The wx looks OK for UK or N France.
There's a meetup in Meschede EDKM of the best (note that doesn't mean good) forum tomorrow at 2pm local time. Several people from this forum will be there, too. It's a nice rural area with a supposedly good restaurant.
hello, is anyone actually flying out VFR today?
If so, I'm happy to follow along...
Without knowing your country, Frank, it might not be too easy to arrange 
I did a little local; mainly a post-service checkout, which is necessary because I never take passengers on the first flight after any work.
Drilled a load of holes in little CUs... always good fun.
I had considered flying into EDKM - to judge by their website it is the kind of place I enjoy. Spent too much time replacing my coolant, though, and also hadn't got the proper German map at hand. So I decided for the fly-in at EBKH, and a good thing I didn't venture any further (from engine start to engine shut it is half an hour...) : on the return flight the red light came up to warn me the battery was no more being charged. More toil tomorrow...
Personally I won't do a day trip unless the place has Customs, otherwise it is just too much hassle.
Alternator brushes?
Alternator brushes?
I'am afraid I must be hard on you, here: this forum has managed adorably to avoid personal attacks and even squibbles, which have brought down so many. The next thing to avoid is blind speculation...
With all that might be said for or against them, Rotax 4-stroke engines are at least not plagued by 19th century concepts like brushes. There's a couple of magnets on the crank flywheel, and a whole bunch of coils picking power from them as they flash by: most are triggering the ignitions, two (or was it just one?) come out to feed the batttery, after a bit of regulation.
As the regulation bit is electronic, it seems the weakest point. I plan to go and investigate tomorrow, armed with multimeter and spare fuses and test leads and alligator clips and (if I don't forget, as usual) a couple of dummy load resistors. With any luck it's no worse than a blown fuse.
[[apologies if too far off-topic]]
One can make a "generator" which has no brushes, by having a rotating permanent magnet. But that is quite heavy.
I don't think there is any other physically possible method.
That is why alternators have slip rings, with brushes, to power the field windings on the rotor.
And the output will always be AC. There is no physically possible way to generate DC from a brushless rotating device.
I was due to go to Deauville last Saturday, but was abandoned as my cost sharing pilot pulled out, otherwise I'd have posted a message to see if anyone one else was in the area.
Weather permitting, I will be going to Deauville this Thursday, landing probably around 12:30 UTC. If anyone is based there or in the area, let me know. I dont expect any or many, given Europe is a big place, and its a weekday, but just in case for some random reason there is another EuroGa member there.....
I will try to make it.
Deauville is nice. A little run-down in places but nice.
