Name this alternator

[gacnik123]

Hope some fellow aviators can tell me some info about my alternator. It’s working fine, but I want to find out if it has over voltage protection. I didn’t build my plane and I believe vans sold these back in the day.

Make?
OV protected?
Anybody had issues?

Reason I ask is Uavionix said my AV 30 failed from a voltage surge. Nothing else failed and my standard voltmeter stayed stable at 14.4v. Plus the AV 30 specs claim max input 60v. I’m pretty sure I’d seen smoke with that.




Hope you can help.

Thanks John

[BlndRvtr]

An AV30 was gonna fail soon regardless Looks great, highly unreliable. Been thru 3, uAvionics always had an excuse to avoid any warranty consideration.

Seems you always get what you pay for. Sometimes Less!

George

[Tommy123]

I'll name your alternator Bob.
Thanks for the heads up about Uavionix. Seems like they don't want to stand behind their product. A voltage surge wouldn't affect only one thing in your system.

[Sam Buchanan]

Looks like the 30a Nippon Denso that was sold by Vans and commonly used back in the day, I've flown them on my RV-6 since 1999. It is externally regulated and doesn't have OV protection built-in. I have an OV protection module that pops the alternator breaker but that is separate from the alternator.

Common number for the alternator is 14184, application is 1979 Honda Civic CVCC, no air conditioning.

[azrv6]

Ditto what Sam said. Same for my RV6.

[gacnik123]

Thank you guys for the info!!

[gacnik123]

Originally Posted by BlndRvtr

An AV30 was gonna fail soon regardless Looks great, highly unreliable. Been thru 3, uAvionics always had an excuse to avoid any warranty consideration.

Seems you always get what you pay for. Sometimes Less!

George

Had the same experience with them!! Probably gonna put my original VSI back in. This was my second AV30 since May 2020

[davidkarlsberg]

Name this alternator.... let's call it sparky!

[gacnik123]

Originally Posted by Sam Buchanan

Looks like the 30a Nippon Denso that was sold by Vans and commonly used back in the day, I've flown them on my RV-6 since 1999. It is externally regulated and doesn't have OV protection built-in. I have an OV protection module that pops the alternator breaker but that is separate from the alternator.

Common number for the alternator is 14184, application is 1979 Honda Civic CVCC, no air conditioning.

Hi Sam, does this zener diode location look correct??



Seems like it isn’t really doing much going from the 12v alternator post to ground. I think this was a failed attempt at over voltage protection. Seems like it’d just get hot as heck but not trip a fuse or breaker! Thought maybe you had an original set of instructions from vans that came with your alternator.
Thanks

John

[azrv6]

John,

Here is a paragraph from the document which came with my alternator 26 years ago, it describes the purpose of the zener diode.



Here is the full alternator document in pdf format for your files.



Back then, the over voltage protection was usually based on an article in Bob Nuckolls Aeroelectric Connection book and described as crowbar over voltage protection. As Sam described, it was a separate circuit between the alternator and the main bus. You probably have it, but just haven't found it yet. At least that's my guess.