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Assessing risk in my design

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bobmeyers(at)meyersfamily
Guest

Posted: Fri Apr 03, 2009 4:06 pm Post subject: Assessing risk in my design

I have a problem in assessing one element of risk in my electrical  

design.



I have a permanent magnet alternator and my design borrows from Z-17  

and some literature from B&C that came with the components I ordered  

from them.



One of those components is a large Electrolytic capacitor - 47k µf 16v  

- that, along with a relay, mounts on the cabin side of the firewall.  

My aircraft is a Sonex which has the fuel tank between the firewall  

and the instrument panel.  This would be similar to any other aircraft  

with a header tank in the cabin.



Trying it assess the risks in my design, in this case the location of  

the components, I realize that I have no knowledge of capacitor  

failure modes.   Would a large capacitor like this have an explosive  

or flaming failure mode - assume the polarity is correct?



The alternator circuit does have crowbar over voltage protection but  

the capacitor is wired in parallel before the relay.  There is an  

inline fuse between the alternator and the capacitor but is the  

capacitor at risk here?  And what is that risk?



Help in understanding the risks is appreciated.



Bob Meyers



Building Sonex 982SX Web Site Index http://meyersfamily.org/Sonex982.html

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nuckolls.bob(at)aeroelect
Guest

Posted: Sun Apr 05, 2009 12:31 pm Post subject: Assessing risk in my design

 	  Quote: 	
		  The alternator circuit does have crowbar over voltage protection but

the capacitor is wired in parallel before the relay.  There is an

inline fuse between the alternator and the capacitor but is the

capacitor at risk here?  And what is that risk?



Help in understanding the risks is appreciated.


	


    Catastrophic (read spectacular) failure in these

    capacitors is rare. I had only one builder in

    20 years contact me about the results of hooking

    the critter in backwards and having it deposit

    some corrosive goo on parts of his airplane.

        Bob . . .



        ----------------------------------------)

        ( . . .  a long habit of not thinking   )

        ( a thing wrong, gives it a superficial )

        ( appearance of being right . . .       )

        (                                       )

        (                  -Thomas Paine 1776-  )

        ----------------------------------------

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