DC-6 Ignition Vibrator expertise?

[Daddio]

Who knows how to adjust these things? It's an American Bosch, AN4181-1, Type VJ6 24A1, 27 volts, 2.7 amps, Aircraft Engine Starting Vibrator.

The story: My wind generator R2800-CB3 (yes, actually used to generate wind, for testing purposes) gave me trouble several months ago when the vibrator broke. It was obvious what wire broke loose, and repairing it is one approach, and on my to-do list one of these days. I was able to get the ol' girl to start by jumping across the break. It was "tricky".
I ordered a replacement vibrator, got the thing installed, and it worked great! For one day...
The next round of testing a couple weeks later had me stumped when the replacement unit didn't want to buzz at all. I fiddled with the few components that were clearly designed for such fiddling, and I got it to work great! For two days...
I've now been through several rounds of fiddling and refiddling, 'cause I can always manage to get 'er running. But I have no clue how to tell if the performance I'm getting out of the vibrator is anywhere near nominal. The broken unit I replaced had gone for a decade in my hands, and I'm guessing many decades before that.

I'm looking at options such as: 1) keep fiddling with this, 2) repair the old one - well I plan on that anyway, 3) find another replacement vibrator, 4) find an equivalent maybe solid state? item...

Any help would be appreciated! Not many folks still flying 6's are there?
Thanks!
D²

 

[dick56]

Who knows how to adjust these things? It's an American Bosch, AN4181-1, Type VJ6 24A1, 27 volts, 2.7 amps, Aircraft Engine Starting Vibrator.

The story: My wind generator R2800-CB3 (yes, actually used to generate wind, for testing purposes) gave me trouble several months ago when the vibrator broke. It was obvious what wire broke loose, and repairing it is one approach, and on my to-do list one of these days. I was able to get the ol' girl to start by jumping across the break. It was "tricky".
I ordered a replacement vibrator, got the thing installed, and it worked great! For one day...
The next round of testing a couple weeks later had me stumped when the replacement unit didn't want to buzz at all. I fiddled with the few components that were clearly designed for such fiddling, and I got it to work great! For two days...
I've now been through several rounds of fiddling and refiddling, 'cause I can always manage to get 'er running. But I have no clue how to tell if the performance I'm getting out of the vibrator is anywhere near nominal. The broken unit I replaced had gone for a decade in my hands, and I'm guessing many decades before that.

I'm looking at options such as: 1) keep fiddling with this, 2) repair the old one - well I plan on that anyway, 3) find another replacement vibrator, 4) find an equivalent maybe solid state? item...

Any help would be appreciated! Not many folks still flying 6's are there?
Thanks!
D²

Daddio, that vibrator is used on many engines. I have the same one in my Cessna 340. We used that one in the R-2800 in the Tigercat. Are you sure that the problem might not be in the 28 volt power coming to the vibrator? I assume you have some sort of switch or push buton between the battery and the vibrator so there may be an intermittent wire problem in that circuit or in the ground wiring circuit. The vibrator puts out a spark of 20K volts or more so one has to be careful when testing for the spark. If you hear it buzzing, 99% of the time the vibrator is putting out spark as the built in vibrator is what makes and breaks the coil circuit for the spark. As you say, they have been around for decades so they are not rocket science.

If you hold the output lead about 3/8" from a ground, it should spark that far as a continuous stream of blue sparks, but be well insulated from the output lead. Also your problem could be in the mag as the vibrator output goes to the mag and depending on the mag, the mag could have a separate set of points that direct the vibrator spark to the mag distributor which send the spark to the individual spark plus of that mag. Hope this helps. Dick Welsh