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Novel alternator circuit protection

Lars

Well Known Member
Sponsor
I'm not sure if this qualifies as a safety item, but it certainly is an oddball. Had an RV in our shop for an unrelated issue that required cowl removal, which led to us having a look around, and we spotted this. The builder (not the owner of the airplane) had installed an ANL current limiter base in the B lead circuit for the alternator, but rather than spend the princely sum of $15 or so for a proper current limiter, the gadget in the photos below was assembled from a combo of a blade fuse and some brass sheet. Arguably the slow blow fuse shown in the photos has similar, though not identical properties to the current limiter that would fit in the base, but still. Cheapskate or ...?

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i-gFC6bbq-M.jpg
 
Creative?

Innovative?

Field repair that they just forgot to change out with correct part?

How long had it been in there?
 
Creative?

Innovative?

Field repair that they just forgot to change out with correct part?

How long had it been in there?

I suppose it could?ve been a field repair. It looked like it had been there for awhile. Who ever made it put in some effort.
 
Getting obsolete

I bet a quickie, at-home fix after he discovered that Home Depot and Ace no longer stock the ANL current limiters.

They seem to have become a mail order only item, different from a decade ago and earlier when a lot of the flying RVs were built. At that time Home Depot had many sizes in stock. :)

In Tucson recently I could only find 100A ones and that was in an auto custom sound shop.

Maybe it's time for us to standardize on a more up-to-date high current fuse?
 
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