I am new to gas engines and need a little help. I bought a used Dietrich with a Brisson 3.2 in it. I had seen it fly many times and it never had issues. (bought from my old flight instructor) I made approxiamately 15 flights on it and on the last flight, the engine started stumbling really bad and rpms went idol and it continued stumbling. I got the plane down and the engine died as soon as it landed. I checked the battery and it was good. Attempted to restart and got no fire at all. Brought it home and checked out the switch and all of the wiring and found no obvious problems. I removed the plug and it is sooty. I grounded it to the engine and got a grand total of 2 sparks and then nothing. I understand that CH is no longer doing business and I have no idea of what to check next or what to do. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Brad

A friend had one with this problem and after fooling around with it at the field all afternoon, it was the battery.

You have to check the battery voltage under load because if one cell developes a high internal resistance, the battery has no amperage capacity though it will show full voltage

Could be a bad sensor, plug or ignition or battery.

First find a philips head screw driver that fits snug into the plug cap. Hood up a good battery direct to the ignition, Rotate the prop hub magnet past the sensor and see if you have a spark, if you have a spark then it is the plug

If not, try to take a small wire and touch it to the two outside prongs in the connecter that goes from the ignition to the sensor with plug installed and touching engine, If you gat a spark each time you touch them and remove the ignition is ok and it is the sensor that is bad, If it does not spark the ignition is bad.

Milton

Brad, Hopefully Bill at CH is only temporarily grounded or a lot of people, including me, will be in a lot of pain. I have a few Brisons and I had to resolder the Deans connector coming from the pick up and the one from the ignition. Don't omit the heat shrink tubing during the reassembly. Use a small diameter tubing around each terminal and then a large one around the three terminals. But it still is possible for an ignition to go bad and I would like to know, from anyone on this thread, if there is an equivalent one to the CHs. I know it is pretty easy to convert the engines to electronic advance, if necessary. Keep us posted on your effort. Dan.

The only one I know of right now is the RCexl. But if your timing advance is coupled to your carb you will have to set it at 28-30 deg and have it fixed there,

If you are not running any kind of ignition advance you can leave it as it is and just hook up the Rcexl.

The 3 pin deans will plug into the RCexl you just have to make sure you get the polarity right.

Mlton

Like stated, check with a good battery And a New plug,,
What oil/fuel mix are you running? That plug should come out with a light brown/beige color,, Not sooty. May be as simple as a fouled plug

Good luck

Ain't the plug. Battery or hall sensor. The plug color is controlled by engine tuning.

I installed a new battery when I bought the plane, but I went ahead and put new one on the charger tonight and hopefully will get a chance to check it after work tomorrow. The hall sensor that was mentioned, is that the sensor that comes out of the ignition and is attached to the motor? Also, instead of making full rotations on the crank, is it okay to just rotate the shaft back and forth across the sensor to check the spark?

Brad

If the ignition sparks once when you turn it "ON" and then will not fire anymore until you turn it off and on again, the sensor is bad at the crankshaft

Yes, It should spark in both rotations.

Milton

Okay, I hooked up a new battery today and got absolutely no spark at all. Next I will try the small wire and test as recommended by BadAzzMaxx. I still am not sure that I understand the differences between the CH and the Excell ignitions. Is there somewhere on line I can go for a tutorial.

Brad

Is your timing sensor position connected by mechanical linkage to the throttle arm of the carb or is it fixed in one position on the engine

Basically the Rcexl is the same ignition as the CH Sencro spark ignition, It is a copy of it for a lack of a better word.

CH sold two different types of ignition, There standard version that the timing was fixed and the Sencro spark that retarded the timing and then let it advance as the rpm of the engine went up, This and the Rcexl are close to the same.

If you could post a picture of the engine showing the front prop hub and the carb we could better help you with what you might need.

If your ignition is a fixed timing one, I have one here I took off a Fox 4.2 and installed a RCexl.

Milton

The timing sensor is on a collar that rotates around the crankshaft maybe 30 degrees connected by linkage to the throttle. Sorry I don't have a camera to include pictures. One of the questions that I have is, on the newer engines and ignitions, does the ignition advance the timing internally by sensing the speed of the crankshaft thru the timing sensor? So the specific ignition module is critical so that the ignition advances properly for the particular engine? Where as on the Brisson there is no iginition advance in the actual module and it takes place at the crank sensor? Sorry if these questions seem sort of basic, but I am having a hard time finding actual information on this, plus I am not a electronic kind of guy so it is all a big learnign curve for me. Thanks for your help.

Brad

You are correct in your assumptions about the ignition modules

You are a lot like me, want to plug it in and it work. LOl

You got it all right in your post, The engine you have uses the carb coupling to advance the timing, So you need a ignition with fixed timing, Sad to say right now might be hard to get a new one.

Did you do the small wire test to see if the ignition works.

Sending you a pm.

Milton

Can't check the sensor, but you can check the ignition.
Unplug the sensor from the ignition... Use a volt meter to check V between the red and black wires. Should be very close to battery V.
Make a shorting U out of a paper clip.... Short the White and Black wire.... turn on ignition battery.... when you remove the short the spark plug should fire. It will fire as fast as you can giggle the shorting plug.
It the ignition is sparking then you most likely have a bad sensor, if its not sparking then you have a bad ignition OR you did it wrong.

lol Terry

Sometimes it is hard to explain something over the phone or a computer. Been there, done that. Not fun, sometimes I wish I could reach through the screen so I can see what someone has done that they didn't feel was important enough to tell me about. Only to find out later it was something they did that was the source of the problem. [:@] Just the same as sometimes it is hard to understand the intent of something that was said and everyone takes it in the wrong context.

I wasn't able to do the test today, had to do the whole lawn mowing thing before the neighbors complained. They don't appreciate it when when I mow with the plane. They don't mind the noise, I think they are afraid there kids will want to learn. I hope to do the testing after work tomorrow and will let you all know the results. Thanks to everyone for there suggestions and comments.

Brad

I could kick myself! I saw a brand new in package CH Ignition with Bosch cap advertised as 'the one for Brison singles with mechanical advance" on Ebay 2 weeks ago and watched it go to the highest bidder for $10.00! Always nice to have a spare, especially at that price.

Today I did the test recommended by BadAzzMaxx. I took an old Futaba plug and stripped the two outside wires, wired them together, turned on the ignition and grounded the electrode to the head and got absolutely nothing. I am planning on trying the TKG method next, but expecting the same results. Thanks again everyone for your help. Bass... It never occurred to me to check ebay...

Brad