Thanks, I gore
"What Hump?"
And yes Mike, we're dating ourselves...had a HS date to that movie...and no her name was not Abby!
Who can name it? (Yes, way OT, but...)
Snip>...since ElectroAir seems...to be less popular than the LSE, why did you change?
gil A
Gil, it was a tough decision on some levels and an easy one on others. (And apologies for going a bit OT and long here...sorry Kahuna!)
On the technical side, both systems are excellent. I had great service with my LSE PI, until the brain box failed (after many years...it was in the plane when I bought it). The failure was intermittant enough that it prevented Klaus from determining the cause (the first time I sent it in, it came back as being OK, and the second time LSE could replicate it, but could not trace it, 'cause it went away when the box warmed up or was pressed on...yep, weird...and sort of like what I saw in the field...though I never pushed on it, bad mag drops just came and went).
I had done months of troubleshooting and component replacing, and when the box came back bad on the second go-'round, I was looking at a new brain box and crank sensor, whether I went the LSE PIII or the ElectroAir route. Both options required pulling my prop (for the crank sensor...old one had to come off anyway, and no Hall Effect sensor for a six cyl motor). ElectroAir represented a full system change (more parts to swap), but after discussing the EA system with a highly respected VAF member and hearing of his happiness with multiple installed EA systems (RV-4s and Rockets), and after seeing a Jeff Rose system (precursor to EA) on a local Rocket, I spoke with Mike at EA.
I really,
really liked working with Mike, and that was the primary reason. Super folks there, very helfpul with the install and any questions I had.
In comparing the performance of the two systems, again, both are superb, and to be honest, if there is a performance difference between the two, I can't see it. There are differences in how they generate the spark (capacitance vs inductance, from what I understand, though to be honest its a partial understanding), and there appear to be subtle differences in spark dwell and timing (per discussions, not empirically). ElectroAir has the ability to make timing adjustments on the box, and has a provision to show what the timing advance is on a gauge, though I have not used those features yet, so they were not key factors. However, those features got my attention, and I may play with it in the quest for speed, since I've started racing with SARL. The manual was very well laid out, and the install was pretty darn straight forward. The components all look to be very high quality as well, and I like the sturdy mount for the firing coils. It is designed to be firewall mounted, which is where my LSE coils were as well. I know many like to mount the coils on top of the engine for shorter spark plug wire runs, so this may be viewed as a negative, but I really like the EA set-up, and their coils may be OK on top of the block too, I just don't know.
An interesting side note Gil, which hits on the popularity issue you mentioned...in discussions with Mike, I asked why he wasn't advertising more heavily in an attempt to get more market penetration. He told me that his company's time and efforts over the past few years had been geared towards obtaining full certification for their systems (ie, getting auth to put them on type certificated aircraft, Bonanzas were mentioned in the discussion). He's not ignoring the experinmental market, but has focused on the certification process (in my words now) in hopes of capturing the attention of both markets. Mike noted that LSEs are indeed more well known, and speculated that many large experimental engine builders offer them as "OEM" because that is what clients most often ask for. Probably a tough market to crack when a competitor is as well known and respected as LSE. But imagine a product whose producer has done the due diligence and met the rigor to have the product approved for type certificated aircraft. They're not there yet, and I don't know the current status, but it didn't sound like hollow sales pitch talk to me, and it got my attention. Hopefully that won't mean higher prices, because EA wins there too (though that was not a major concern of mine at all, as I had invested some pretty good coin in my earlier LSE troubleshooting efforts).
The last piece is not official in any way of course, and is just me flappin' my gums about how I came to the decison.
And did I mention that Mike and his team are really nice guys!
Cheers,
Bob
