I shot a msg to Ed Alt ( the designer of the Tech Aero IBEC ) and asked him about the issue of a CDI failing with a direct short. Here is his response.



Hi Bill:

You’re the 2nd person to ask this tonight. I’ll tell you the same thing as I told the other gentleman. This has the advantage of being fact based, vs. “RCU forum expert” opinion based:

I’ve never heard of it happening. In the unlikely event that a CDI were to short, you are going to be headed for the runway immediately, because your engine will have already stopped. It might typically be a 30 second glide to get down. Even if you assume that you will be gliding for a full minute, at the 3A maximum current for the regulator in the IBEC, the most that you could drain from the pack is equal to 3/60 = .05Ah, or 50 mAh of battery capacity before touching down. If a dead short in the ignition module were to last much more than a minute , the regulator in the IBEC would probably reach thermal shutdown temperature. It’s really a very unlikely scenario to cause a crash.



Regards,

Ed