View Single Post
  #3  
Unread 07-17-05, 12:22 AM
kevin kevin is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: Hillsboro, OR (HIO)
Posts: 843
kevin is on a distinguished road
Any A&P should be able to troubleshoot this one, it is not really Skymaster specific. I am not an A&P, but the things I would check first are:

1.) Is the battery holding a god charge? Can it be charged? Running it dead like that may have ruined the battery, you may need a new one. I would not necessarily replace the battery immediately, I would have them test it first. If you have no indication at all on your alternator guage, no lights, no fuel guages, etc. it almost (but not quite) has to be the battery, the alternators are not an issue yet.

2.) If the battery is good, I think other possible culprits are the battery contactor, and the battery (master) switch itself. But leaving the master on is not likely to hurt either of these, and would hurt the battery, so I still suspect that.

As you probably know, if the battery is completely dead, or failed, the alternators will not charge the battery (or power your electrical system) because there is no field current to get them started. I think your airplane is old enough to have a RUN/STANDBY switch (I think that is what it was called) that, when placed in the standby position, will power the alternator fields from dry cell batteries. You could try this. If it works, you've isolated the problem to the battery. If you go back to the RUN position after a couple of minutes and the electrical system dies again, it probably means the battery won't hold a charge.

However, if the RUN/STANDBY switch has no effect, it does not necessarily mean anything, because often the dry cell batteries are dead or sometimes completely missing in these airplanes. That should not be the case, they should be checked during the annual, but it gets missed frequently.

As always, I am sure the A&P's in the crowd can provide more knowledgeable input.

Kevin
Reply With Quote