Bulldog Posted August 8, 2023 Report Share Posted August 8, 2023 Hi Everyone - In my 6 months as a CT owner, I've discovered that the flap system may just be the weakest aspect of an otherwise awesome plane, so I decided to reach out to Rich at Aircraft Extras, Inc. He makes various products, including a reflex positioning system, 20A relay boards, 10A relay boards, airspeed switch, and much more. I asked if he would be interested in bringing to market a more robust relay board as an alternative to FD's. We did not discuss price yet, but as you can see on his site, the prices for his relay boards are very reasonable. Does anyone by chance have details regarding the relay circuit board components and how they are wired? If so, can you please send them to me? Rich said that he may be interested in creating a complete system solution to fix our common flap problems, including relay boards, actuators/motors, switches, etc., but we still have to discuss that. Thanks, Nick @Anticept @FredG @Madhatter @FlyingMonkey @DownUnderFlier @Roger Lee Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anticept Posted August 8, 2023 Report Share Posted August 8, 2023 I know Rich Meske personally. He operates out of madison county airport! We talked about a few things including developing an oil level sensor for the rotax oil reservoir. We also already talked about the flaps and he was interested in taking a look to see what we can come up with. I forgot to follow up and this reminded me! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bulldog Posted August 8, 2023 Author Report Share Posted August 8, 2023 1 hour ago, Anticept said: I know Rich Meske personally. He operates out of madison county airport! We talked about a few things including developing an oil level sensor for the rotax oil reservoir. We also already talked about the flaps and he was interested in taking a look to see what we can come up with. I forgot to follow up and this reminded me! Awesome! I've given him everything that I've compiled so far - pictures, video, schematic, actuator spec sheet, links to the various flap threads here on the forum, etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anticept Posted August 8, 2023 Report Share Posted August 8, 2023 The enclosed relay system is nice, and a microcontroller could quite literally be an arduino R3 and 7 segment display (it has a watchdog timer in case it stops responding, the watchdog will restart the unit. It could continue to provide the flap settings like we have, but more robustly (replace the linear potentiometer with a hall effect sensor, a FAR MORE robust package). It can be made to monitor the power flow to the motor and stop movement much more easily to prevent overstressing the flap motor. This would all make it much more field replaceable. If one wanted, it could be made even simpler than that, the microcontroller could just display the degrees of flap deflection and you just have a momentary up, down, and override button. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Towner Posted August 8, 2023 Report Share Posted August 8, 2023 Flaps are my number one complaint, so I’d love to see a better option. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bulldog Posted August 8, 2023 Author Report Share Posted August 8, 2023 @Anticept If you have a few minutes for Rich to come over and check out your plane, he's ready any time. Also, if you happen to have an old relay board, he'd like to take a look at one of those too. Let me know if you need his number again. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anticept Posted August 8, 2023 Report Share Posted August 8, 2023 I have his information. We already talked today in text. I don't have the engineering schematics of the board and relays, but I do have the installation schematics, which is all we need to determine what wires are for what and can design drop in replacements. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bulldog Posted August 20, 2023 Author Report Share Posted August 20, 2023 I posted this in the other flap thread as well: ------------------------------ Well, I ended up working with Rich Meske from Aircraft Extras, and he was able to repair my relay board. It's been 100% for about 5 hours now. Rich is very experienced with electronics, and I'd recommend keeping him in mind if you run into flap issues. His contact info is: https://www.aircraftextras.com/ContactInfo.htm Rich Meske P.E. 4908 Mc Kenna Ct. Columbus, OH 43221 (614) 876-6345 sales@aircraftextras.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Towner Posted August 21, 2023 Report Share Posted August 21, 2023 Thanks for the info! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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