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Can Vertical Power products be retrofitted to already-built aircraft? Yes, our products can be installed in existing aircraft and we sell a connector and pin kit specifically for that purpose here. If you’re thinking about adding an EFIS, electric trim or flaps, electronic engine monitor, second alternator, or any other electrical upgrade to your plane we hope you will also consider Vertical Power. Do you use PTCs (thermally activated circuit protection) in the Control Unit? We use one on the 1 amp Always On circuit and one to protect the power to the LCD screen backlight. How quickly does the Control Unit respond to an over-voltage condition? The Control Unit will typically respond in less than 40 milliseconds, but can be set to wait longer if nuisance trips are an issue. It will also work with external “crow-bar” type over-voltage protection devices (B&C and Plane Power), but they are not necessary. Will your system stay on during engine start? Yes. Because the system controls the starter contactor, it is imperative that it operate during lower voltage conditions. Similarly, it must be able to handle the voltage spikes that can occur during engine start. The system operates normally from 4-32 volts. Our tests have shown that in a 14v system, the voltage normally drops to about 7 to 10 volts, but can go as low as five volts with a low battery. At that point, the starter contactor can no longer engage. How much power does your system draw? The system draws less than one amp (less with the backlight down), and turns the battery contactor on only when ready for engine start or if the electrical bus load is greater than 10 amps. The system will also automatically turn off the battery contactor and run on the Endurance Bus when electrical load shedding is active and the bus load is less than 10 amps. Won’t aerobatics or air work cause the Modes to change erratically? You can manually put the VP-200 in Maneuver Mode which is a mode specifically for these type of situations, as you must manually take it out of Maneuver Mode. Is the Control Unit isolated from the magnetos? Yes. The mag switch on the VP-200 Switch Panel has three independent poles (or circuits): one for the left mag p-lead, one for the right mag p-lead, and one to tell the microprocessor the switch position. The p-lead wires go directly from the rotary switch to the mags and are purely a mechanical connection. There is even a separate connector for the mag p-leads and associated ground wire. Isn’t the Control Unit a single point of failure? Think of the Control Unit as box with a few dozen individual circuits. If one fails it doesn’t necessarily mean the others will fail. It is designed to fail “gracefully” in most failure modes. We’ve taken pains to isolate the processor from the switching circuits so that if the processor fails, the most likely thing that will happen is the devices stay in their currently-commanded state. In other words, anything that is on will stay on and anything that is off will stay off. The VP-200 Duo was created specifically to provide redundancy and to work with either single or dual bus electrical systems. You can place certain items (like comm/nav 1, PFD) on one Control Unit and other items (comm/nav 2, MFD) on the other Control Unit. Most EFISs and ADAHRS, for example, have dual power inputs allowing you to wire one power input to each Control Unit. The overall system architecture is designed so that failure of one major component (Display Unit, Control Unit, or Switch Panel) should not affect the other components. The major components are tied together with RS-422 fault-tolerant serial data lines rather than “hard lines.” If the Display Unit fails, for example, the Control Unit will leave everything in its current on/off state and continue to provide circuit protection. Will I lose trim and flap control if the system fails? It depends on the type of failure. If you look at the Installation Manual, you’ll see that the trim or flap switches are connected directly to the specific Control Unit that drives the trim or flap motor. That way, only the Control Unit has to be functioning for the associated trim and flap circuits to work. What if the Control Unit accidentally turns on the starter during flight? Even though the solid-state switches are rated for 2 billion cycles, the system must be designed to anticipate that some will fail prematurely in the field. When these fail they usually fail closed, which is a non-event for some devices but a big deal for other devices. The starter, trim, and flap circuits are designed with two solid-state switches in series (one after the other), and each switch is controlled by a unique set of commands from the processor. This type of circuit provides redundant safety both on the switch and the commanding of that switch. Further, the starter circuit requires a heartbeat signal from the Display Unit to remain engaged. If the communication fails between the Control Unit and the Display Unit, the starter will disengage. What if the Control Unit faults and turns off the EFIS while I’m in IMC conditions? Each Control Unit has backup circuits that allow you easily wire power directly from the battery through an external switch to a device, overriding the internal Control Unit switches. These circuits provide battery power to the devices regardless of the state of the Control Unit solid-state switches. Isn’t the traditional way of wiring aircraft tried and true? Why change? There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with the old way of wiring aircraft, as long as you’re skilled in electronics or have a very basic electrical system. As recently as five years ago, most aircraft had mechanical systems, steam gauges and very limited wiring. Now, almost everything is electric. The electrical system in your aircraft now plays a much more important role that it did before. Consequently, the electrical system must evolve to meet these new challenges. The evolution has happened in the automobile, transportation, marine, and commercial aerospace industries and now it’s happening in experimental aviation. Why do you connect to an engine monitor that already displays engine data? We do more than simply display the engine data. It is used to drive the Mode changing and also ties in with certain electrical control features. Further, we didn’t want to develop an engine sensor package when there are lots of good ones on the market today. The Chelton EAU and Grand Rapids Technologies EIS 4000/6000 are good examples of devices you can hide under the instrument panel and use the Vertical Power Display Unit to show the data. |
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For additional information on Vertical Power products click on these links below |
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Product Feature Comparison Quick Start Program FAQs Take a Virtual Flight Tour with Vertical Power Just three minutes to be amazed. |
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 Click here and read past newsletters in our Archive library. |
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