Avionics arrived
Between the Tour de France (kudos to Floyd) and the mid-80 temps in the garage, productivity has been very low lately. Both seem to be done, so hopefully I can crank on the plane again.
Some of the avionics arrived today. The autopilot is shipping direct from Trutrak, which I’ve read has been slow about filling orders lately. I also waited to order the GNS-430 GPS. Garmin, as expected, announced their WAAS-capable version of the 430 on Sunday. It’s only about a grand more than the old non-WAAS model, so I’ll get that for sure. Should be available in the Fall.
What did arrive was the GTX-327 transponder, SL-40 back-up radio, PMA 8000B audio panel, a tray for the GNS-430, and a mess of wires. The wiring looks to be pretty close to correct. For some reason Stark wired the ARCIN IN A and IN B together rather than the ARINC IN A and OUT A. That would have made more sense. I might have to snip and crimp a few things. Overall the harness looks good.
I spent some time looking at the harness, messing around with the trays, testing the fit in the panel, etc. The cutout that Ross made in the panel for the avionics is actually not wide enough for the trays or bezels to fit through. I’m not sure if that’s correct or not. Seems like it will work OK for the audio panel and transponder. There’s a bit of a gap between the bezel and tray that will hold the panel quite nicely. The SL-40 however doesn’t have a gap. This will take some head scratching to figure out.
I also received my order from Vans containing some miscellaneous hardware I needed, and some .040 sheet I’m going to use as a shelf for the fuse blocks and other modules. A lot of builders attach these to the subpanel or ribs, but they’ll be much easier to reach through the access hatches on the shelf. Thanks to JimP for that idea.
The good part is that I can move forward with a lot of stuff now. Many things were waiting on the avionics to arrive.