I've been getting a lot of inquiries about an article that
appeared recently in Sport Aviation. The letter below is exemplary
of the questions I'm getting, so I thought I would share it with
everyone . . .
-----------------------------
>Last night I read an article in the latest "Sport Aviation" (the one with
>that beautiful red Staggerwing on the cover) and saw that you "took some
>heat" from another guy in the electrical business about your use of "spade"
>lugs for aircraft electrical connections.
>
>I would be interested in your response to that article.
I reviewed that article two years ago for Jack Cox and recommended
that it not be published. The article was preachy, gave lots of
"donts" without describing the alterative "dos" and offered
advice that contradicted decades of industry standard practices.
It completely ignored the physics involved in making vibration
resistant wire connections suited for airplanes. Please be confident
that terminals we sell and tools we supply for installing them are in step
with aircraft industry practice and that much of what Mr. Burgher
recommends is certain to produce inferior results.
I will be publising a line-by-line critical review of the article
soon. I will have my work reviewed by at least two other aircraft
electrical engineers and include their comments should they care
to contribute to the work.
>BTW, I have purchased from you a complete set of spade connectors, and your
>40-point "grounding lug" assembly which connects through the firewall. I
>havent' gotten to that point of my restoration yet, so those parts are all
>still "in the bag."
>
>On one hand, the continuous ring style lug seems less likely to come off
>than a spade connector. On the other hand, my 1940-vintage "Ford" voltage
>regulator has spade connectors which have NEVER come off in 10+ years of
>flying . . .
Ring terminals don't COME OFF, they GET LOOSE. A partial revolution
of the threaded fastener kills the joint. Ring terminals are FINE
devices, it's our techniques for attaching to them that sucks.
I'll suggest that your observations are in line with recommendations
I've published for years. Folks interested in further background
topics touched on by Mr. Burgher are invited to check out articles
at:
http://www.aeroelectric.com/articles.html
Look down the page for works on "big terminals" and "fast-on
spade terminals". When the review is completed, I'll publish
in on our website and let everyone know of its availability. I'm
also going to regenerate and post an aritcle I did several years
ago for another magazine on crimped terminals . . . much of the data
for that article came right out of the AMP, Inc. engineering
applications manual.
Bob . . .
////
(o o)
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