: 3.. Best solution! Have your mechanic change the Positive lead from
: the Piper plug so that it goes around the solenoid and directly to the
: battery... This is how I have Fat Albert The Apache wired (and every
: airplane I have ever owned) for charging and jump starting...

I haven't really been following this thread too closely, nor have I looked at
the schematics, but it sounds like it's wired from the factory with a safety
interlock that you are proposing to bypass. When I worked on the HEV project at UIUC,
we had a similar setup with the big charging plug... basically in order to charge the
car, there had to be 14v present *in the car* to close the relay to enable the
high-voltage contactor. There were also diodes present in the HV line to make sure it
was impossible to discharge the battery out the charging port. Granted, a lot of
safety issues are reduced when both sides have a max of 15v, rather than the 350 I was
working with, BUT...

The way it was wired from the factory no doubt was pontificated upon a great
deal. I suggest you consider *ALL* possible failure modes and do the appropriate
official paperwork approved. Making big sparks in an aluminum plane is not good for
its structural soundness. Even if "Cooter the Airplane Mechanic" has done it 100
times before, it only takes one error to have a 1" hole burned in the side of the
plane.

-Cory

************************************************** ***********************
* Cory Papenfuss *
* Electrical Engineering candidate Ph.D. graduate student *
* Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University *
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