We are often asked about the products and services we provide, from Aviation headset repairs to our in house built and industry leading Ground crew extension lead assemblies.
Here are some of the most frequently asked ones.
Q: Do you sell new or recondition products.
A: We only sell brand new direct from the manufactures products, we do not sell any reconditioned, second hand or serviced products.
Q: Do you carry out all repairs in house?
A: All repairs sent to us are carried out by our fully approved and fully electronics qualified and trained workshop technicians allowing us to offer a service like no others, many of our competitors are not electronics trained and are in-fact in house trained at best, this can lead to poor workmanship and poor repairs, some companies claim to do repairs in house but will ship them to a third party to carry out your repair meaning your repair costs increase as your paying there markup price on work they never carried out.
Q: Do you offer a fast turnaround for repairs?
A: Yes we offer what we like to feel is the quickest turnaround of repairs that a customer can find, we try to turnaround repairs in 3 to 4 working days (Subject to parts availability), we have heard others charge extra for this service but we like to offer this service at no extra charger.
Q: Are your Aviation Ground Crew Extension Leads different to others?
A: Yes they are, unlike others we use all the manufactures recommended strain relief in the socket assembly and we manufacture the plug and socket assembly following the manufactures recommend fitting instructions, this leads to our leads having superior construction which leads to longer reliability and less times your assembly requires repair or replacement.
Q: My Aviation Ground Crew Cable has accidentally snapped, Is it scrap?
A: No not necessary, if the socket assembly is still complete we are proud to be the only company who can replace your lead for a new one and still keep the costs low enough to make it cost effective, this is due to the large number of cable assemblies we manufacture meaning our costs are lower then others.
Q: How often should I change my headset or eardefender hygiene kits.
A: this is always a difficult question to answer as it will depend on many factors, usage, how long they are used, where they are stored when not in use are just some of the questions to ask but in normal usage you should look to replace your ear hygiene kits every 6 months, if you are using the units frequently like for work usage then you should look to replace them more frequently, many of the headsets have a black ring that snaps into the headset, over time this ring becomes compressed and you start to loose your seal around you head which in turn means the unit looses its seal. If you use your unit occasionally you still should look to change the ear seals at least every 12 months as the seals will start to loose there effective seal around your head. A new set of seals does make the unit feel like new and your be surprised how much of a difference in comfort and noise attenuation this makes when replacing used and worn ear seals.
Q: Are there different plug types used on aviation headsets?
A: Yes there is there are Twin Plugs found on many Aviation Flight Deck Aircraft there is a Mic Jack Plug and a Earphone Jack Plug that you plug into the two sockets. There is also a UK Nato Brass plug with 4 rings, these are used on all UK Military aircraft and some helicopters. There is a USA Nato Silver plug, this looks similar to the UK NATO plug but has a silver nickel finish and a smaller body diameter and found on many helicopters and aviation ground crew headsets but they come in two types of wiring, one for flight deck use and one for ground crew use. there are XLR plugs that are round nickel body with Black Body (Other colours available for the body section but Black is the more common found) and come in three, four or the more common 5 pin XLR plug version these are found commonly on the Airbus range of Aircraft.
Q: Do Microphones come in different types?
A: Yes they come in many different shapes and sizes but more importantly come in different types, there is Dynamic, Electret, Carbon and Electromagnetic Microphones.
Dynamic: Essentially, a Dynamic microphone works like a loudspeaker in reverse, Dynamic microphones have a coil of wire that sits in a magnetic field, which passes through either a positive or negative energy depending on whether the diaphragm is pushed in due to high pressure or pulled out due to low pressure. The signal is then passed through a transformer, which balances the output signal before it is carried through the output. Dynamic microphones do not require a power supply.
Electret: An electret microphone is a type of electrostatic capacitor-based microphone, which eliminates the need for a polarizing power supply by using a permanently charged material. An electret is a stable dielectric material with a permanently embedded static electric charge (which, due to the high resistance and chemical stability of the material, will not decay for hundreds of years). The name comes from electrostatic and magnet; drawing analogy to the formation of a magnet by alignment of magnetic domains in a piece of iron. Electrets are commonly made by first melting a suitable dialectic material such as a plastic or wax that contains polar molecules, and then allowing it to re-solidify in a powerful electrostatic field. The polar molecules of the dielectric align themselves to the direction of the electrostatic field, producing a permanent electrostatic “bias”. Modern electret microphones use PTFE plastic, either in film or solute form, to form the electret.
Carbon: A Carbon microphone, also known as a carbon button microphone (or sometimes just a button microphone), uses a capsule or button containing carbon granules pressed between two metal plates. A voltage is applied across the metal plates, causing a small current to flow through the carbon. One of the plates, the diaphragm, vibrates in sympathy with incident sound waves, applying a varying pressure to the carbon. The changing pressure deforms the granules, causing the contact area between each pair of adjacent granules to change, and this causes the electrical resistance of the mass of granules to change. The changes in resistance cause a corresponding change in the current flowing through the microphone, producing the electrical signal. Carbon microphones have extremely low-quality sound reproduction and a very limited frequency response range, but are very robust.
Electromagnetic Microphones: These are very similar in the way the Dynamic microphone works but uses a rocking armature system for the coil and magnetic assembly.
Q: Why do 3M Peltor have SNR and NRR ratings on boxes?
A: 3M Peltor use the same boxes worldwide and there are different testing standards across the main two supply countries, both a valid readings but do not confuse one with the other as they are totally different.
SNR and NRR are two standards for measuring the attenuation of a hearing protection product.
SNR is the EU standard, while NRR is the US standard.
The testing procedure is slightly different between them and the calculations involved are different.
Both ratings are designed to give a good estimate of real-world noise reduction in decibels when the hearing protection is fitted properly in most real-world noise environments.
Since they are both designed to reduce the complexities of noise attenuation to a single number, actual performance will differ depending on a variety of factors.
It’s important to consider the noise environment that the protection will be used in, and how well the hearing protection product is fitted.
