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Posted for "John Barrett" <2thman@olympus.net>:
Hi Scott,
I appreciated your posting and all the commentary it generated. Hope
springs eternal that my engine will be on its way soon.
I'm wondering if the film samples I sent you ever arrived. I can send more
if need be. Let me know. I exposed a large sheet film 5"X14" with a metal
object on top of it. The result was inadequate. Edges slightly blurry and
the unexposed area turns out white (slightly opaque) rather than clear.
Also, I'm having a hard time figuring out how we could send a computer
graphics file to someone who would then burn this on to the film. There may
be a way, but I don't know of it yet. Bottom line, I'm skeptical that sheet
film is the best medium to use here.
I've looked at some Lexan that may be perfect. I have a friend (Dee) who
does screen printing and she turned me on to this. The piece I saw was
about 1/32" thick and had a nice matt finish on one side. Dee is checking
to see if we can get it somewhat thicker and matt finished on both sides.
If thick enough it should be stiff enough to use as a face with nothing
between it and the lights. She will look for samples and do some trial runs
screen printing it with some lettering in reverse print and varying
translucent colors as well as clear. I'm pretty impressed with the way this
stuff looks. I'll wait and see what the results are and if it looks
promising will send you some to try out your LEDs with. I don't expect any
activity for a week or two, but will prod the process along as I have time.
I had Dee sit in my car and we turned the ignition on and off to see the
test pattern of the idiot lights on the panel. Then we used a flashlight to
try to discern the patterns and colors. It appears that my Subaru has a
couple of layers in the panel (as well as I can tell) and the lenses for the
icons are tinted as in the avionics box you saw. The layer most visible is
textured and appears black in color. Only when the lights are lit, do the
icons come through it. One trick is that the dash board provides a very
deep glare shield in this area - about 6 or 7 inches I think. I'll keep
looking at this until I get a better feel for how it's engineered.
Here's an idea for the landing gear indicators. You'll notice from the
template I sent you, I'm hoping to have three dots in a triangle arrangement
that will illuminate green, amber or flashing red depending on condition of
the particular wheel indicated. I happen to have a composite curing light
in my dental office that is battery operated and the light source is six
blue LEDs arranged in a little circle on the head of this instrument. The
head is about 1/2" diameter. I'm conceiving we could do the same with the
landing light indicators. There would be a progression of LEDs in the
circle (red,green,amber,red,green,amber) so that you would end up with two
each of the three color types. Three of these circles would provide
discreet information for each wheel with two identical LEDs per wheel
lighting up for each of the three possible conditions.
Regards,
John
----- Original Message -----
From: "Scott Turner" <atphiltec@mindspring.com>
To: "Lancair Mailing List" <lml@lancaironline.net>
Sent: Friday, May 10, 2002 7:34 PM
Subject: [LML] Engine For The IVP
About 3 1/2 years ago when I bought my IV P kit, it was clear that the
TSIO
550 would be the engine. About 2 years ago at Sun & Fun, I thought, after
visiting the Continental booth,that the LL100 issue was resolved with
FADEC.
I put a $1000 deposit on it and THOUGHT I would have had a FADEC engine by
now.
Not only do I not have a FADEC engine but, as I see it, there is no reason
to think it will be available in the foreseeable future. The fact is,
Continental Aerosance has had the IO550 FADEC on a IV P for at least 5
months and they have not yet been able to get it running properly.
Furthermore, until reading some of the posts on this site, I failed to
realize that FADEC cannot make up for lower octane in terms of engine max
horsepower output.
Combining the LL100 issue with hearing over this past 3 1/2 years the
reliability issues surrounding TSIO 550 on the IV P has me thinking it's
time to look for a better way to go.
Again, as a result of this web site, I was aware of the Engine Air engine.
Clearly, here again, major controversy exists. Believe it or not, as I
investigate this engine further, it becomes harder to sort out the facts
about the reliability of this engine.
What is important to me, is this engine "NOW" at least as reliable as the
TSIO 550?" It is absolutely cleat that the Engine Air product
specification-wise is far and away superior to the TSIO 550.
I should stress that for me reliability is TOP priority. It has been
suggested that the Walters is the way to go - it apparently has a proven
track record of very high reliability but, of course, not in a IV P. I am
a
600+ hour pilot and wanted a traveling airplane. 750 shaft horsepower and
a
3 1/2 hour in-the-air time is not what I had in mind.
If engine reliability is as high a priority to others, as it is to me, the
issues raised here ought to be of concern. For me, I think it boils down
to
"what is the reliability of the Continental TSIO 550 verses the Engine Air
NOW that, as it has been stated, the problems have been solved with it.
I do not begin to think that a definitive answer to my questions can be
formed, however, perhaps enough FACTUAL data can be brought out to come to
a
relatively clear opinion for a lot of us.
Scott Turner 90% 90%
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