The fountain of knowledge won out again.

I just checked the mike sockets, they are all Live with the master switch
off. !
Well the bird is going into the shop this coming week to have some other
poor wiring put back to standard so that is now on the list as well.
A previous installer really made a mess of the wiring when he put in the
wing strobes.
I won't go into details but the result was a toggle switch, poorly placed
next to the engine tach which controlled Nav lights and Strobes individually
on and off.
We are putting in the normal split switch to control beacon and strobes, and
returning the nav lights to the normal switch / dimmer control wheel.

Thanks for all the pointers and, as is often the case, Jim was on the money
once again.

--
Roy
N5804F Piper Archer

"I have had some bad landings but I have never missed the runway"


"RST Engineering" wrote in message
...

"mikem" wrote in message
ups.com...
Unearth the aircraft battery, look to see if there are any connections
to the positive pole upstream from the master relay. You might find
one: the clock keep-alive circuit which should have a 1A cartridge
fuse in series with it. If there are any other connections upstream of
the master relay, you need to trace them to see where they go.

I believe the certification regs allow up to a 5 amp breaker/fuse directly
from the battery for "keep alive".



With the master off, it is
unpowered, and it would not matter if headsets were plugged in or not.
It supplies the mic current to the backseat headsets, so if it is off,
they are off too. Sounds like some dumb**** who didn't have a clue
installed the intercom!

Amen to the dumb**** comment. The easy way to tell if this is a ds
problem is to get an aircraft mic plug (0.206" diameter) into the back
seat mic jack(s) and see if there is voltage with respect to airframe
ground on either of the two hot leads (ring or tip) with the master switch
off. If there is voltage present, read the paragraph above, especially
the last sentence. While I cannot conceive of voltage being on the
aircraft phones plug, just to satisfy the curious, do the same test on the
hot lead of a phones plug (0.250" diameter) plugged into the back seat
jack(s)



A common problem with older electrically-powered self-winding aircraft
clocks is that the winding solenoid intermitently sticks on, which will
run down your battery is short order.
As the clock spring runs down, a switch closes, applying power to a
solenoid, which is supposed to "wind UP" the spring, causing the switch
contact to open again. If the switch stays on, the solenoid remains
powered... Best fix is to chuck the mechanical clock and replace it
with a LCD pure electronic version...

Many of the Target/K-Mart "travel alarm clocks" can be gutted and
installed into an old mechanical clock housing. They run from a single AA
cell that can be clipped to the back of the case. Change the battery
every annual and you don't have to have a keep-alive breaker/fuse
installed at all.

Jim