Panel sanding

I sanded down the epoxy/micro mixture I used to fill the holes, don't think you'll be able to tell where the were once painted.

I decided to put the canopy back on the fuse so I could determine seat cushions for Sandi. Here is where my evening went downhill... into gluminess. The whole tip-up canopy fit is horrible... between the design and my workmanship ship.. it really sucks. There is a 1/8"+ gap between the canopy decks and the side skins. For some reason the pilot side is pushed aft more than it was the last time, so it isn't closing right... and the gap up front is huge. Along the middle area of the tip-up skin where it meets the fueslage top skin.. it sits to low and is bit concave, which is also why the canopy frame itself is too wide. Seeing this really put me in a funk. I'm seriously considering ordering new tip-up frame pieces and starting over. It would cost me about $400 and a lot of time.

(Time: 1.5 Hours)

Filling holes...

Between a stop at the chiropractor, dinner and horrendous traffic, we didn't get home until late, so I spent about an hour removing the round instruments from the panel and then mixing up a batch of epoxy/micro to fill the panel mount screw holes. I offset the ribs and on the passenger side I didn't consume the two screw holes with an instrument yet, so I thought I'd just fill them before I paint.

Since I had a lot of expoxy left over, I grabbed the end caps for the horizontal stabilizer and smeared a bunch of the mixture over the ends. Way back when I used some balsa/fiberglass to close out the ends on these. I'll sand it all down when it dries to get a smooth surface.

(Time: 1 Hour)

More wiring....

I pulled all of the wires out of the connector for the CDI so I could reroute them through a hole in the sub-panel and then reconnected them all.

I installed the two accessory power outlets. I mounted one on the passenger side sub-panel. It won't be accessible in flight. I struggled to find a place to mount the second one but landed on the perfect place! I mounted it on the fuel selector valve cover. It will be down low, hidden but easily accessible.





I also debated on where to mount the OAT. The best place would be out in the wing somewhere sticking out in the breeze. In the end, I decided to put it right next to the flap pushrod exit hole. I figure there will be lots air coming in through that hole. The only downside is that is is likely to pick up exhaust, causing a higher reading.. may have to rethink the location now that I just typed that.

I fussed with the engine monitor a bit. They default Aux 1 to be Manifold Pressure but I had that in Aux 2. Probably would have been easier to just switch the pins but I reprogrammed it instead. Also set the scale for the fuel pressure sensor.

I tested the dongle that FDS sent me for dimming the transonder.. it didn't work.. I got no lights at all out of it. I'll just leave it be and let transponder be full bright all the time.

Caused myself lots of damage today... burned my finger on soldering iron, kicked the nosewheel with my little toe and whacked the inside of my right ankle on the canopy strut bracket climbing out of the fuselage to answer the phone... it was Bill.

My list of electrical things to finish inside the fueslage is down to half a dozen or less.

(Time: 5 Hours)

Switch and dimmer pots..

EAA Chapter meeting first thing in the morning, got to see a Rotec radial engine and Kitfox project. I think I'll drop Lycoming and install a radial in the RV!

I stopped by Ray's on the way home to have him help me wire the led-tipped switch I bought to use as a GPS/NAV switch. That took 45 min.

Next stop on the way home was at the upholstery people's house. I found a local retired couple who does upholstery to cover the foam I ordered. Had a nice chat with them. We've picked out the material, foam should arrive on Monday.

Back in the workshop.. and it's 2:30 already. I fussed with some rubber stoppers and headphone jacks as a quick-disconnect option for the passenger stick. Quit about and hour later... need to rethink this a bit.

Wired up the new nav/gps switch and installed in panel.







(You can see the resistor soldered in place on the switch to drop the voltage down to 2 volts for the LED.)

Mounted the 4th dimmer pot that will control the instrument dimming. I installed it next to the avionics dimmer pot, which required me to relocate it a bit. I created a little 'cover' to hide the hole. (Bill's idea. It came out a bit crooked.. I may have to fix that.. it will bug me.)



I also tested the wig-wag circuit on my landing lights... and it works great!

I mounted the CDI to see how well the connector is going to fit on the back.. it isn't. I'll have to drill a hole in the sub-panel directly behind the CDI and fish the wires through that, which means I'll have to take all the wires out of the db connector first and then put them back in.

(Time: 4 Hours)

Avionics fan and small stuff

My B&C order arrived, so I ran a wire to the hobbs meter. I wired up the compass light to the dimmer circuit. I troubleshooted the fuel gauge light.. just a loose lamp... if it keeps wiggling loose in flight I'll have to replace the socket. I rerouted my pitot tube so it wasn't making a tight bend. I tested the pitot and position light circuits at the wing roots just to make sure they worked. My fuel pump works. Oddly enough, the 2-10 switch used for the master and my wig-wag gets mounted with the keyway up but the other switches get mounted with keyway down.

I mounted my new Lonestar Cyclone avionics cooling fan. I hadn't thought about a cooling fan until I read a post somewhere that the KLN-89B runs hot. I bought a 3-port version from ACS... for what amounts to a CPU fan with ports on it, they are expensive! I hooked up the tubing to the trays. The airflow isn't real equal between the tubes so I used the two highest volume ports for the 89B and 155. I may hook one up to the transponder but I'll have to relocate my fuel warning brain box... and since the transponder isn't in the stack.. I may just leave it alone.

(Time: 1.5 Hours)

Wire AH, Canopy clearance

I wired the pwr/gnd to the artificial horizon plug and spun it up. (I wired the ground to the wrong pin at first.) The OFF flag shows until the gyro is completely spun up, which takes a little while.

Ray had mentioned to Bill and I to be careful how high we put our radio's in the radio stack. The canopy frame and tip-up brace could interfere/rub on whatever is up top if you aren't careful. I forgot all about this when doing up my radio's, so I had Sandi come out and help me set the canopy on. My audio panel tray is 1.5" from the top of the panel and it is approx. 2" from the rear of the tray to the sub-panel. With the canopy in place, I could just get a finger between the tray and the reinforcement bracket on the canopy. Ray said he put his at 3/4" from top and the canopy frame was hitting the wires coming out of the back of the tray. Since my radio's are flush mounted, my tray extends back farther than normally mounted trays.

TIP: Plan for this! If you put a full length piece of avionics at the top of your stack, you could run into trouble. I would suggest marking a line on the sub-panel where the tip-up channel runs. This will tell you how high you could mount something.

I made a list of about 18 electrically related things to do but just didn't feel motivated to do them, so I went in for the evening having only crossed off one.

(Time: 1 Hour)

Instrument mounting, tubing runs

I tackled mounting the altimeter. Again, it took a long time to get the cutout for the kolsman knob made. I'd highly suggest buying a template for these cutouts if they exist. I also mounted the compass.

I went ahead and mounted the other instruments in place and attached the static tubing. This was pretty easy. I ordered a variety of fittings to use. It took me a little bit of testing to get the right combination. When I install the Dynon at some future date, I'll have to branch off the pitot/static lines and run over to the other side of the panel but that should be easy enough.





I ran a couple of #20 wires for the electric artifical horizon. I'm out of #20 wire now, so I need to order some more.



(Time: 4.5 Hours)

Engine control bracket, parking brake and CDI mounting

I started off the day by mounting the engine control cables. I pulled out the bracket that the controls mount to and marked the hole locations. The plans don't have the cables mounted symetrically, so I modifed that. Also, the plans call for four 1/2" holes... the carb heat is a 3/8" hole and the mixture cable is a 3/4" hole. I also mounted the parking brake cable on this bracket. I attached the nutplates to the sub-panel bracket, which was a challenge doing inside the plane. This is probably something you should tackle prior to riveting in the center sub-panel.

I worked on connecting the parking brake cable to the brake valve. This was fairly straight forward. I used a DG3 adel clamp to hold the cable using a small bracket I attached to one of the firewall stiffeners.

I wanted to hook the marker beacon antenna up to the audio panel but the sub-panel was blocking direct access to where I needed to connect it. So I removed the panel and enlarged the hole in the sub-panel, REMOVING THE CANOPY RELEASE MECHANISM HAT SECTION. That hat section gets in the way if you have a full height radio stack. There are so many wires running to the audio panel... and i had them all running through just a narrow slot. Guess I'll just have to bolt the canopy in place like everyone else is going.

With the panel removed I want to get back to finish mounting the instruments in the panel. I made a cut-out for the hobbs meter and punched a hole for the compass. I put them on the far left side above my key switch. It's a little busy over there but that's the best I could come up with.

I mounted the 209A CDI as well. Making the cutout for the OBS knob takes the most time since you want it to look nice... I probably spent an hour alone just mounting the CDI.

(Time: 9 Hours)

EIS Programing and rewire warning light

I mapped out how I wanted the two custom engine display screens to lay out, so I programmed those in last night. I also noticed that the warning light wasn't coming on, so I checked the wiring and discovered I had it wired incorrectly. So I changed that and it works! FYI, I replaced the stock round EIS light with a nicer square one from ACS. Matt Burch said that round one was hard to see. The square one sure gets your attention and it looks nicer too.

(Time: 1 Hour)

Engine monitor

I ran some more sensor wires for the engine monitor, re-mounted the manifold pressure sensor (twice). I terminated all the wires to the DB-25 connector and plugged it in and turned on the unit.. worked just fine the first time! I really can't tell if the sensors are working yet and I need to sit down with the book in front of me to know what numbers are where. I need to run wires to the tach and the OAT and that will complete the wiring of the EIS besides hooking up the CHT/EGT wires when the engine is hung.

Tip: When mounting items to ribs the run between the firewall and sub-panel, make sure you don't block access to buck the rivets. I installed the mp sensor almost at the top and then realized I'd never be able to set half a dozen rivets, so I moved it down to provide better access.

(Time: 2 Hours)

Transponder dimming and sensor wiring

I wired the Garmin 320 transponder to a seperate dimming circuit and confirmed that the 'pulsing' still exists. (http://www.n523rv.com/P8160074.MOV)

Next I moved on to wiring up the 4th dimmer channel for the instrument lights. I wired up the fuel gauges, CDI and left a wire for the compass to attach to. Upon testing, one of my fuel gauge lights isn't working. I didn't troubleshoot it yet.

Next I ran some wires for the oil and fuel pressure sensors.



(Time: 2 Hours)

Radio trasmits.... dimmer circuit wiring

I cleaned up the wires for the switched in/out power since I had just used a wire nut to connect them yesterday. Then I worked on wiring up the PTT in the stick grip. I connected the grip to the terminal switch under the seat and armed Sandi with the portable and did a mic check. It works! Whew... that's a relief.

Next I started working on the dimmer circuits. I bought the LC-40 dimmer from Van's. I fussed around with a location to install it and decided on the firewall side of the sub-panel. I pulled out the instructions and tried to figure out the wiring. The instructions are in color but the wires going to the dimmer switch weren't colored correctly (two blacks) so I couldn't tell exactly how to wire them up. The instructions clearly say if you have trouble to call... so hey.. it's Sunday at 12:00pm.. maybe I can reach someone. I called and no answer so I went about just stringing wires to the dimmer and about 20 minutes later, sandi radioed me that someone was on the phone. It was Flight Data Systems.... they saw the call on their caller-id and called me back! Talk about service! He said I wasn't the only one to call about the wiring on the switches and gave me what I needed.

I wired up the two led 'map lights' I installed on the sides of the cabin. They work great! (At least the come on and dim.. i need to go out there at night and see how bright they are.) I installed the dimmer switches on the inboard facing surface of the F-721A forward canopy deck. Ray did this on his -9 and I liked it.



I wired up the the 89B, audio panel and transponder to the dimmer and installed the dimmer switch on my center console at the top. The Garmin has a problem with the dimming circuit... it pulses when set anywhere between full on or off. I'm not sure what the problem is or what the solution might be. The 89B and audio panel dim just fine!

The fourth dimming circuit will be the instrument lights.. which right now only include the compass and fuel gauge lights. I also need to wire in my music input jack.

Not sure if I should be embarrassed by this wiring mess or not... it sure is hard keeping things neat. As long as it works, I guess I'll be happy.



(Time: 7 Hours)

audio panel and nav/com alive!

I wired up the ground wires to the audio panel this morning and turned it on. Damned if it didn't work! Sandi came out and we put the headsets on to check it out. Seems to work just fine!

The last avionic equipment to tackle was the KX-155 nav/com. I needed to get the antenna's wired to it before I could power it up, so I did that. I have a nav splitter that splits the signal to NAV and GS, so I had two short pigtails coming off the back of the tray to the splitter. I'd suggest putting this pigtails on before you mount the tray as I had a hard time making the connections with the tray in the plane and wires all over the place.

I slid the radio in place, double-checked that the power and ground wires were hooked up and to the right pins, slid the radio in place, flipped the master switch and turned the power on the radio..... nuttin! UGHH! Double-checked connections.. yep all were right. Looked at wiring diagram for something I missed. The only thing I could see were two switched power in pins and two switched power out pins. The diagram shows all of these being tied together with a lead running out to the CDI for power if you need it. I didn't tie these together because I really didn't understand why they would be all tied together. So I ran two power wires from the bus into the two switched power in connections. As soon as I turned on the master swtich, the radio lit up! Well... that's odd since the power switch on the radio is OFF. I posted a message to the aeroelectric list hoping someone might have an answer. Then I went back out and decided to just wire it like the wiring diagram says by tying all four wires together. Well what do you know.. it worked! It looks like those power out pins feed the power in pins which feed the display.. and also the CDI when you have it hooked up. Seems like an awfully weird way of wiring things, but hey it works.

I was all excited to test out the transmit on the radio and gave sandi the portable radio and ran out to the shop, put the headset on, turned on the radio and........ uhhh.... oopss.. haven't wired a PTT button! Oh well.. false alarm.

So... audio panel is working... radio at least comes on... tomorrow I'll wire the PTT switches so I can test the transmit on the radio. If the weather is clear I may roll the fuse out in the yard and see if I can pick up any planes flying around. I'm too far from any airport to pick up anything so may have to listen to approach control.

(Time: 4 Hours)

Audio panel wiring

I didn't have any real goals when I went out to the shop tonight and kinda spun my wheels for awhile but started to tackle the headset/microphone wiring that goes into the back of the audio panel. By 10:00 I had pretty much finished it. Couple of notes here....

1) Make sure you label everything.. especially after you cut the label off on wires that had extra length. I was about to hook up what I thought was the copilot mic wires and realized that wasn't what I had in my hand.

2) Leave extra length to allow panel to be pulled out! It just dawned on me this morning on the way to work that I didn't leave ANY extra length in the wiring to allow the panel to be pulled away some. This could prove to be a big mistake but one I'm not going to correct as it would require pulling lots of new wire.

3) Pay attention to what wires go to what pins on the tray. MOST of the time when a pair of wires connect to a tray the pins are close to each other. Every now and then they slip in connections that are on opposite ends of the connector, such as my pilot headphones! I had to cut the end off and extend one of the wires.

I finished up the evening by crawling into the baggage compartment and replacing the stereo headset jacks with mono versions. (Everything is mono so it just made sense to stick mono jacks in...) Of course, working in the baggage compartment with a hot soldering iron was fun! I only flinged hot solder on my legs 3 times...

(Time: 3 Hours)

Transponder online

Hooked up the power/ground wires for the transponder and terminated the ends on the antenna. Hooked the wires up and slid the unit in tray and turned it on. Discovered I needed the 14v lighting circuit wired in to get any indication it was on, so I temporarily stuck it on a fuse.. appears to work! The transponder also feeds the encoder it's power, so I confirmed the encoder was feeding the GPS altitude data and it appears it is.



I obviously need to get the dimmer circuit installed.... and the audio panel will be next followed by the nav/com. Weds. is movie night so no more work until Thursday.

(Time: 1.5 Hours; 82.5 Total to date)

KLN-89B works!

With help of builder-buddy-bill, we got the 89B working. First we confirmed I didn't fry it by powering it on with an external power supply wired for the 89b. It came right on. Damn.. why isn't it working in the plane! I opened up the connectors on the external power supply to see how it was wired to compare it with how I had wired it. The ONLY difference was I didn't have power running to the 14v Lighting pin and the Voltage monitoring pin. I think it was probably the 14v lighting pin that needed a connection to run the display. The 89b will monitor bus voltage and warn you if it drops below a preset level, so I'll have yet another LV warning system. So I made up a quick wire and hooked up those to pins.

With it powered on in the plane! and hooked up to the antenna, I rolled the fuse out into the open to make sure it picked up a GPS signal. I compared the lat/long position it displayed with the Garmin 196 and all appears well. Now I just have to figure out how to operate the darn thing.

(Time: 1 Hours)

Avionics wiring continued...

Spent all Saturday afternoon/evening wiring. I pretty much finished all the wiring of the 155/89b/209A with each other and ran the audio wires up to the audio panel.

Sunday... I was pretty ineffectual today.. low energy.. did a lot of wheel spinning. I did make the cutout in the sub-panel for the radio racks to fit through. I put the panel in place.. immediatly had an issue with the BNC connector on the back of the transponder. Since I flush mounted it, it extends back to where the bnc connector is almost touching the sub-panel.. and it just so happens the is nearly falls in line with the rib that runs from the sub-panel to the firewall.. an 1" more outboard and it would have been OK. I think I just barely have enough room to get a cable connected with some minor modification to the sub-panel.

I wanted to try and turn on something... so I made up a antenna cable for the 89B and hooked up the GPS antenna. I put the fast-on tabs to all the power and ground connections for everything. I tried to get the GPS turned on but it wouldn't come on. I double-checked all the connections (missed a ground wire) but still couldn't get it to power up. I don't know what the hec is going on.

I was certainly enjoying the wiring but now I'm kinda burned out on it and frustrated that the GPS didn't come on.

(Time: 12 Hours)

Avionics wiring has begun!

Didn't get started working until late and ended up staying up until 11:30 working on the wiring.....

I've started wiring the KX-155 and KLN-89B to the KI-209A CDI. I managed to get the 11 unshielded wires made up and connected. I wasn't paying attention and made up 11 wires with a female DB pin on one end and the king connector on the other end and then realized the 89b tray has a db connector, not a king style connector on it, so I had to make up some new ones with db pins on each end. I hope I can reuse the wires with the king connectors on them.. those things are pricey!

I bought a $130 crimper for the king connectors but can't figure out how it works yet.. I crimped a couple but the connector doesn't fit into the crimper far enough. So I used my cheap $30 crimper from SteinAir that works great! (Don't bother buying a King crimper... not needed).

Here is what our dining room table looked like this morning.



(Time: 2.5 Hours)

Radio racks mounted... ready for wiring

I attached the radio racks back to the panel and spent some time pulling out the old wires in the KX-155 connectors. I have the drawings out and ready, my wire order from SteinAir will arrive Thursday and I can start the wiring process.

(Time: 1 Hour)