Permanently magnetic wheel brakes.
 

It seems that my electric wheel brakes has become permanently magnetic over time resulting in constant braking action. Has anyone else encountered this problem with electric wheel brakes and what did you in that case do about it? My brakes comes from Xicoy but I don’t think that the brand matters.

Jannica in Sweden

Demagnetization by Heating

Demagnetization by heating is a process that uses heat to remove the magnetic force from metals. This method is often used to demagnetize screws and other small metal objects.

To demagnetize metal using this method, place the object in a pot of boiling water. The heat will cause the magnetism to dissipate, thus demagnetizing the metal. Make sure you don’t boil the object for too long, or it may damage it.

I have had four different types of disk brakes. All of those with disks, the disks eventually get magnetized. But typically, once I roll the plane forward by hand they free up. Then the only issue is uneven braking on the landing or brake lock up on landing causing the plane to dace or flatten the tires. Onn larger planes, I have actually seen tires ripped off the wheels on lockups. By the way, JP gear has a different type of diskless braking wheel setup. There is no disk to magnetize. I put a pair on my T-1 and they worked great too.

I have tried several (at least 5) brake controllers The only two I can suggest would be the Xicoy LGC15 or the Electron GS200 controller. They are essentially the same. But the GS200 is matched to the Electron gear (i.e. I believe the current limits are still NOT programmable.) These two brake controllers have enough end-user adjustment to overcome any magnetic effect on the initial contact with the ground. Once they roll a bit, the magnetism has little no effect anyway. Both of these controllers when set up properly will use the braking to steer the aircraft straight as you roll to a stop w/o locking up the brakes. These controllers take some setup time to apply the programming and then some time taxiing to adjust the steering/gyro, etc. The power level is applied to each brake individually and they have anti-lock feature. But when you get done, all you have to do is push the TXer's slider all the way or flip a switch and your plane stops w/o dancing skidding or flattening the tires.