SureFly Electronic Ignition

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Rich
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Re: SureFly Electronic Ignition

Post by Rich »

Steve wrote: Tue Oct 06, 2020 7:06 pm Rich:

What alternator are you running? Several years ago, my original alternator started to act up (occasionally failing to come on line - I think it was the brushes) and I changed it out for a PlanePower unit. Lighter, and it charges at idle. Don't know about the electrical "spikiness" of either variety though.

Steve
I've got the original alternator. Original brushes, also. But aside from needing the engine to be above 800 RPM to provide charging, I've observed no problems. You're correct, this could be a piece of the problem.
2002 DA40-180: MT, PowerFlow, 530W/430W, KAP140, ext. baggage, 1090 ES out, 2646 MTOW, 40gal., Surefly, Flightstream 210, Orion 600 LED, XeVision, Aspen E5
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Rich
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Re: SureFly Electronic Ignition

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To condition the voltage, Surefly supplied these two components. The top one steps the voltage down to about 16 volts and the lower is a 51000 uF capacitor. We removed the Slickstart altogether and mounted these in its place. I've said this before, but all seems well. At least I haven't been able to reproduce the low-MAP problem most recently encountered. It's worth noting that my mechanic just a couple of days ago instelled these same goodies in a C-210 that was also havong problems. The owner was out testing it the same time I was today and all was well with him, as well.
Surefly Voltage Conditioning.jpg
2002 DA40-180: MT, PowerFlow, 530W/430W, KAP140, ext. baggage, 1090 ES out, 2646 MTOW, 40gal., Surefly, Flightstream 210, Orion 600 LED, XeVision, Aspen E5
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Rich
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Re: SureFly Electronic Ignition

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Some more data: The guy who has the C-210 also has a Skyhawks XP (14-volt system). He and my mechanic earlier installed a SF in this plane and it has had no problems. The first flight in the 210 gave him behavior similar to earlier experiences I had.

It’s worth noting that neither plane exhibited detectable problems on the ground nor during takeoff and climb. The other owner put an oscilloscope on his 210 (on the ground, of course) and could see nothing other than the normal alternator ripple.

The C-210 is, of course 30+ years old with a metal airframe. So the composite nature of the DA40 doesn’t credibly contribute to the problem, nor would it likely be anything about the newness of the design in other ways.

It would seem that cleaning up the power feed does help, and perhaps is the remedy. But I feel like it’s not quite as simple as high-voltage spikes causing resets.
2002 DA40-180: MT, PowerFlow, 530W/430W, KAP140, ext. baggage, 1090 ES out, 2646 MTOW, 40gal., Surefly, Flightstream 210, Orion 600 LED, XeVision, Aspen E5
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MarkA
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Re: SureFly Electronic Ignition

Post by MarkA »

Rich,

Are you still running with the advanced timing feature enabled?

Thanks
2010 DA40 XLS, N123MZ, KHIO
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Rich
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Re: SureFly Electronic Ignition

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MarkA wrote: Mon Oct 12, 2020 4:53 am Rich,

Are you still running with the advanced timing feature enabled?

Thanks
Yes.
2002 DA40-180: MT, PowerFlow, 530W/430W, KAP140, ext. baggage, 1090 ES out, 2646 MTOW, 40gal., Surefly, Flightstream 210, Orion 600 LED, XeVision, Aspen E5
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Re: SureFly Electronic Ignition

Post by Rich »

Another flight yesterday and things are still fine. There are indications that operating parameters have also improved with this change, but I'll hold off until I get more data points.

My mechanic and I agree that when SF does have the better unit we want to replace the one I have with the new one, and expect it to be done under warranty. The reason is, while these power cleanup components do work well, they introduce multiple additional points of failure into the SF system.
2002 DA40-180: MT, PowerFlow, 530W/430W, KAP140, ext. baggage, 1090 ES out, 2646 MTOW, 40gal., Surefly, Flightstream 210, Orion 600 LED, XeVision, Aspen E5
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Re: SureFly Electronic Ignition

Post by Steve »

Rich:

I agree with your decision to replace your unit with a Rev. A, when that comes out. I don't think that they will be able to incorporate the present fix into their existing unit (the device isn't large enough to accommodate the extra stuff (capacitor, voltage regulator, and heat sink). It will be interesting to see what approach they use to make a permanent fix.

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Re: SureFly Electronic Ignition

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Steve wrote: Tue Oct 13, 2020 10:20 pm Rich:

I agree with your decision to replace your unit with a Rev. A, when that comes out. I don't think that they will be able to incorporate the present fix into their existing unit (the device isn't large enough to accommodate the extra stuff (capacitor, voltage regulator, and heat sink). It will be interesting to see what approach they use to make a permanent fix.

Steve
That's a fact. The capacitor, especially, is definitely confidence-inspiring. It could be used as a helpful tool in a fistfight :D I'm thinking they rework the innards so it could handle much higher voltage.

Once upon a time I got starting help for my DA40 from an external power cart and noticed after the start that the voltage I was getting while it was still hooked up was over 40 volts :shock: I'm astounded that no smoke leaked out from that escapade.
2002 DA40-180: MT, PowerFlow, 530W/430W, KAP140, ext. baggage, 1090 ES out, 2646 MTOW, 40gal., Surefly, Flightstream 210, Orion 600 LED, XeVision, Aspen E5
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Rich
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Re: SureFly Electronic Ignition

Post by Rich »

I've now started a log of parameters encountered during cruise. I've decided to do this because yesterday produced an interesting set thereof, which I do not recall ever encountering before. Everything is working fine, but the OAT at altitude was somewhat colder than standard (-7 degC at 9500 indicated) and in a high-pressure condition (alt. 30.32). I found that at 9500/8700 ft. indicated/density altitude I wound up with EGT at 1350 and CHT at 360 to produce 10.1 GPH/144 KTAS. Leaning produced slightly higher temps but reduced fuel flow and lower cruise speed. This temperature profile conflicts with what I have seen over the years. It also bears interesting comparison to what I've seen in recent weeks with warmer temperatures. I can not recall EGT being markedly influenced by OAT.

Data collection continues. I'm limited to doing this manually, since the VM1000 doesn't really store anything but max/mins.
2002 DA40-180: MT, PowerFlow, 530W/430W, KAP140, ext. baggage, 1090 ES out, 2646 MTOW, 40gal., Surefly, Flightstream 210, Orion 600 LED, XeVision, Aspen E5
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Rich
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Re: SureFly Electronic Ignition

Post by Rich »

A couple more flights by myself and my companion C210 sufferer and all still seems well. He departed a week ago with his plane on a trip to KLAS. I haven't heard anything back.

Meanwhile I put together something of a journal to capture the overall history and sent off to SF for their records. Here it is updated (dates are approximate):

1/3/20 SIM installed
1/4/20 Test flight did not go well. Intermittent cutouts at altitude. I also encountered a serious problem with #3 CHT. This was traced to routing of SCAT tubing to the battery compartment blocking off airflow to the area of the CHT sensor. Adjusting this routing solved the problem.
1/10/20 Adjustments to fuse holder. All seemed OK.
4/10/20 Garmin Flightstream 210 installed in the plane. The only addition made to the system. Might be a factor.
Still no issues until:
4/19/20 Encountered stumbles on a flight. Not repeatable.
4/24/20 Grounded p-lead shield. fixed loose anchor nut on p-lead post, which caused p-lead to be somewhat loose.
Some intermittent rough running encountered from time to time
5/24/20 Rerouted MAP feed to SF and put some padding between the fuse holder and its mount point.
Ran fine until:
8/4/20 Annual Inspection included new Tempest plugs put in the plane. Plane ran fine with the old Unisons attached to SF. Switching back and forth proves this. A couple of the Tempests were slightly under-gapped, which SF said can be a problem.
8/10/20 Received and installed new replacement Tempest plugs received from the manufacturer. I was also informed by SF regarding problems associated with voltage spikes in 28V planes. There is a temporary fix available and a redesign of the actual SIMs is awaiting approval.
Ran fine until:
9/24/20 Encountered a repeatable condition where reducing MAP in flight, as for descent (no change in RPM) cause SF to stumble badly. Anywhere between 17” and 11” would produce the problem and it would persist until MAP was outside that range. Outside this range all seemed normal.
10/11/20 Received and installed SF kit to address the 28V voltage problem.
As of 10/12, based on 2 flights the aforementioned MAP-induced or any other malfunction no longer appears. All seems normal.

At no time have I been successful in trying to induce a problem while on the ground (elev. 3250 ft.) with mag check runups at high, medium, lower power settings, various fuel flows, both before and after flying. Total time running with SF as of 10/23 about 45 hours. Curiously, problems during takeoff and climb have been almost non-existent. Typical climb is to 6,000-8,000 ft. before level-off.
2002 DA40-180: MT, PowerFlow, 530W/430W, KAP140, ext. baggage, 1090 ES out, 2646 MTOW, 40gal., Surefly, Flightstream 210, Orion 600 LED, XeVision, Aspen E5
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