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How long is a Vans tacho expected to last?

newt

newt

Well Known Member
About 300 hours ago, my Vans tacho developed a bit of a twitch. Then the twitch became more frequent and larger in magnitude, then it stopped working altogether, so I replaced it.

Yesterday the replacement started to develop a twitch. I'm about to order a replacement, hopefully the new one crosses the Pacific before the old one dies.

How long is a Vans tacho expected to last?

- mark
 
newt said:
, hopefully the new one crosses the Pacific before the old one dies.

How long is a Vans tacho expected to last?

- mark
Click to expand...

I found the answer in your question... Probably not as long as it would if it didn't come from across the Pacific..😂
 
Mine lasted maybe 120 hrs, it had oil oozing up the cable and thoroughly greasing the innards of the instrument. I sent it out to an instrument repair shop and they cleaned it up. Worked fine for awhile.
Then the hours on the tach went backwards for a while and stopped, it's been at 184hrs for a long time. I checked it last I flew with a handheld prop tach and the rpms were dead on. But hours don't move. Anyway I got a flight data systems tach and that's one winter project.
 
I had one that lasted ~300 hours. The second one lasted another 600 hours or so before I did a minor panel upgrade and removed it.
 
How does vans instruments compare to others in terms of quality/longevity? They seems fairly inexpensive.
 
I know there was 1 other thread where someone ditched the whole Vans encoder/electric analog tach and went with the Flight Data Systems T 30 digital tach.
My tach is twitchy and I spun the cable with a drill and same results. Looked at the square end of the cable and it looks fine. I'm going to go this route as I don't want to start replacing the encoder and then find out the gage is bad too. Plus the added benefit if the RPM differs from 1 mag to the other by more than 300rpm you will get a INDICATION on the Tachometer(says the guy who flew a 30 min flight only only 1 mag thanks to individual mag switches....).

Anyone else want to comment on the T 30 digital tach?

Mark
 
Mine is 14 years old and has 750 hours on it. I keep waiting for it to die so I can put a nice Electronics International unit in its place, but it keeps on turning...
 
I found that mine (not installed in a Vans airplane) died as a result of heat and vibration. My solution was to install a short tach drive cable to connect the tacho sender to the twitching engine while allowing the sender to be mounted to the stationary firewall. I've had zero troubles with my replacement sender, now 8 years later.
 
Yeah my transducer is mounted on the engine mount with the short 12" Tachometer cable due to the VAC PAD having a B&C secondary/endurance/emergency generator install on it.
 
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