Piper Dakota broken split master switch

DesertNomad

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DesertNomad
I am based in Nevada but am traveling in my plane and am in western Kentucky tonight. Today when shutting down, the bottom left side of my master switch (the red split switch) broke. It is the battery side of the switch and a small piece at the bottom of it cracked. I now have a tiny cube of red plastic that fell off. There is no damage to the contact part of the switch that I can tell, only the plastic part.

There is still enough of a lip to turn it off and turning it on is no problem, so it is really a cosmetic issue only. My plan is to call Muncie Aviation in Muncie, IN on Monday to see if they have the part and fly up there to fix it.

If it breaks further, to the point where I can't turn it off, would pulling all the non-avionics breakers effectively cut power to everything that might drain the battery? I of course have a separate avionics master that is fine. I can't really see how I could turn off the battery side without a bit of the lip there - I have a plastic pen cap that I could insert but it doesn't look like there is anything to push on to turn it off like that.

Any other problems that might arise from this?
 
Last edited:
I am based in Nevada but am traveling in my plane and am in western Kentucky tonight. Today when shutting down, the bottom left side of my master switch (the red split switch) broke. It is the battery side of the switch and a small piece at the bottom of it cracked. I now have a tiny cube of red plastic that fell off. There is no damage to the contact part of the switch that I can tell, only the plastic part.

There is still enough of a lip to turn it off and turning it on is no problem, so it is really a cosmetic issue only. My plan is to call Muncie Aviation in Muncie, IN on Monday to see if they have the part and fly up there to fix it.

If it breaks further, to the point where I can't turn it off, would pulling all the non-avionics breakers effectively cut power to everything that might drain the battery? I of course have a separate avionics master that is fine. I can't really see how I could turn it off the battery side without a bit of the lip there - I have a plastic pen cap that I could insert but it doesn't look like there is anything to push on to turn it off like that.

Any other problems that might arise from this?

How hard is it to disconnect the battery?
 
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