Larry H. wrote: > Mark, if your dynamo produces more power than you need or are using how do you keep from over charging the battery?
The regulator turns excess current into heat which exits via those big aluminum fins on top. I put about 250 hours on it like this and I still have the original battery, which is now well over 2 years old, and it's shown no sign of overcharging (although it's a sealed lead acid). For the last 75 hours I've had my landing lights uncovered and they burn 8 amps of the 17 amp output. I kept them covered for the first year because my kids fried the lenses by turning on the power to them while they were covered with black electrical tape for painting purposes. They are really hideous and need to be replaced/redone, but I figure being seen in the air and while landing are more important than people looking at my landing light lenses and thinking I'm an idiot. This is yet another reason why I haven't painted my plane yet. As for your scrounging buddy, I'd advise him to show up at the local riding mower repair emporium and buy them used. There has to be a pile of these things down there that could be bought for cheap, along with matching regulator. The environment these things live in is no worse than in the engine compartment of an airplane, so they ought to last. Mine works great and has never even needed to have the belt adjusted, and it lives less than an inch from the cylinder head. But I'm sure there's some sort of FAA reguation I'm violating there if you dig long enough... Mark Langford, Huntsville, Alabama see KR2S project N56ML at http://home.hiwaay.net/~langford email to N56ML "at" hiwaay.net --------------------------------------------------------------
