qfflyer

CAN SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME WHAT THEY KNOW ABOUT THE DME TORCH IN REGARDS TO THE LED LIGHT .. MY UNDERSTANDING OF THIS WAS THE QUICKER OR MORE FREQUENT THE LIGHT FLASHED THE BATTERY LIFE WAS FULL OR HIGHER . wHEN IT SLOWED DOWN THE LIFE OF THE BATTERY WAS REDUCING . IS THERE ANYWHER I CAN GET THIS CONFIRMED

CHEERS

rvsm compliant

"Should flash less than 10secs"= serviceable

Your quite right less time between flashes means battery good.Usually around 7 secs.

Litebulbs

How wrong can you be, 7 seconds is completely wrong. According to my company's SOP, it is 8 seconds. I cannot stand uneducated armchair flashing light counters coming into this almost professional engineers forum and making uneducated random comments so way off the mark and dangerous, that could lead to God knows what!

I envy the pilot threads for their balanced views on things like this. My old instructor once told me, well to be honest, a load of 5hite really.

JEMAVION

I agree; 10 seconds is the max. Any longer - change the battery. They usually flash every 5 to 7 seconds.

Blacksheep

If you take the battery out, the flashes are way less often than 10 seconds.

That's the way to do it

connector

Is there any test-equipment on the market,
you can attach to the torch, to do the counting?
The time starts, when the flash starts or ends, until the next flash
starts or ends?
Would also be nice, if you could make a printout for documentation.
A complicated matter like this, is it B1 or B2- related?
If stores run out of batteries,
would it help to mix several batteries between several torches,
to avoid an aircraft is grounded?

Litebulbs

If you introduce test equipment that is external to the said torch, the function testing moves away from B1 electrical generation or A licence simple and limited task, to B2 arena as we are the only trade that can be trusted to used items like a portable data loader!

Another question; what standard of counting do most people use? Is it 1 elephant, 2 elephant etc.. or some other form of mammalian metronome?

connector

Most used for counting must be:
1 sheep, two sheeps........
Or where i live:
1 polarbear, 2 polarbears........

SRM

Dme Cmm Says 3-6 Secs. Voltage Trigger At 7.65 V Then Led Flashes 6-10 Secs.Hope this Helps.

SRM

SEA For Now

I usually find its every 6 seconds but then I do count Armadillos.

nodrama

If you want the definitive answer....talk to the manufacturer or look in the component's MM.

connector

A chargeable battery looses normally 1% of its capacity for every
degree below 25 celsius.
So, there is a difference between, to do the counting in arctic-sorroundings, or in Asia.
The type of animals you should use for counting,
should be covered by the AMM.
The reffered CMM talks about "minimum" voltage.
But capacity and voltage is the same?
They are using the same "bluff" tests on Stby.power packs.
Voltage ok= battery ok?

ArthurR

I used to disconnect the battery to stop the feckers in maintainace using it when they had forgotten their own, re-connected just before flight. This was on flight test and yes we had a safety strap on till somebody decided to use the torch as in the case above

Conan The Barber

So how do you tune a dme torch?

Blacksheep

Take the battery out and blow across the top.
(Use a 'Low G-Flat' tuning fork.)

connector

Take a calibrated microwaveoven.
Place the torch upside-down, inside the oven.
(Info for B1-guys: not outside the oven!)
Select, medium, 5 minutes+ start.
You will hear a popping sound in the beginning.
When it reaches about a 8 seconds interval, pull out
the ovens powerchord.
Otherwise you can risk kind of a nuclear- meltdown.
But now, the torch is tuned.
Trust the ovens timer, stop counting animals.