Recent content by Michael Noel

The alternator with the new brushes is working noticeably better than before the failure. Before the failure, I had to be around 800 RPM before the alt warning light stuttered fully off. Now it stays off even when idling around 600 RPM. I looked at the vertical slip ring with a borescope and...

...and the local alternator shop charged about $4 total and required 10 minutes to rebuild them both. I'll need to examine the vertical slip ring to see if any damage was done.

Yes, you're right. The second brush was underneath the heavy duty ground cable and probably hadn't been changed in about 1k hours. The other had probably been changed at least once since alternator rebuild...

If you look at the alternator itself and at the parts manual, this alternator only has one brush assembly. The only alternative I see is for the bearings to serve as the rotor ground. The rotor current is very small compared to the stator current.

After further reading, I think I have a possible explanation for the variation in field resistance while rotating the alternator shaft. This alternator has only one brush and so probably only one slip ring. That would make the alternator bearings the path for return current from the rotor and...

The Chrysler alternator on my Archer is no longer working and I'm trying to understand the failure mode. I checked the brush and it still has over 1/4 inch of material. The brush has good force against the slip ring. After cleaning the slip ring with q tips and contact cleaner while rotating the...

I have the Aerocruze 100 in a PA28-180 and I'm very happy with it . It cost a total of about 5k self installed under the supervision of an IA. If you decide to go that route we can talk about it more.