the last month. Any way, I
cranked it over, it sort of
fired a little but did't start. I hit the
cold start switch and BAM,
it took off at WOT. Sorry to say I don't
know what the RPM reading was
as I was flipping every switch I could get my
hands on to get it
stopped. Glad I had primed the oil pump with the
starter the other
day. So the first 10 seconds or so of my first
start was at WOT. Also
glad I had a prop on it.
I got that all
sorted out and restarted the engine. I ran it for 10-20
minutes and
noted some random parameters. Today's goal was to start the
engine,
not take data. I ran till the oil temp read 156 and water 182
before
I shut it down. Oil pressure at first start indicated 97 psi.
I
didn't check at shutdown.
The gear box seemed to rattle around 1000
rpm, but it idles pretty good
above 1200 or so. (I need to start
reading some of the EC2 and EM2
instructions.) I made no attempt to
set mixture or anything, and all of
the sensors are using the default
settings. The actual values may
change as I get calibration
data. I do have Tracy's latest self
adjusting mixture feature, and it
did seem like the engine smoothed out
as it ran.
tried to take
some video of the first start, but for some reason it
didn't work. The tape
moved but nothing was recorded. Later I recorded
running the engine
again. As soon as I relearn how to get it onto the
computer, I will
post a short clip on my web site.
*Jerry Hey's Cool Tube Exhaust
system.
The best I can tell, this exhaust is doing a great job. I
took one
quick reading from the wing tip on the exhaust side of the
plane. I
saw 97 db on mode C and about 3000 rpm (Radio Shack sound
meter). I
will get more complete data in days to come. There
were a half dozen
people standing around watching all this, and no one
mentioned anything
about the exhaust noise.
All I can say is I'm
thrilled to reach this milestone.
Bob W.
--
http://www.bob-white.com
N93BD - Rotary
Powered BD-4 (The engine is running)
Custom Cables for your rotary
installation -
http://www.roblinphoto.com/shop/
--
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