A new chip detector: Reliable—versatile—inexpensive

For over a decade, electric chip detectors have been installed in virtually all helicopter transmissions and engines and in many propulsion and drive systems of military fixed‐wing aircraft. They contain a magnet which attracts the ferrous debris shed into the lube system by failing components and retains it for later visual inspection and failure verification. The debris particles which fall across the gap between two electrodes act like a switch and activate a chip warning light (see figure 1).