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nuckolls.bob(at)aeroelect
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 Posted: Tue Jun 30, 2026 9:33 am Post subject: I think I'm back . . . |
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I owe you guys an apology for my absence . . . Our
household experienced an extra ordinary constellation
of family matters that kinda took all the fun
out of my fun-stuff. I won't burden you all with
the soap opera. Suffice it to say that major issues
are mitigated and only a few minor issues remain.
Dr. Dee is retired as of April 1. We've got a list
of fix-up projects around the house that's about
a mile long but they're all little things that
can be picked off one at a time.
I've not been completely 'disconnected' from technical
matters. There are a number of things to share in due
course.
I put the crowbar ovm project back on the
bench along with a sort-of next-generation
alternative. The original 'crow-bar' version
forced a breaker open served it's purpose
grandly for about 30 years! That technology
is still being manufactured on a constellation
of products for TC aircraft.
The problem I perceive now is that our
favorite miniature circuit breaker has become
more expensive than the ov module itself! The
rational for the crowbar architecture was
based on the fact that the circuit breaker
already existed in virtually every TC
aircraft . . . the ov module was a stand-alone
add-on.
I sincerely hope that the majority of our
builders are using fuse blocks . . . the legacy
circuit breaker panel is expensive, labor intensive,
and a poor use of panel space given that 99.9+
percent of all breakers installed in airplanes
go to the bone-yard never having been called upon
to keep a wire from catching fire.
So this begs the question, is there now a
practical way to corral an runaway alternator
by OPENING the field supply without deliberately
forcing a breaker open? I.e. can the breaker
be replaced with a fuse setting along side other
fusess in the block? The answer is yes.
We can discus that in detail in due course.
I've also acquired some sodium ion cells to
put through their paces on the battery bench.
You're probably all aware of Matt's move from
Oregon to Washington state which generated
an outage on the aeroelectric website and email
services. We've had some teething pains with
the move that had the 'Connection's business
activities in a tizzy. I think those issues
are now resolved.
In the mean time, bring me up to date. Is the
List still intact if somewhat diminished? Anyone
have issues I could ponder?
Thank you for your patience . . .
Bob . . .
////
(o o)
===========o00o=(_)=o00o=========
< Go ahead, make my day . . . >
< show me where I'm wrong. >
=================================
In the interest of creative evolution
for the-best-we-know-how-to-do based
on physics and repeatable experiment.
| | - The Matronics AeroElectric-List Email Forum - | | | Use the List Feature Navigator to browse the many List utilities available such as the Email Subscriptions page, Archive Search & Download, 7-Day Browse, Chat, FAQ, Photoshare, and much more:
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jhausch
Joined: 14 Jan 2008
Posts: 36
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| Posted: Tue Jun 30, 2026 9:58 am Post subject: I think I'm back . . . |
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Hi Bob
Great to see a message from you. Glad to hear the home honey-do list isn't anything major.
As this heat dome settles over the land and since you asked for thoughts on projects.... I've always wondered how light of a portable air-conditioning unit could be built if you ran it off its own, dedicated pad-mounted alternator.
The idea being that since this is an isolated system, could one make the operating voltage much higher and conductors/motors smaller....perhaps even make it Alternating Current?
I do wonder what rpm limitations might be, since we'd want it to work at idle speeds on the ground.
I also wonder if some sort of super-cap or other power storage device could be tapped for compressor starts.
No immediate project at hand, just curiosity.
-Jim
On Tue, Jun 30, 2026, 12:37 PM Robert L. Nuckolls, III <nuckolls.bob(at)aeroelectric.com (nuckolls.bob(at)aeroelectric.com)> wrote:
| Quote: | I owe you guys an apology for my absence . . . Our
household experienced an extra ordinary constellation
of family matters that kinda took all the fun
out of my fun-stuff. I won't burden you all with
the soap opera. Suffice it to say that major issues
are mitigated and only a few minor issues remain.
Dr. Dee is retired as of April 1. We've got a list
of fix-up projects around the house that's about
a mile long but they're all little things that
can be picked off one at a time.
I've not been completely 'disconnected' from technical
matters. There are a number of things to share in due
course.
I put the crowbar ovm project back on the
bench along with a sort-of next-generation
alternative. The original 'crow-bar' version
forced a breaker open served it's purpose
grandly for about 30 years! That technology
is still being manufactured on a constellation
of products for TC aircraft.
The problem I perceive now is that our
favorite miniature circuit breaker has become
more expensive than the ov module itself! The
rational for the crowbar architecture was
based on the fact that the circuit breaker
already existed in virtually every TC
aircraft . . . the ov module was a stand-alone
add-on.
I sincerely hope that the majority of our
builders are using fuse blocks . . . the legacy
circuit breaker panel is expensive, labor intensive,
and a poor use of panel space given that 99.9+
percent of all breakers installed in airplanes
go to the bone-yard never having been called upon
to keep a wire from catching fire.
So this begs the question, is there now a
practical way to corral an runaway alternator
by OPENING the field supply without deliberately
forcing a breaker open? I.e. can the breaker
be replaced with a fuse setting along side other
fusess in the block? The answer is yes.
We can discus that in detail in due course.
I've also acquired some sodium ion cells to
put through their paces on the battery bench.
You're probably all aware of Matt's move from
Oregon to Washington state which generated
an outage on the aeroelectric website and email
services. We've had some teething pains with
the move that had the 'Connection's business
activities in a tizzy. I think those issues
are now resolved.
In the mean time, bring me up to date. Is the
List still intact if somewhat diminished? Anyone
have issues I could ponder?
Thank you for your patience . . .
Bob . . .
////
(o o)
===========o00o=(_)=o00o=========
< Go ahead, make my day . . . >
< show me where I'm wrong. >
=================================
In the interest of creative evolution
for the-best-we-know-how-to-do based
on physics and repeatable experiment.
|
| | - The Matronics AeroElectric-List Email Forum - | | | Use the List Feature Navigator to browse the many List utilities available such as the Email Subscriptions page, Archive Search & Download, 7-Day Browse, Chat, FAQ, Photoshare, and much more:
http://www.matronics.com/Navigator?AeroElectric-List |
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Eric Page
Joined: 15 Feb 2017
Posts: 278
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| Posted: Tue Jun 30, 2026 3:59 pm Post subject: Re: I think I'm back . . . |
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Bob! It's great to see you posting here again. I'm sure I speak for many here when I say that I was worried about you. I'm very glad to see that you're back in the saddle.
Re the Matronics move, I was happy to learn that Matt and his bride are now my neighbors; they're two doors up the street from me! Due to my work schedule and general laziness, we have yet to meet face-to-face, but I look forward to fixing that. The neighbor between us tells me that they're wonderful people.
-----
It may interest you to look at a few threads that rolled by in your absence. I very much hope that I haven't stepped on any toes...
1. I took the liberty of working on your OVM-14 Mk III design while you were away. I drew a schematic and circuit board design, built some prototypes, tweaked some resistor values experimentally and posted the results here:
http://forums.matronics.com/viewtopic.php?p=515351&sid=2c07cec97e78d88c2157d6d0d419c306#513215
2. The topic of low voltage monitoring came up at some point and I recalled seeing one of your schematics that addressed the problem. I dug it up from your archive, turned it into a circuit board, tested it and posted that as well:
http://forums.matronics.com/viewtopic.php?t=16783530&sid=2c07cec97e78d88c2157d6d0d419c306
3. I adapted the OVM-14 Mk III design to suit my specific application (controlling the 3-phase stator feed from a Rotax 9-series engine). I added some features that I wanted and documented the results here:
http://forums.matronics.com/viewtopic.php?t=16783524&sid=2c07cec97e78d88c2157d6d0d419c306
-----
I have fully built prototypes for the OVM-14 Mk III and for my adaptation of it. I don't have any of the Low Voltage Monitor prototypes left, but I do have a bare circuit board available. If you'd like one or all of these for your own testing, just let me know; I'd be happy to provide them.
Cheers, and welcome back!
Eric
| | - The Matronics AeroElectric-List Email Forum - | | | Use the List Feature Navigator to browse the many List utilities available such as the Email Subscriptions page, Archive Search & Download, 7-Day Browse, Chat, FAQ, Photoshare, and much more:
http://www.matronics.com/Navigator?AeroElectric-List |
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cluros(at)gmail.com
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Jun 30, 2026 4:48 pm Post subject: I think I'm back . . . |
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Hello Bob, good to read you again. I've been busy with other priorities myself but always happy to keep up to date on the latest state of the art for amateur built electrical systems.
One topic of interest, last year on AOPA's Ask the A&Ps podcast I questioned the validity of needing to have avionics off for startup because of "voltage spikes" and all three experts were sincere in their insistence that these spikes could damage avionics despite thousands of recorded starts never showing a single "spike". They said the one second sample rate was too long an interval to record the spike. Has anyone recorded an engine startup with oscilloscope quality voltage data? Do we know what these starts in fact look like voltage wise?
Regards,
Sebastien
On Tue, Jun 30, 2026 at 10:37 AM Robert L. Nuckolls, III <nuckolls.bob(at)aeroelectric.com (nuckolls.bob(at)aeroelectric.com)> wrote:
| Quote: | I owe you guys an apology for my absence . . . Our
household experienced an extra ordinary constellation
of family matters that kinda took all the fun
out of my fun-stuff. I won't burden you all with
the soap opera. Suffice it to say that major issues
are mitigated and only a few minor issues remain.
Dr. Dee is retired as of April 1. We've got a list
of fix-up projects around the house that's about
a mile long but they're all little things that
can be picked off one at a time.
I've not been completely 'disconnected' from technical
matters. There are a number of things to share in due
course.
I put the crowbar ovm project back on the
bench along with a sort-of next-generation
alternative. The original 'crow-bar' version
forced a breaker open served it's purpose
grandly for about 30 years! That technology
is still being manufactured on a constellation
of products for TC aircraft.
The problem I perceive now is that our
favorite miniature circuit breaker has become
more expensive than the ov module itself! The
rational for the crowbar architecture was
based on the fact that the circuit breaker
already existed in virtually every TC
aircraft . . . the ov module was a stand-alone
add-on.
I sincerely hope that the majority of our
builders are using fuse blocks . . . the legacy
circuit breaker panel is expensive, labor intensive,
and a poor use of panel space given that 99.9+
percent of all breakers installed in airplanes
go to the bone-yard never having been called upon
to keep a wire from catching fire.
So this begs the question, is there now a
practical way to corral an runaway alternator
by OPENING the field supply without deliberately
forcing a breaker open? I.e. can the breaker
be replaced with a fuse setting along side other
fusess in the block? The answer is yes.
We can discus that in detail in due course.
I've also acquired some sodium ion cells to
put through their paces on the battery bench.
You're probably all aware of Matt's move from
Oregon to Washington state which generated
an outage on the aeroelectric website and email
services. We've had some teething pains with
the move that had the 'Connection's business
activities in a tizzy. I think those issues
are now resolved.
In the mean time, bring me up to date. Is the
List still intact if somewhat diminished? Anyone
have issues I could ponder?
Thank you for your patience . . .
Bob . . .
////
(o o)
===========o00o=(_)=o00o=========
< Go ahead, make my day . . . >
< show me where I'm wrong. >
=================================
In the interest of creative evolution
for the-best-we-know-how-to-do based
on physics and repeatable experiment.
|
| | - The Matronics AeroElectric-List Email Forum - | | | Use the List Feature Navigator to browse the many List utilities available such as the Email Subscriptions page, Archive Search & Download, 7-Day Browse, Chat, FAQ, Photoshare, and much more:
http://www.matronics.com/Navigator?AeroElectric-List |
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Eric Page
Joined: 15 Feb 2017
Posts: 278
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| Posted: Tue Jun 30, 2026 4:59 pm Post subject: Re: I think I'm back . . . |
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| cluros(at)gmail.com wrote: | | Has anyone recorded an engine startup with oscilloscope quality voltage data? Do we know what these starts in fact look like voltage wise? |
I haven't done so in an airplane, but I did sample an engine start in my car using a high-sample-rate data acquisition module. There were no spikes of any kind. Just the voltage dip you would expect during cranking, then a small rise when the alternator went to work. The car was a 4-cylinder 1998 Honda Accord.
| | - The Matronics AeroElectric-List Email Forum - | | | Use the List Feature Navigator to browse the many List utilities available such as the Email Subscriptions page, Archive Search & Download, 7-Day Browse, Chat, FAQ, Photoshare, and much more:
http://www.matronics.com/Navigator?AeroElectric-List |
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user9253
Joined: 28 Mar 2008
Posts: 1975
Location: Riley TWP Michigan
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| Posted: Tue Jun 30, 2026 6:52 pm Post subject: Re: I think I'm back . . . |
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Welcome back Bob. Like others, I suspected that health issues kept you away.
It is great to hear that you are alright.
As for an alternative to crowbar over voltage protection, you might want to talk
to Brian Decker from Georgetown Texas. He is very knowledgeable about
alternator construction and repair. If you are interested, I could try to get his
contact information.
| | - The Matronics AeroElectric-List Email Forum - | | | Use the List Feature Navigator to browse the many List utilities available such as the Email Subscriptions page, Archive Search & Download, 7-Day Browse, Chat, FAQ, Photoshare, and much more:
http://www.matronics.com/Navigator?AeroElectric-List |
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rv7a.n18pf(at)gmail.com
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Jul 01, 2026 7:35 am Post subject: I think I'm back . . . |
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Hi Bob. The list has been extremely quiet the last few months. I'm glad to hear you've gotten things under control on the home front. I hope to hear more on your shop projects.
Paul
On Tue, Jun 30, 2026, 13:37 Robert L. Nuckolls, III <nuckolls.bob(at)aeroelectric.com (nuckolls.bob(at)aeroelectric.com)> wrote:
| Quote: | I owe you guys an apology for my absence . . . Our
household experienced an extra ordinary constellation
of family matters that kinda took all the fun
out of my fun-stuff. I won't burden you all with
the soap opera. Suffice it to say that major issues
are mitigated and only a few minor issues remain.
Dr. Dee is retired as of April 1. We've got a list
of fix-up projects around the house that's about
a mile long but they're all little things that
can be picked off one at a time.
I've not been completely 'disconnected' from technical
matters. There are a number of things to share in due
course.
I put the crowbar ovm project back on the
bench along with a sort-of next-generation
alternative. The original 'crow-bar' version
forced a breaker open served it's purpose
grandly for about 30 years! That technology
is still being manufactured on a constellation
of products for TC aircraft.
The problem I perceive now is that our
favorite miniature circuit breaker has become
more expensive than the ov module itself! The
rational for the crowbar architecture was
based on the fact that the circuit breaker
already existed in virtually every TC
aircraft . . . the ov module was a stand-alone
add-on.
I sincerely hope that the majority of our
builders are using fuse blocks . . . the legacy
circuit breaker panel is expensive, labor intensive,
and a poor use of panel space given that 99.9+
percent of all breakers installed in airplanes
go to the bone-yard never having been called upon
to keep a wire from catching fire.
So this begs the question, is there now a
practical way to corral an runaway alternator
by OPENING the field supply without deliberately
forcing a breaker open? I.e. can the breaker
be replaced with a fuse setting along side other
fusess in the block? The answer is yes.
We can discus that in detail in due course.
I've also acquired some sodium ion cells to
put through their paces on the battery bench.
You're probably all aware of Matt's move from
Oregon to Washington state which generated
an outage on the aeroelectric website and email
services. We've had some teething pains with
the move that had the 'Connection's business
activities in a tizzy. I think those issues
are now resolved.
In the mean time, bring me up to date. Is the
List still intact if somewhat diminished? Anyone
have issues I could ponder?
Thank you for your patience . . .
Bob . . .
////
(o o)
===========o00o=(_)=o00o=========
< Go ahead, make my day . . . >
< show me where I'm wrong. >
=================================
In the interest of creative evolution
for the-best-we-know-how-to-do based
on physics and repeatable experiment.
|
| | - The Matronics AeroElectric-List Email Forum - | | | Use the List Feature Navigator to browse the many List utilities available such as the Email Subscriptions page, Archive Search & Download, 7-Day Browse, Chat, FAQ, Photoshare, and much more:
http://www.matronics.com/Navigator?AeroElectric-List |
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esco
Joined: 11 Jan 2023
Posts: 11
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| Posted: Wed Jul 01, 2026 9:08 am Post subject: Re: I think I'm back . . . |
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Bob: Welcome back, glad to hear you & Dr. Dee are ok!
Missed you mightily; I've have mined the list for your input on many topics.
Thank you for all you've shared-- you make us better and safer.
Ron
| | - The Matronics AeroElectric-List Email Forum - | | | Use the List Feature Navigator to browse the many List utilities available such as the Email Subscriptions page, Archive Search & Download, 7-Day Browse, Chat, FAQ, Photoshare, and much more:
http://www.matronics.com/Navigator?AeroElectric-List |
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