On Aug 30, 2005, at 9:04 AM, Mark R Steitle wrote:
Last week we
were discussing various methods of dealing with fire dangers in our
aircraft. I decided to try out the Hamamatsu UV Tron flame sensor, and
promised to report my findings to the Fly Rotary group.
I located a
pre-assembled circuit board from Superdroid Robots, a company that supplies a
variety of parts for robots. They were the only place I could find that
carried the Hamamatsu C3704 flame detector and driver card. So, I
ordered both along with a relay board. (Attached is a picture of the
boards.) The UV Tron sensor is the clear glass “bulb” in the foreground.
The small board on the left is a voltage converter, allowing it to be connected
directly to 14v.
I hooked it
up to a 12v cordless drill battery and tested it using a propane fire
starter. It could easily “see” a flame from 6’ away (maybe more, but I
didn’t test it beyond 6’) and up to 90* right or left. I didn’t test
up/down, but the spec sheet indicates that it is about the same in the vertical
and horizontal planes. I could not get it to false trip by using a
fluorescent or a halogen light. There is about a .5 second delay before
it trips the relay. The tech rep at Superdroid Robots indicated that the
UV Tron sensor could be remotely mounted up to 3’ away from the board. I
plan on mounting it in a small box on the firewall with the leads running
though the firewall to the circuit boards inside the cabin, wired to a big red
flashing LED on the panel. Everything in the picture (including s&h)
ran $150. I look at it as cheap insurance. Hopefully, I will never
need it.
Mark
S.