Sunday, December 30, 2018

Section: 50
Hours: 5

I put the radio stack trays back and reassembled the rest of the panel.

Tuesday, December 25, 2018

Section: avionics
Hours: 5

Our kids went to the in-laws for Christmas this year so I got to spend some time in the garage. I extracted the bent pins from the P1001 connector.


Then I removed the bent pins and crimped on new ones.

The red wire was too short to be able to insert the pin back into the shell so I spliced on an extension.


Here is the shell reassembled after inserting the new pins.

Here is the other side after inserting the shell back into the tray. I'm not sure if this is going to work- as you can see the pins on the right side of the connector look a little wobbly. I won't know until I insert the GTN 650 after reassembling the panel.

Sunday, December 23, 2018

Section: avionics
Hours: 8

SteinAir sent out a set of connector pins and an extraction tool for replacing the bent pins in the P1001 connector. (see previous post).

The only way to get to the P1001 connector is to remove the radio stack trays. The only way to get to remove the trays was to remove a lot of the rest of the components. Hours later here is the result...

Here I have removed the P1001 Dsub connector and pulled off the metal case top. The pins that bent are on the right. As you can see, the wires going to the right side are stretched really tight- there is no slack. I now have to remove the bent pins and crimp on new pins. To be continued...

Sunday, December 16, 2018

Section: avionics
Hours: 5

I crimped on end connectors and attached them to the micro switch.

Then I installed the rest of the canopy wiring, the defroster fans and the LED map lighting. I just taped the lighting strip in place. Later when I figure out how deep the edge combing will be, I'll do the final attachment.

Next I rounded up the panel side wires for the canopy harness and added pins and the connector.

Saturday, December 15, 2018

Section: avionics
Hours: 4

I fished the wires through the canopy rail for connecting to the canopy closure micro switch.

Initially I tried to use electrical tape to secure the wire to the piano wire lead. Unfortunately the electrical tape caught and jammed up the channel. Luckily I was able to push the tape out of the way. Then I figured out a better way- I secured the wire to the piano wire lead using shrink tubing. This makes a low profile connection and did not get snagged in the channel.

To fish the wire out of the channel at the microswitch end, I used a push pin with a hook bent into the end. Here I've just retrieved the 1st wire out of the channel. The second wire was a little harder...

After multiple tries I successfully pulled 2 wires through.

Friday, December 14, 2018

Section: avionics
Hours: 4

I wired the fuse box today. This adds fuses for the smoke oil pump, 12 volt power plug in the cabin and the USB port on the panel.

Wednesday, December 12, 2018

Section: avionics
Hours: 4

We ran out of circuits on the VPX pro so SteinAir added a circuit breaker box to handle the overflow. I made a mounting bracket to hold the breaker box onto of the VPX box. It will be easy to run power and ground from this box to the terminals on the back of the VPX.

Tuesday, December 11, 2018

Section: avionics
Hours: 7

The avionics wiring harness has a large bundle of ground wires, none of which were labeled by SteinAir. To make future debugging easier, I decided to chase down where these grounds go and then label them.

In the process of doing this task I discovered that several pins in the P1001 connector at the back of the tray for the GTN 650 were bent.

This is really unfortunate. This connector is one of the most complex in the whole panel and it is buried deep behind the panel where it will be EXTREMELY difficult to access for repair. Going to have to get SteinAir advice on this one :-(

Saturday, December 8, 2018

Section: avionics
Hours: 4

The SteinAir wiring harness I purchased is not very well documented. Some tasks are left for the builder to figure out. Wiring the starter switch is one of those tasks...

Here is the documentation for the ignition key switch. Of course it is labeled for traditional mags.

With the PMags, we want to be able to test if each mag is generating power independent of the battery/alternator. My installation has a circuit breaker for each p mag and also a momentary switch to isolate each p mag from bus power. In the NORM position, power to the p mag is provided from the aircraft bus, in the TEST position, the bus power is disconnected so you can test if the p mag's internal power generation is working.

Here is the key switch wiring. The blue wires go to the left and right p mags, the red wire goes to the starter.

Wednesday, December 5, 2018

Section: avionics
Hours: 4

The FlyLeds tail position light I purchased does not fit in the tail cone fiberglass fairing. I was able to disconnect the pc board from the light assembly for mounting further forward in the fairing. Today I fabricated a shielded cable to connect the light back to the pc board.




Monday, December 3, 2018

Section: avionics
Hours: 5

I continued to sort out the panel wiring.

Here you can see how I mounted the GTX45 transponder and piggy backed the GEA24 engine monitor. The GTX45 tray is mounted inside of the canopy frame (black marker line on sub panel) and tilted so that when the GTX45 is slide out of the tray it will slide over the top of the side rail.

The VPX circuit controller is mounted on a swing down panel. I mounted the light dimmers on the side of the front panel support bulkhead. The GAD29 mounts to the sub panel. Not visible in this picture, the IBBS backup battery is mounted behind the sub panel behind the GAD29.

I've left the light dimmer pots loose because SteinAir did not bother to label them and I won't know which panel hole to put them in until I can power up the system and try them out.

The under side is not so pretty. The SteinAir cables connect everything, but the layout under and behind the panel is left to the builder to sort out. Lots of unbundled wires for misc. connections in the cabin (lights, usb charger port, smoke oil pump, etc.) This is a labor intensive operation...


To support the wiring going to the firewall I added an aluminum channel between the firewall and the sub panel (middle right of picture below).f

Sunday, December 2, 2018

Section: avionics
Hours: 4

I mounted the backup alternator controller on the back side of the map box door.

The grounding bus will be mounted on the other side of the door. The braided grounding cable runs from the firewall to a terminal on the LR3C controller. The bolt runs through the door and attaches the grounding plane on the other side.

Saturday, December 1, 2018

Section: avionics
Hours: 6

Spent the day on my back under the panel securing the wiring harness.


I tied lots of these today:

Thursday, November 29, 2018

Section: 50
Hours: 6

I installed the prop, mixture and throttle cables.

Stein provided a nice machined aluminum sub panel with labels for mounting the cables to the panel.

I spent most of the day under Woody's watchful eye routing and installing the cables.


Tuesday, November 27, 2018

Section: 49
Hours: 4

I installed the manifold pressure plumbing which is slightly different from the standard Van's installation because each of the PMags needs a connection. I ordered the additional lines from Aircraft Specialty.

The Aircraft Specialty kit includes a T-fitting for adding the line to supply the PMags.

I routed the line from the T-fitting towards the center and used a couple adel clamps to hold it in place. The end of this line has another T with barbed ends for the rubber hoses that go to the PMags.


Saturday, November 24, 2018

Section: 49
Hours: 6

I continued work on plumbing the engine.

Firewall to fuel pump hose.

Fuel pump to fuel transducer (red cube) and transducer mounting.

Oil cooler an fittings. The firewall forward kit provides aluminum an fittings but the oil cooler calls out for metal. I purchased the metal fittings from Spruce.

The plans specify the clocking for the fittings.

Here is the air inlet transition with sealant applied in the corners.

The oil cooler mounted on the engine mount shelf.


Sniffle tube assembly.