Scott & Tanya Card RV9A build log (N4822C)

I got the new replacement P-mag from Brad that he shipped overnight from Oshkosh. Most all vendors are at the air show for the rest of the month. Brad was smart enough to have taken some “emergency” units with him that he could get out to customers that had enough of an emergency to call him on his cell phone. That would be me. I am pleased with his best effort to keep me happy at least with customer service.
So, I pulled my old (14 hours total time) P-mag #633 and installed this new unit. The weather is still a mess so no test flight was possible. Maybe there will be a small break in the clouds for a quick test tomorrow evening. I also pulled and replaced the oil temperature sensor. Hopefully that will improve it as well.

 

  

 

The other P-mag failed a run-up today. This is a clip of the email I sent Brad at emagair:

I re-installed the repaired #634 unit and flew with it for one hour
yesterday. Both ignitions performed fine throughout the flight. I
checked that both units were firing after the flight before I put the
airplane away. Max temp on the indicator sticker that you put on the
repaired unit currently reads 190deg. F. Today I prepared for another
flight. This would be the first flight of the day. I started up and
was at the run-up pad within about 3min. The other mag (serial# 633)
was not firing at all. After identifying the ignition failure, I
switched off power to that ignition, then grounded the P-lead (full
ignition unit shutdown). Then turned it back on, un-grounding the
P-lead and applying power. It was still not producing ignition.
Back at the hangar, I pulled the cowl and checked all wiring and
switching. It was all fine. I checked the timing and it was correct
with normal LED indications. I pulled the aircraft back out and
started it again (no cowl). The failed ignition (633) ran fine. I
shut down and put the cowl back on and prepared to taxi back out to
the runway. Before I taxied out, I did a quick mag check and it
(#633) was failed again. Obviously, P-mag serial# 633 and I will not
be flying together.

Update:
I talked to Brad on his cell at Oshkosh and asked him to ship me another unit. It was a very short conversation (crappy cell connection). I am certainly considering my options at this point. I don’t know exactly what I’m going to end up doing. I am going to install the replacement ignition that he sends, but you won’t find me going too far from the airport for a while. That large fly-off area isn’t worth much when the confidence isn’t there. There may yet be a good old Slick magneto in my future. I don’t know. In my email to Brad, I also invited them to come inspect my installation if they were interested or had any doubts about the source of my “intermittent” problems. It is only about an hour flight from their shop in Dallas to my hangar at GTU. Obviously I’ve been through my installation and wiring with a fine tooth comb and instrumented every circuit having to do with these mags, even to the extent of having a multimeter on each ground and power circuit during runs to see if there were any changes with the engine running.

I got a test flight in this evening. The thunderstorms broke (actually I was watching them only 20mi. away on the XM radar). There was an overcast ceiling at 10k’ so I took off at about 6:15pm. The new P-mag works. I didn’t venture very far from the airport. I did a little more power off stall testing. I also spent about 45min. flying a gps course from the Garmin 430 coupled through the efis. The autopilot didn’t disconnect once. Also, the wind indications looked correct the whole time.
Before my flight, I spent some quality time fabricating the mounts for the oxygen bottle. That is still in progress. One thing that I’m finding is that I still really need to commit to setting up the hangar to make part fabrication easier. I still have bench-top power tools sitting on the floor, no band-saw, etc. That makes some little tasks a real pain.
When I got back home, the new temp sensors from GRT had arrived. Maybe I’ll get those installed tomorrow.

I got my P-mag back and installed. It is apparently software v.26 and they stuck a temperature sensor sticker on the outside of the case. I first cleared the timing set point via the blow tube, power cycled it, and set the timing manually. It is installed and I did a quick run-up. It seems to run fine. The weather is still really ugly, so no flying. I put the cowl back on just in case there is an opportunity to go fly soon.
I moved on to other stuff. My canopy side latch was way too tight. Tip for those still building: Don’t make the side latch that tight. There is no need for it to “snap” over the hump in the catch. The result is that it just doesn’t feel right when latching it, and that the canopy does some serious rubbing on the roll bar because it is too tight. This had been bugging me each flight, so I pulled the latches off of the canopy and slotted the holes a bit. All better.
I also got the hold down brackets for my oxygen bottle today, so next time I can’t fly, I can start mounting that in the baggage compartment.

I received my order for in-flight oxygen equipment from Mountain High. I bought their pulse-demand electronic metering system and their AL-647 (22 cu.ft.) bottle. This should give two people a duration of about 15hrs. I also ordered the equipment (TR-95b, TR-CIC-540) to fill the bottle on my own from my own “bulk” storage. So, locals will be able to come fill ‘er up at my place for a small donation to the refill fund. I’m going to start with two source cylinders and see how that works out. If I need to, I’ll add a third source cylinder later. I like being self sufficient.
The bummer is that the mounting brackets for the oxygen cylinder are on backorder. So I can’t really work on mounting while I’m grounded right now.