Originally Posted by
allthatglitters
I always wonder what these eratic power supplies may do to all those little, very expensive black boxes, whether it is from the old unstable, outdated GPU or from an onboard power supply.
Well, when MH started operating B777 to ARN, which has a strict no-APU policy, we asked for two ground power units. Then we found out that there were two FEP cables on the stand. What we didn't know was they were both connected to the same 90kva power supply, which is a bit marginal for a B777. One day the FEP started fluctuating and then failed. After this event it took us about 3 hrs to clear all the faults on the aircraft, and the crew ran out of hours and we nightstopped. A very expensive failure. Since then we use one of the FEP outlets , and a GPU and have had very few problems.