- Joined
- Jul 17, 2019
- Messages
- 1,803
- Location
- Chicago suburbs
- Display Name
Display name:
The Little Arrow That Could
Have a trip I was going to fly out for tomorrow morning. I do my oil change and ground-run to check for leaks. When I start it up to taxi it over to fuel up, I realize my alternator isn't generating any juice. I troubleshoot it during taxi to try and see if I can fix it.
Status:
- Alternator belt tight, nothing obviously out of order from looking at that.
- Battery works like normal
- Note: Alternator belt replaced ~1 year ago
- If I'm not missing any log entries, the alternator was installed 33 years and well over a thousand tach hours ago. Digging through the logs I don't see any other mention of alternator OH/repair/installation.
Symptoms:
- Breakers: nothing blown, all good
- Ammeter = 0
- Add load to the system (landing light, pitot heat) = no change on the ammeter
- Radio #1: coming in a little muffled. Constant low volume crackling sound.... Radio #2: reception is fine. Constant low volume crackling sound.
- As soon as I turn off the battery switch but leave alternator running, my Garmin G5 detects a power input loss (so alternator not generating anything)
- Turning off the alternator switch while the engine is running eliminates the constant low volume crackling sound in both the radios.
Cycle the alternator switch (ON -> OFF.. wait... -> ON) a couple times to see if that helps. No dice. No impact on the ammeter at all, just impacts the low crackling sound in the radio.
I refueled at the self-serve pumps, turned the plane back on and on the taxi back to my hangar it's the same issue. I got it back as soon as I could so I wouldn't be burning too much battery power.
Question:
Any other troubleshooting steps I can reasonably do? Or is it off to an A&P? In either case my trip for tomorrow is almost certainly cancelled
.
The only positive about this is that it happened at my hangar and not on my flight to Arizona tomorrow so I'm stranded somewhere.
Status:
- Alternator belt tight, nothing obviously out of order from looking at that.
- Battery works like normal
- Note: Alternator belt replaced ~1 year ago
- If I'm not missing any log entries, the alternator was installed 33 years and well over a thousand tach hours ago. Digging through the logs I don't see any other mention of alternator OH/repair/installation.
Symptoms:
- Breakers: nothing blown, all good
- Ammeter = 0
- Add load to the system (landing light, pitot heat) = no change on the ammeter
- Radio #1: coming in a little muffled. Constant low volume crackling sound.... Radio #2: reception is fine. Constant low volume crackling sound.
- As soon as I turn off the battery switch but leave alternator running, my Garmin G5 detects a power input loss (so alternator not generating anything)
- Turning off the alternator switch while the engine is running eliminates the constant low volume crackling sound in both the radios.
Cycle the alternator switch (ON -> OFF.. wait... -> ON) a couple times to see if that helps. No dice. No impact on the ammeter at all, just impacts the low crackling sound in the radio.
I refueled at the self-serve pumps, turned the plane back on and on the taxi back to my hangar it's the same issue. I got it back as soon as I could so I wouldn't be burning too much battery power.
Question:
Any other troubleshooting steps I can reasonably do? Or is it off to an A&P? In either case my trip for tomorrow is almost certainly cancelled
The only positive about this is that it happened at my hangar and not on my flight to Arizona tomorrow so I'm stranded somewhere.