Cherokee 180

Njonl

Njonl

Filing Flight Plan
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Jan 24, 2012
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Njonl
Looking at an older Cherokee 180 for sale. It is a 12 volt system with fuses.... Should this be a deal breaker? How difficult and expensive is it to have the system changed to circuit breakers? Overall, it is a very clean airplane. But, I'm being told that the fuses are not fun to deal with. Any input is welcomed! Thanks
 
Njonl said:
Looking at an older Cherokee 180 for sale. It is a 12 volt system with fuses.... Should this be a deal breaker? How difficult and expensive is it to have the system changed to circuit breakers? Overall, it is a very clean airplane. But, I'm being told that the fuses are not fun to deal with. Any input is welcomed! Thanks
Click to expand...

I wouldn't say thats a deal breaker. It wouldnt be cheap to convert them to breakers paying shop rate labor to do so. But if they don't give you peoblems, why bother?
 
Njonl said:
Looking at an older Cherokee 180 for sale. It is a 12 volt system with fuses.... Should this be a deal breaker? How difficult and expensive is it to have the system changed to circuit breakers? Overall, it is a very clean airplane. But, I'm being told that the fuses are not fun to deal with. Any input is welcomed! Thanks
Click to expand...

I probably have 500 hours or more in a Cherokee 180 with a 12
Volt system and fuses. I've never seen a fuse fail in it. I wouldn't be worried about it if its a clean airplane.
 
Throw 3 in the box and don't worry about it.
 
Njonl said:
Looking at an older Cherokee 180 for sale. It is a 12 volt system with fuses.... Should this be a deal breaker? How difficult and expensive is it to have the system changed to circuit breakers? Overall, it is a very clean airplane. But, I'm being told that the fuses are not fun to deal with. Any input is welcomed! Thanks
Click to expand...

Have had my 1966 Cherokee 180 for 12 years and 700+ hours. Don't remember a fuse ever failing.
 
Same here. My 180 has mostly fuses (a few breakers have been installed). I have never had a fuse fail.
After 5 years I swapped out all the fuses just for peace of mind, and have a box of spares in the glovebox.

It doesn't matter. If a breaker pops, I won't be resetting it in flight, not knowing if it's going to cause a fire.
 
Good to hear. Thank you!
 
Per my mechanic its close to a thousand dollar bill to convert them at most shops..on the Cherokee Jesse is refferring to I did have the Avionics bus CB'd when the G430 was put in..not a thing wrong with fuses other than the aesthetics.
 
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The only real purpose for reset capable circuit breakers is to disable or eliminate a specific circuit for troubleshooting or maintenance purposes. The last thing you want to do in flight is bypass a blown fuse without first determining what caused it to blow. They are there for a reason. In your typical single engine GA aircraft there is no valid use for such a device.

I might add one other note that isn't entirely relevant but if you ever have the chance to sit in the cockpit of a Boeing 787 you will see that there isn't one single circuit breaker in there.

So go figure
 
It's pretty damn difficult to determine in flight what could have caused a circuit breaker or fuse to blow. The beauty of them is that if there is indeed still an underlying issue the next one will blow too. Assuming they're sized correctly.

There are many situations to where reseting a circuit breaker or replacing a fuse in flight is a logical response to them tripping and will produce a positive safer result.
 
Never seen anything to convince me there's something wrong with fuses in general. Ran bikes with them for many, many years, indeed I still do. Like some one else said, you just carry a few spares. Wouldn't bother me in the slightest.
 
OTOH circuit breakers can fail to trip. Then there are many circuit breakers where the pilot has no way to trip them.

There are circuit breakers that are targeted by Airworthiness Directives that are not airplane make/model specific. Each circuit breaker installed in the aircraft must been confirmed to not be affected.


An example of a circuit breaker you cannot physically manipulate (trip):

http://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/elpages/pbcircuitbrkr3.php
 
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Hey,the nice thing about blowing a fuse is you can put the next higher amp rating fuse in there and maybe it will work. Or maybe cause a fire. :) I had a Cherokee 180 for a couple of years and never had a fuse blow. I did have the fuse blow on the COMM radio on the Cessna 150 on my first cross country. Got to use the light gun when I got back to SNA. Don
 
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