Surefly mag issue

[alaskan9974]

I have a Surefly on my 14 volt io520, it is turning off and on momentarily in flight at random. Anyone have this issue?

The Surefly only has 400 hours. I ran it on that mag, and it is acting as if I was turning the key switch off and back on, shutting the engine down for up to a second at a time. Didn’t do this for very long, didn’t want to blow my exhaust.

Frustrating as it seems to happen mainly in cruise. On ground run this issue doesn’t replicate. Mechanic checked wiring, pulled P lead to eliminate key switch, put in a new battery and new fine wire plugs, no change.

Would a vacuum leak internally for the timing advance cause multiple resets or whatever it is doing in flight? Can’t think of any other variables to cruise flight vs ground.

Have tried to call Surefly but my work schedule and being in Alaska makes it difficult to at the right time so hoping someone has experience with this. Emailed but they must be backed up.

Ordered a new bendix mag to swap in its place until its figured out

 

[Kevin Holbrook]

SureFly SIMs are sensitive to voltage spikes. Causes them to reboot. If the problem occurs frequently enough, you could run at cruise with alternator shut off for several minutes. This would cause the unit to only get steady power from the battery.

I had the same issue with one of mine early on. The voltage regulator was failing. Unit ran fine on battery ( my plane was experimental so I hard wired it to a separate battery for testing. replaced v/r and the problem went away and has stayed gone for almost 200 hours.

The early 12/24 v units did the in flight reset very frequently when used on 24 v systems with old v/rs. SureFly makes a voltage converter and conditioner for this application.

 

[alaskan9974]

Thanks for the reply. We will give that a try this weekend and see what happens.

 

[Tokirbymd]

I have a Surefly on my 14 volt io520, it is turning off and on momentarily in flight at random. Anyone have this issue?

The Surefly only has 400 hours. I ran it on that mag, and it is acting as if I was turning the key switch off and back on, shutting the engine down for up to a second at a time. Didn’t do this for very long, didn’t want to blow my exhaust.

Frustrating as it seems to happen mainly in cruise. On ground run this issue doesn’t replicate. Mechanic checked wiring, pulled P lead to eliminate key switch, put in a new battery and new fine wire plugs, no change.

Would a vacuum leak internally for the timing advance cause multiple resets or whatever it is doing in flight? Can’t think of any other variables to cruise flight vs ground.

Have tried to call Surefly but my work schedule and being in Alaska makes it difficult to at the right time so hoping someone has experience with this. Emailed but they must be backed up.

Ordered a new bendix mag to swap in its place until its figured out

Friend had problems with his surefly - due to cheap wiring harness. Make sure it is the spec’d harness. Mine ran great for 400h no issues.

 

[Florida Flyer]

Still thing about 1 one these before my 500hr check

 

[alaskan9974]

With the alternator off it made no difference, there is also now a pronounced whine through all radios when that mag is on, it is getting worse in occurrences.

Didn’t see any issues with any wiring or ground, and even swapped battery to the old one in case something was up with the new one. O/H bendix mag is going back in this weekend.

 

[Jeff767]

Where are you pulling power from on the Surefly? Is it wired in accordance with the instructions?

 

[alaskan9974]

Where are you pulling power from on the Surefly? Is it wired in accordance with the instructions?

Yes it was installed per instructions.

Ordered a new harness for my bendix 1200's and pulled the surefly yesterday. No email response from surefly and my phone won't connect to their number, rural cell coverage really sucks sometimes!

I had my IA verify the wiring and grounds were good, since he didn't find anything wrong with the install he pulled it.

 

[alaskan9974]

Finally got ahold of Surefly. No response to email inquiries on their site but they added another phone number.

They said they have had issues for some people calling with the VOIP number they have.

 

[mandm]

So they cannot check their emails?

 

[Rcmutz]

Sounds like another good idea/product going down the tubes because of poor company support. No reason an email request can’t get a response in a day or two. Even we are very busy will get back to you in xxx days. And COVID is no longer a valid excuse!

 

[asicer]

So you'd like to purchase and place into service a critical computer-controlled piece of electronics designed by company that doesn't understand e-mail or VOIP?

 

[Gary Ward]

Finally got ahold of Surefly. No response to email inquiries on their site but they added another phone number.

They said they have had issues for some people calling with the VOIP number they have.

So did they have a fix for you?

 

[Huckster79]

So you'd like to purchase and place into service a critical computer-controlled piece of electronics designed by company that doesn't understand e-mail or VOIP?

yea I am starting to think the same thing, I had toyed with the idea as the concept is great- but man I’m thinking the devil I know is likely a better bet than the devil I don’t at this point. My interest level has wained…

 

[Dan Thomas]

Attaching electronic stuff to a violently vibrating, hot piece of machinery and expecting it to survive never made sense to me. Aircraft engines shake a lot due to their few, big cylinders and low RPM. They get hot because they're aircooled. Even in cars the electronics are not mounted on the engine. The times they did that (like Ford's TFI distributor) they had lots of problems.

Magnetos are not electronic. They are little more than a powerful permanent magnet, a coil of two sizes of wire, a couple of gears, a switch, and a capacitor. Vibration and heat take a lot longer to destroy such stuff.

 

[Huckster79]

Attaching electronic stuff to a violently vibrating, hot piece of machinery and expecting it to survive never made sense to me. Aircraft engines shake a lot due to their few, big cylinders and low RPM. They get hot because they're aircooled. Even in cars the electronics are not mounted on the engine. The times they did that (like Ford's TFI distributor) they had lots of problems.

Magnetos are not electronic. They are little more than a powerful permanent magnet, a coil of two sizes of wire, a couple of gears, a switch, and a capacitor. Vibration and heat take a lot longer to destroy such stuff.

well there ya go talking all common sensical and all

 

[pfarber]

Attaching electronic stuff to a violently vibrating, hot piece of machinery and expecting it to survive never made sense to me. Aircraft engines shake a lot due to their few, big cylinders and low RPM. They get hot because they're aircooled. Even in cars the electronics are not mounted on the engine. The times they did that (like Ford's TFI distributor) they had lots of problems.

Magnetos are not electronic. They are little more than a powerful permanent magnet, a coil of two sizes of wire, a couple of gears, a switch, and a capacitor. Vibration and heat take a lot longer to destroy such stuff.

The 500 hour rebuild requirement on farm tractor mags means all that is just your opinion, doesn't it?

Electronics on engines happen all the time. Airplane engines are not the destroyer of electronics. Bad engineering on the other hand...

 

[Dan Thomas]

The 500 hour rebuild requirement on farm tractor mags means all that is just your opinion, doesn't it?

Electronics on engines happen all the time. Airplane engines are not the destroyer of electronics. Bad engineering on the other hand...

Once again you are oblivious. Right from the Slick (Champion) aircraft magneto maintenance and overhaul manual:


http://veteranflyg.se/wordpress/wp-...3/Slick-4300_6300-Overhaul-Manual-L-1363F.pdf

From the Bendix (Continental) S-1200 magneto manual:


http://aeroelectric.com/Mfgr_Data/Magnetos/Continental_Motors/X42001_S-1200_SM.pdf

So maybe you can tell me where I said that aircraft magnetos don't require 500-hour inspections? If you paid attention you would see that I am forever reminding owners that running stuff to failure is insane. Magnetos are especially important; if they both quit, the engine quits. Then there are vacuum pumps (to keep the gyros running in IMC, also important, from my perspective as a former IFR instructor), and alternators, without which the electrics soon die. Lights (night), radios (navigation and communication), and so on.

I also have experience in electronics maintenance, and heat and vibration are enemies of the stuff. As I said, it's the reason why automakers don't mount their ECUs on the engine or even in the engine compartment. They learned, the hard way, that electronics age and fail much sooner under such conditions. Magnetos are primitive and robust, but they still need the maintenance to keep them safe. I have encountered 20- or 30- or 40-year-old mags, with 1000 or 1500 hours on them, that have never been off the engine. When they're opened, we find them BER. Beyond Economical Repair. Because 500-hour inspections were not done, stuff wore out and trashed the mag. Because it was never cleaned, corrosion set in. So now the owner is spending serious money on new mags.

When Electrosystems started producing voltage regulators, they took the original motorcraft (Ford) regulator and made a hybrid out of it. The field relay was still mechanical, but the regulation was done electronically. These came out late '90s or early 2000s. I bought one or two to replace worn regulators in our 172s, and had to start replacing the stupid things almost monthly as the electronics failed and the alternators quit. I made too many warranty claims. I think someone screwed up; they likely didn't include any spike suppression to protect the field output circuitry from the big voltage spike off the alternator rotor's field coil when the alternator is shut off at the end of the flight. Pretty basic protection. The old electromechanical regulators didn't care about spikes.

So if you are going to produce electronic stuff to replace legacy stuff, better get it right the first time, or suffer the consumers' loss of confidence in your product.

The Surefly Instructions for Continued Airworthiness say this:



So, the thing is not overhaulable or even field-repairable. That is to be expected, sort of, for a complex device incorporating sensitive circuitry. It has to go back to the factory for repair, or replaced. The owner of a good old magneto can have the mechanic open it up and fix it; all he needs is the magneto service manual and a few special tools. I have done many of them.

It's a bit like the Thielert Centurion diesels. Or the Austro. Not overhaulable, not field-repairable. Basic servicing only. This can only raise the operating costs for the owner.

 

[alaskan9974]

So did they have a fix for you?

They sent me a rebuilt mag. Haven’t installed it yet.
Buddies Cherokee six had a Surefly installed last year, he just removed it last month. Same issue as mine but instead of taking a few months to fail it went through all the symptoms I had within a week of flying. They told him the same, they heard of no issues but wanted it back. He bought a new Surefly from spruce instead of waiting for downtime, meanwhile
I still have bendix 1200s on mine, both overhauled so not sure if or when I will put my Surefly back on.