Greetings,

 

Filled up with gas, and took off to buzz the beach.  At this point, I decided that the engine was trustworthy enough to venture out, even if it meant flying over the bay at 1400 ft.  After blowing past a Cherokee that departed ahead of me, I got to about the middle of the bay, about 10 miles away, and noticed that my volt meter was reading 11.5V.  Hmmm, that should be 14.5V.  I wonder how long the alternator has been out?  Immediate 180 turn, 60 degree bank, and back to the airport, passing the Cherokee going the opposite direction this time.  I turned off all the non-essential stuff, and called a straight-in precautionary landing to 36.  The voltage never went any lower, and everything kept running just fine as I taxied back to the hanger. 

 

Upon inspection, I found the 100A fuse to the alternator blown.  This doesn’t exactly give me a warm fuzzy feeling, especially since I can’t see anything wrong except for the blown fuse.  Replaced the fuse, but didn’t have a chance to test it since it was getting dark.  I’ll be really surprised if the alternator itself is bad, but I’ll find out when I run it again.  Fortunately, I already have the rev-2, smaller alternator that can be mounted now if necessary.

 

As a side note, the engine didn’t run all that well in descent, so I may have done more harm than good with my prop-off dual map calibration attempt.  FWIW, Tracy said I could scratch out that paragraph in the instructions about calibrating this with the prop off :-) 

 

On another note, Tracy also said that he's hoping to ship the first EM-2's around the end of Nov!  The year was not specified though :-)

 

Rusty (I need a new job- Hello GE Medical...)