Showing posts with label ignition module. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ignition module. Show all posts

Sunday, April 4, 2010

Solution to Sailplane Exhaust Extension Problem



My good friend Bill Taylor, who lives up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, built his Sailplane shown below before I built mine last year. Bill was the guy who sent me his exhaust extension design when I was building my Sailplane. Bill developed his extension design for his Ohlsson 60 based on formed sheet brass stock, which was solder together with hooks on the side for spring retention. The design worked perfectly for his Ohlsson 60 installation. So he naturally used the same design when he built his Sailplane powered with a McCoy 60. Due to some health complications and schedule activities, Bill had never had the opportunity to run his McCoy 60 until last week.



During Bill's test runs last week, his McCoy 60 generated so much more exhaust heat than the Ohlsson 60 that it melted the solder and the brass exhaust extension fell off the McCoy engine! After Bill redesigned his exhaust extension using mechanical fasteners, he sent me a letter advising me of this problem along with the sketch below detailing his design modifications. As Bill said, if the extension were to come off during the power climb, the cowl would most likely catch fire and burn up the Sailplane in flight! :O<
By the way, Bill said his McCoy did not overheat running inside the cowl! :O)
First of all, thank you Bill. You may have very well saved my Sailplane from a fiery end. I have used Bill's ideas with a little twist of my own. I selected .025" piano wire and bent up the two hooks shown below. As you can see, I put a "Z" bend on the ends that hook to the sides of the extension.
After unsoldering and removing my original hooks, I inserted the Z-bend into a hole in the side of the extension and used the spring jig shown below to position the hook while it was soldered to the extension.
This is a close up of one of the soldered hooks. Even if the solder softens due to the exhaust heat, the Z-bend has the hook locked in place under spring tension.
Next, as per Bill's suggestion, I drilled two holes through the extension's soldered lapped seam and inserted two 2-56 cap screws made up with lock washers and nuts on the inside of the extension.
This picture shows the two lock washers and nuts on the inside of the brass extension that were easily tightened down with a small ignition box-in wrench. If you look close, you can also see the .025" Z-bend wires pointing forward inside also.
If you look closely in the picture below, you can see the spring that holds the brass exhaust extension in place on the Mcoy's exhaust stack...............................Tandy Walker

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

159 Sailplane Today's Progress on the Final Assembly

Report #159 from Tandy Walker on the construction of his Comet Sailplane for the 2009 SAM Champs in Las Vegas


Comet Sailplane Project
The picture below shows the integrated ignition unit consisting of (1) a 750 mAH NiMH battery pack, (2) a ModelElectric coil, and (3) Marv Stern's Aero Tech IGN-SW ignition module installed on the back side of the Sailplane's firewall with two 2-56 cap screws. You can see the (+) ignition pack charge terminal and the (+) booster terminal wires with lugs soldered to their ends. In addition, the landing gear has also been installed.

With the two wire lugs attached to the terminals on the back side of the hatch cover, this picture shows the two external terminals and the hook up for charging the ignition pack and attaching external booster batteries (note that the landing gear wire is grounded to the engine).
The green wire in the picture below is the landing gear's ground wire to the engine for the booster and ignition pack charge grounds on the landing gear shown above. I was doing a continuity check with the multimeter that you see in the picture.

This picture shows the ignition unit's ground and point wires. Notice that the high tension lead is too short to be routed up through the cowl and to the spark plug.

So I started making a new high tension lead. Larry Davidson sells the clip shown below that snaps onto the coil post. Years ago Dick Huang gave me bunch of very small aluminum brads that I use to attach the high tension wire to the coil clip. About a 1/4" of the insulation on the high tension wire is removed and the stranded wire is bent through the hole in the coil clip. The aluminum brad is also pushed through the hole and then flared out, which attaches the high tension wire to the coil clip. Black heat shrink tubing is used insulate the connection as shown below.



James Lollar is sending me some 1K and 10K resistors to use inline with the little spark plug clip that I make, but they have not arrived yet. I will probably use a 10K resistor and locate it as close to the spark plug as practical. Well, that it for today.........................Tandy