My new job requires I work into my evenings as most of my colleagues / customers are on EST and I am on GMT.
As such I do a couple of hours in the workshop in the mornings and collapse with a beer in the evenings.
This morning I wrapped up the chute flap release cable bracketry and hooked up the spare car battery.
Just the cable and the flap buckle, no load on the flap from the pilot yet.
To my great disappointment the linear actuator (aka car door central locking thingy) struggled to pull the pin.
Stainless reckons these have sufficient grunt and Kiwi Sid directed me to the cone idea for the cable to engage with less stiction so it must be me.
Turns out 9.4 volts is not enough to excite the actuator and an hour on a charger and 12.5 volts later it went with a whoosh. I will preload the sprung pilot and see if it is still up to the job, then attach the assembly to the chute tube properly. I struggled to push against it with full voltage so that is cause for optimism.
I also put a bump stop on the secondary / manual cable pull lever so it does not over reach in the excitement of grabbing the cockpit handle and yanking.