stegre

If you are tired of digging around in your fuselage for the charge jack, or if you have plugs sticking out of your foamie a DC power jack/plug is a good project.


For those of you who might be interested, and who might not already know how to do this, I have placed instructions on my website:



http://www.californiasailplanes.com/Powerjack.html

Of course I wouldn't mind if you checked out our airplanes too...

Enjoy..

Steve

BMatthews

Nice idea but you forgot the "REMOVE BEFORE FLIGHT" ribbon on the charge cord adapter.....

I'm a little worried about the single contact on these power jacks. How has the reliability been for you so far?

Most of the slide switches in the regular harness use more than one contact for redundancy (or at least the ones I've opened did). And the self cleaning action of the slide switch principle also helps ensure a good connection. It seems like you'd be loosing all that in the power jack arrangement.

But I do like the cleanliness of your idea.

stegre

The jacks I've built work perfectly. The reason I changed is that I actually had 2 stock radio switch harnesses FAIL! Those switches are very cheap. Along with the the fact I hated plugs sticking out of plane or buried in the fuse.

The reliability is insured by using only high quality Switchcraft components from an electronics supplier, not the cheapo jacks available from your "famous name brand cheap electronic store".

You must also take care to solder securely without overheating, and add shrink wrap.

An additional benefit is that you have a number of places you can hide such a jack ( even recessing it) to keep it farther away from the dirt.

As to the question of removing a plug in order to fly.... you also have to take action to turn the aircraft on if you use a switch. Seems to be the same amount of responsibilty. A careful pilot should always preflight the plane by checking the free and correct directional movement of the controls, and a radio range check.

I just saw a sailplane damaged yesterday by a fellow who carefully put up his frequency pin, and then launched his 2 meter without turning it on !

Regards,
Steve
http://www.californiasailplanes.com

BMatthews

I'm guilty of that. Got all mixed up during a contest using winches. A line tangle and battery change had me all set to go, then stop, then go, then stop, and finally go. Somewhere in the mix the switch order got all confused and I neglected to give the stick that "last wiggle" and sent my Metric up as a free flighter... Landed with no damage....

The "Remove before flight" thing was a joke. But I'd do it anyway just for the laughs it would bring at the field. It would need to be a small one so I didnt' catch it and rip it out in the trunk and arrive with a dead flight pack though...

And I didn't realize that they were using such crappy swithces these days. I've been lucky so far I guess. Might just use this on a model or two. It would be perfect for a radio hand launch. Thanks....

rminsk

See also Hollyday Designs switchjacks.