Battery selector failure

[btrjillo]

Hi all,

yesterday I shut down the mighty rotax for a quiet glide (no lift).  I then switched from 1+2 to 1 (the front battery) for practice.   The dynon display then notified me that I had lost ship’s power, or some such phrase.  Back to normal upon switching back to 1+2 or 2.  Futzed around with it a bit to confirm it wasn’t operator error.  The engine restarted normally in the 1+2 position.

A local A+P/AI friend dove right in and discovered that the battery switch had broken internally, and it obviously wasn’t  making contact in the 1 position.  I guess I was lucky it made any contact at all, and probably  shouldn’t have kept futzing with it in flight as I might have had the opportunity to make my first power off landing…    At least I was in range of my home airport…

I’m going to pick up a replacement tomorrow  at Westmarine, who has the “Blue Sea systems 6007” in stock.  
 

Please note:  Reading the reviews online,  it seems others have had the same failure with this switch ( but their boats continued to float afterwards…)

Bryan 

N70JZ

U15/29

[btrjillo]

Picked up the new unit today, same model number, but seems redesigned and beefier. Should go right in.

[btrjillo]

Here’s what the failed selector looks like. You can see where the screws pulled out. One shouldn’t be able to see the inside like this. I was able to restart the engine only because the rear battery was still making contact.  
So please be advised, this is a possible point of failure for engine start...and again, the reviews on WestMarine show that many others had this same failure.   The new one, which has the same model number, seems to have been redesigned, and is heavier and seemingly beefier.