Over current!

Indiana_Pilot

Indiana_Pilot

Line Up and Wait
Joined
Nov 2, 2013
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802
Location
Connersville, IN
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Flying "B"
Flew to breakfast Sunday morning. I was on an IFR flight plan and had a nice tailwind! making 180+ groundspeed in my Cherokee 180. I just cancelled IFR and was on my decent back home.. noticed my panel GPS all of a sudden said "OVERCURRENT" and then heard a wonderful squeal in my headset. My ammeter was pegged over 70 amps. I quickly started shutting off my avionics, lights, ect. trying to quickly determine what the issue was and not have some sort of electrical fire!

It of course stopped pegging the meter when I turned off the master. After the master was off my alternator breaker popped... turned master back on.. all was normal and reset the breaker and it was fine for the rest of the trip.

So what the heck? My first thought was a short of some kind or the regulator since it was ok after I killed the power.

I just replaced the alternator last year after it failed on me in flight (stopped producing power)

Could it just be a fluke occurrence with the regulator causing the over-current? Anyone else??

Maybe my plane didn't like the cold lol
 
Guessing the regulator but I'd definitely have your electrical system checked. Don't want an electrical fire up there.
 
Overcurrent? Really? From a GPS?

It’s not that I don’t believe your story....it’s just that I don’t believe your story as you’ve related it here. I’ve never heard of a GPS that has a shunt to sense current. Voltage sensing is common.

With that said the Cherokee should have an overvoltage relay separate from the voltage regulator or as part of the voltage regulator if it’s been replaced by a zeftronics or similar unit. Was the voltage regulator replaced when the alternator was replaced?
 
Clark1961 said:
Overcurrent? Really? From a GPS?

It’s not that I don’t believe your story....it’s just that I don’t believe your story as you’ve related it here. I’ve never heard of a GPS that has a shunt to sense current. Voltage sensing is common.

With that said the Cherokee should have an overvoltage relay separate from the voltage regulator or as part of the voltage regulator if it’s been replaced by a zeftronics or similar unit. Was the voltage regulator replaced when the alternator was replaced?
Click to expand...

Just the alternator.. and yep my Garmin 300XL actually displayed "OVERCURRENT" on the display during the event.
 
Indiana_Pilot said:
Just the alternator..
Click to expand...

That was my problem until I changed the regulator too. Now I have the problem of the amp/voltage gauge displaying .5 less that what the regulator is putting out. As measured from the regulator with a multi-meter, I get 13.9v. The EI gauge reads 13.4v. I don't know how to fix that.
 
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