cold and dark in flight

[rippey]

Running pmsystems 103c, and I accidentally turned the battery master off in flight, and was surprised when both engines shut down and everything went dark. Anyone else seen this? Is it an error in the 737 logic file, or is it a MS flight simulator thing where everything shuts off if the battery is shut off?

[Trevor Hale]

ROFL. That must have been fun. Maybe you need a switch guard on those Batts. LOL

I haven't tried. I will give it a go tonight and see what happens.

Trev

[rippey]

It was a little interesting, and its happened several times since...the latest was when I turned the seatbelt sign on for landing!! To eleborate a little more, I am using the FDS interfaceIT to connect the overhead hardware to PMSystems, and it seems as though when two switches are moved simultaneously, or when a multiple position switch is cycled quickly the PMSystems software reverts back to the state it was in when it was started...ie cold and dark.

Now just to test out my battery theory...I had engines running on the ground, standby power set to auto, both engines generators on line, and I turned the battery master switch off and sure enough...everything shut down. Any aircraft I have flown does nothing in this situation except illuminate a battery disconnect light. Most older aircraft with NiCd batteries have specific procedures instructing you to turn the batteries off in an overheat situation to prevent thermal runaway (not a problem with lead acid batteries).

Anyways, I'd like to hear if anyone else has this problem, or the problem I described about cycling switches above. In the mean time I am getting really good at in flight starts...I just leave the APU running indefinitely now!

[Trevor Hale]

That is indeed interesting. I was flying last night, and actually turning the batteries off in flight did not do anything for me. I am still running on an older version of pmsystems. I don't have the build number, but I will get it for you. I had the Gen Bus ties on so when I hit the batts, nothing happened. I am not flying the 73 and I have modified the aircraft file, that may have something to do with it. I would love to be able to run the APU in the air, but unfortunately I am unable to run the APU when the squat switch is not compressed. It's a french thing LOL.

I will play with the setup and try the default pmsystems 737 file to see if I can replicate this issue.

Good luck. I do have a small issue when I am flying and that is my seatbelt switch keeps turning it'self on and off. But I think that is my wiring issue not Pmsystems.

Oh well, without issues this wouldn't be as much fun, now would it.

Best regards,

Trev

[rippey]

An older build might just do it...I also have an issue where my pitot/vane heat annunciators blink on and off when the power is turned off...which I thought was due to my wiring, but I searched back a few threads and it looks like other people have encountered this issue with some of the recent builds.

I had no idea falcons couldn't run the APU in the air, learn something new everyday!

[Michael Carter]

727's can't either.

[Bob Reed]

Hey rippey, Can you please share with us what the problem was? Might save someone else some head banging time!

[excalibur67]

Hi at all, also in my configuration with recents build of PM System (102) i have the same problem like Rippey, in fact my zone pitot/vane heat annunciators blink on and off when the power is turned off. The hardware that i use is from Opencockpit then Rippey is not one problem of interface, then don't take head ache for this. I must say that i use the files from Thomas Richter 1051. I reported this problem 3 week ago at PM support and this was the reply from Thomas Richter:

"Hi Giuseppe, the best way is really to use the default file that comes with the ZIP. The current default file is more close to yours than you think.
It is not identical of course, but the important things are in.
We didn't receive problems like that with the default file."

Now i 'd like to know what file use Rippey for the logic PMSystem.

I hope that i have been of help at someone.

Giuseppe Reda

[rippey]

great thanks...I had ended up making some changes to the systems file that were similar, which worked for me but I'll try out the new logics and see how it goes!