ORIGINAL: samparfitt

PM (cont)

I put the wings on and the pump motor was constantly running when the wings were moving and then the motor would 'twitch' constantly at the 'end points' of the wing folds.
I'm attributing this, I believe, to the battery being almost discharged.
Initially, I thought that maybe some air pockets were along the non-clear tubing or in the cylinders, but, after charging the battery, the wings are functioning properly.
First, I release the air pressure to the accumulator and then, using a hand pump, put air pressure into the system until the wings would go UP. I ran the test and added air pressure just on the UP test as little work was needed by the system to lower the wings.
Using the hand pump, about 4-5 'pumps' were needed to attain a functioning system.
From my limited experience, the pump needs to cycle on/off about every one second.
A constant running of the motor will damage the system, in my opinion, as I noticed that the voltage regulator on top of the motor got very hot when the motor runs continuously (I immediately turned off the power when the regulator got hot: also, if the motor continuously runs).
On the safe side, I went to radio shack and bought a heat sink and some heat transfer grease and screwed it to the voltage regulator to dissipate any heat. The voltage regulator has a hole in exposed metal which, I believe, is for adding a heat sink.
I remember the corsair at warbird over Delaware smoking which was probably this regulator getting so hot that it started to smoke.
These are my observations and conclusions so they are only based on my limited experience with this system.

pictures will be loaded when the web site fixed their constant 'system errors'.