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Three years ago I
designed my ES-P for a TSIO-550 with dual Lightspeed EI. It ran fine until
well lean of peak, when the engine would fart instead of fire. Klaus
changed a couple things including hardward and software and the problem went
away. Then I ran into what seemed to be occassional electrical
interference problems and the engine would skip a couple firings. It
happened in bright day VFR but picturing a cold and stormy night etc. etc. etc.
I reverted to one mag.
A mixed system brings up
the possibility of two completely different modes of failure but reduces the
likelyhood of one failure mode's creating a 3800 lb glider. Couple
months later on run-up the mag was smooth but EI test was very rough. I
pulled the cowling and found a connector to the controller had failed,
shutting off the EI spark to that cylinder. The failure had no doubt
occurred during the previous flight but the mag just kept on doing its job and
I did not notice the loss in power or change in temperatures.
It is possible that the
second EI would have continued to operate the engine fine but having two
different systems with different weak links just feels better.
Robert M.
Simon
ES-P
N301ES
In a message dated 1/4/2008 6:56:36 P.M. Central Standard Time,
colyncase@earthlink.net writes:
- engine damage. lacking variable timing, all you
have is mixture to protect your engine from harm. With fixed timing it's
clear what to do (e.g. if you take APS). With some unknown timing curve
in an electronic ignition box, I don't know what to do. I asked Klaus
what his timing curve was really and he just blew me off. Lacking
that information, I wasn't willing to have his box in my
airplane.
Colyn,
Electro Air's timing is published in the CAFE Reports and a display is
available.
Light Speed has an optional display of the timing. I have one installed and
often report the timing along with other power parameters. The more
experimentally minded can also modify the timing with the addition of a pair of
potentiometers.
Pmag/Emag does not display timing data nor provide information
about the timing.
Slick's LASAR is the best example of secret timing - so secret you cannot
find out why the magneto mode works better than the LASAR in certain
circumstances. LASAR was to be the best of both worlds, EI failures
revert to a magneto. Too bad their EI engineering was so bad.
Read Pauls L's indictment of magnetos. I still don't know why some
think mags are so infallible considering all the weak points (no pun
intended) inherent in them.
PRISM is what some of us from the old mainframe software business would
call vaporware.
Scott Krueger AKA
Grayhawk
Lancair N92EX IO320 SB 89/96
Aurora, IL (KARR)
Pilot not
TSO'd, Certificated score only > 70%.
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