Another update posted in the US. Not good news!
So, we need one of
Back-up battery dedicated to one EIS.
Back-up alternator.
Dual electrical buss systems (likely only found at the OEM level).
This is not what people expected. Probably the first is most feasible. A backup alternator has been done (I have one) as a US Field Approval. Good luck doing it under EASA…
Of course, for a “full electronic ignition” you do want full autonomy, but this is what a magneto gives you, which, ahem, is why we still use magnetos But people didn’t expect this from a D3000 replacement electronic ignition. I think people expected some sort of “power generator” in there, which would be easy to do. There is plenty of room for a small alternator, with a permanent magnet rotor. I guess this just shows the generally low calibre of people working in GA engineering.
The market must be many thousands. Around 2k TBs but many more Mooneys and others.
Are there many piston aircraft with true dual electrical bus systems? Even if so, I’m not sure I trusted the isolation against each other (or that the emergency circuit will really separate them).
Dual Alternators is generally a good thing – but having experienced a dual alternator failure in flight, I would not trust my engine on it (because from that experience I know that there are failure modes in dual alternator configuration where the failure of one alternator fries the other one or the circuit that sheds the load).
The only thing I would trust for a dual electric ignition would be a dual dedicated backup battery. And still: It’ one thing to fly in a plane where you know that the panel gets dark in 60 Minutes and you better get out of IMC by then – it’s another thing if you know that the engine gets quiet…
As an update to this thread.
Electroair have introduced a fully STC’d Electronic Ignition Kit for the Bendix single drive, dual magneto with a complete, Dual Electronic ignition.
They call it a EIS-62000DM and it weigh’s in at $6,995.00 and needs a backup battery.
Electroair EIS-62000DM scroll to the bottom
For those with the Lycoming 540s and Bendix SD dual mags this appears to be a rather swish option.
@Peter
There is a similar thread here to link to….
Dual E-mag installation guidance
Paying 7k for version beta 0.0.0.1… I will wait for somebody else to try this
Why the backup battery, when a) all batteries die eventually and b) they could have generated power from the drive shaft?
Any news on this?
Peter wrote:
Paying 7k for version beta 0.0.0.1… I will wait for somebody else to try this
Had hoped some of you gull-wing door guys n gals would have opted for this swish upgrade and provided ‘the community’ with Pireps
Well, I can think of several pilots who would at this point attack me for an attitude which “keeps technological progress in GA back in the Middle Ages”, while they post the exact opposite (i.e. my view) on their domestic forums
I have been in electronics since age 6 (1963) and “commercially” since 1978, and my opinion of GA electronics is as low as you can get. You will get the idea of my opinion here as I dismantle various examples of the junk we have to fly with
I would need to see the internals of this D3000 replacement before even thinking about risking it. Maybe it is wonderful?
The May 2023 US AOPA mag ran a review of the Electroair electronic ignition for the D3000 magazine.
The article starts with an overview of the D3000
Well, not quite. The only way the single steel shaft of the D3000 can fail to rotate is if the accessory gearbox is shredded, and then the two separate mags won’t be rotating either. Or your camshaft… The SPOF is really via a breakup of one half of the mag and debris from that affecting the other half. It can happen, but IIRC a more common failure has been for the whole mag to come out of the engine because its two securing brackets have broken off – probably because they were under- or over-tightened by some chimp. Checking them is possible as a preflight, at least on the TB20.
They also state a D3000 overhaul is $3000 which is about 2x too high. I use QAA in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
They could not quite test it though
The others said:
Mooney M20J:
Cessna TR182:
Unfortunately it is not a standalone backup – unlike the dual-mag EI product (but that one is uncertified). It needs external power, with two sources. There are two options for the 2nd one:
Personally I find the extra power claims incredible, unless the original D3000 mag was shagged or mis-timed.
Electroair confirm that you can expect +20F on the CHT.