The BNC connectors arrived from Mouser and they are indeed the exact same ones as from SteinAir. I hooked up some coax for the VOR, glide slope, and marker beacon antennas.
I also tried out some knobs I ordered from Mouser for the dimmers. I like it better than the blue knobs I picked up at Radio Shack a few weeks ago.
My order from Spruce arrived with the VOR/GS splitter. I mounted that to the subpanel and strung coax from the right side of the fuselage to there for the VOR/GS and marker beacon.
Waiting on the order from Mouser before I can hook everything up. I had a little trouble running the coax through F-704. The snap bushings are reduced in size a little bit because of the poor placement Vans has on these bushings. They’re right up against the doublers, which squish the bushings. I ended up having extra room in the bushings in the middle of F-704, so I moved the COM2 antenna over there. Problem solved.
Didn’t get much done. I installed most of the bolts and screws for the right fuel tank.
A few parts that I ordered from B&C showed up, so I could continue with wiring. I hooked up the alternator output to a 60 amp circuit breaker on the panel. I also installed the diode rectifier for the landing lights and hooked it up, running some 14 AWG wire out to the wings for the lights. The diodes will allow one switch to control the flasher and turn on both lights solid.
I’m getting down to the last few items on wiring. I hooked up a white LED and a little switch in the roll bar support cover that I made a while back. That’ll serve as a baggage compartment light.
I also ran some coax to the left antenna for the GNS430 comm, although I need some more coax connectors before I can attach both ends. The last wiring task was to hook up a wire to the battery bus. So far, nothing is hooked up to that bus yet. I’m expecting the AF-3400 will use it.
To finish off the panel, I did some more thinking about where I want the parking brake lever. I can’t decide on a good location yet. I did decide to mount the alternate air lever on a little angle below the panel. That way it’s right next to the throttle quadrant. I also mounted the cabin heat lever, although I didn’t hook up the other end yet.
Between Adele’s soccer game and a general lack of motivation, I didn’t spend much time on the plane. I hooked up the ignition wires to the P-mags which I previously started on. I also installed the neat little baffle grommets and special wire clamps on the bottom valve cover screws. I still need to figure out routing a little bit, but it’s looking good.
Since the P-mags are installed again, I hooked up the power, ground, and enable wires to them. I ran the ground wires to a stud on the (unused) vacuum pad. I also hooked up a 2-conductor shielded wire I bought from Spruce to the control lines. These can be hooked up to a serial port on a computer to change the amount of timing advance. For now, I’m planning on just hooking the wires to each other in the cockpit, which selects a conservative advance.
I also installed a stereo mini jack from Radio Shack in the bottom flange of the panel and hooked it up to the music input of the PMA-8000B. I plugged in my iPod and it worked perfectly. The music mutes during activity on the active frequency, unless the “Mute” button is pushed. The music jack is automatically grounded at the panel, which is not ideal. If I run into problems with it, I’ll swap it out.
The Gretz pitot tube has a little indicator module that displays green for “temp OK”, yellow for “pitot heat on”, and red for “temp low”. The control module cycles the pitot heat on and off to keep it just warm enough to prevent icing. I marked out the location of the holes so the middle LED would line up with the switches. I was going to make the holes 1/4″ apart, but then figured that was too close for the LED holders that I picked up at Radio Shack. Instead I put them 11/32″ apart. I carefully drilled out the holes making sure they stayed lined up and equally spaced apart. It ended up looking great.
Of course I had to temporarily hook up the pitot tube to make sure it all worked. Flipped the switch and the two bottom LEDs turned on. The tip of the pitot heated up very quickly. After about 10 seconds, the middle LED went out indicated the heater turned off. Perfect-o.
The final item for the night was drilling a hole for the alternator feed circuit breaker just to the right of the middle bank of switches. I mounted it, but need a few parts from B&C in order to hook it up.
Time for a status shot of the panel. This is everything but the AFS units (paper ones in place for this shot), the GNS-430 (waiting for the WAAS unit), and a few control knobs (parking brake, cabin heat, and alternate air). It’s looking pretty good. Just about time to ship it off to the power coater.
Finished wiring up the trim switch on the panel. According to the wiring diagrams from Ray Allen, two diodes are needed on the standard trim switch in order to use it with a relay. I soldered the diodes inline and covered them with heat shrink. I then connected up the switch using a Microfit connector. I don’t have the elevator installed. I can’t even get to it at the moment. Instead I hooked up a voltmeter to the elevator trim motor lines and had Adele watch the display while I moved the stick and panel switches. I need to turn the panel switch upside down, but it otherwise worked perfectly.
Next up was the power outlet. I’m using the same scheme as Walter Tondu. I’m using a small outlet in the bottom flange of the panel. I’ll make an adapter for the standard cigarette lighter outlet, and probably modify the power cords of stuff I’ll use often like the iPod. The case of the outlet is already connected to the shell of the connector, so I used that for ground and connected the pin to the main fuse panel via 16 AWG. That should easily handle any load up to 15A. Picture is kinda dark, but you get the idea.
Time to order a few more parts from B&C. I just about have the wiring wrapped up until the wings are on or the EFIS/EMS harness is available. I also worked on the paperwork for registering the plane. It’s about time to send that in.
I got home a little early and painted the covers while the sun was still up. Hopefully that’s the last of the painting, but I’m sure there will be at least one more item.
Back to the panel, I installed the elevator trim switch in the panel. It’s basically a back-up and way for the co-pilot to control elevator trim. I figure aileron trim isn’t nearly as critical as elevator trim, so I have just the one switch on the panel.
Once that was installed, I started the wiring for the trim/stick behind the panel. I have two of the Ray Allen wire bundles coming to the panel from the stick carrying the indicator lines, A/P switch on the stick, and power and ground for the trim. I hooked up the power and ground and A/P switch and tested them. It all works. Looks like a bit of a mess, but once it’s all tie-wrapped it’ll look great.
