May 10, 2023     Pitot Static leak check - (8 hours)       Category: Avionics

I logged 8 hours for this because of all the research and running around for stuff to make a test rig from.

I realize I can't do my own transponder check, but I wanted to leak check the plumbing while I still had good access to everything in case there was a problem.

For pitot, I used 3' of 1/4" rubber hose from ace hardware. I slipped one end on the pitot line where it will eventually attach to the tube and the other end to the AOA line similarly. Made them airtight with a couple of twists of safety wire and a wrap of electrical tape for good measure.

I folded the rubber hose at the approximate center and then just rolled up both sides simultaneously which pressurized both the pitot and AOA sides of the GSU25 which must be done to avoid damaging the unit per Garmin guidance.

once I saw 150kts, I pinched the hose with a spring clamp to trap the pressure I had, but because of a slight lack of precision in locating the clamp I ended up with an indicated airspeed of about 145.

43.13 gives a general reference that Garmin basically parThe GAP26 manual says that the standard when testing with the probe removed from teh aircraft is 150kts with no more than a 5 kt per minute leak down. I had effectively zero leak down with this setup, so thats good to see!

For the static side, FAR23 says run it up to 1000 AGL with no more that a 100'/min leak rate.

I accomplished this with a homemade vacuum rig. It started life as a suction cup that was meant to hang something in a shower, then I drilled a hole and inserted a cheap barbed regulator from an aquarium bubbler. I then ran enough aquarium tubing that I could operate the rig and see the altimeter, and installed a syringe on the other end that I got from the farm supply store.

I taped over one static port with a small piece of electrical tape, suction cupped the other one, and slowly pulled a slight vacuum on it. When I got to 1,000 AGL I locked down the aquarium regulator. I did this test twice and got a 90' leak the first time and 70' the second time. Within tolerance both times. I suspect that the actual leak rate is actually lower, but this was with el cheapo aquarium parts and it still passed, so I'm calling it good.

I've attached a some pix of the airspeed test, but I ran out of hands when doing teh static side and didn't get a picture.

  Oct 10, 2022     roll servo - (1 hour)       Category: Avionics

I just had a bit of time today so I went ahead and installed the roll servo. It's not rigged yet but permanently installed with the mounting fasteners torqued. I have a log with the serial numbers of all the avionics, but I didn't have it in the shop today so I took the picture below for reference.

Didn't have much shop time because I flew this morning, then my brother in law Andrew and I went to KC for the Chiefs-Raiders game. Chris Jones sacked Derrik Carr then got called for roughing the passer for landing on him.

Chiefs fans are normally very loud, but not super rowdy or angry. But hey, it's the Raiders. The entire stadium started booing the refs, and that went on for pretty much the whole second half. I saw some Raiders fans joining in because they ARE rowdy. Pretty sure I saw some folks throwing stuff at the refs as they went into the tunnel after the game. What's it got to be like trying to do your job while 70,000 people are loudly hating on you for over an hour? Anyway, Chiefs won 30-29, it was a nail biter and I didn't get back home to ICT until after 0200. good times.

  Sep 12, 2022     firewall aft wiring & plumbing done! - (20 hours)       Category: Avionics

Unless I've forgotten something, all of the firewall aft wiring in plumbing is as done as it can be prior to installing the wings.

I know that I skipped some details on logging the details of this over the past few weeks, but honestly, there's not much value in saying "ran some wires today, decided they were all routed wrong, cut off a bunch of wire ties and did them over."

Holy cow, I'm sick of wiring and plumbing and am so glad this is wrapping up. Having said that, I can say that I'm a little bit of a perfectionist and am happy with how this all turned out. There are a couple of things that will be a real bear to get to if they fail in the future, but by and large, everything is neat, chafe proof, secure, and easy to access for future maintenance.

  Sep 08, 2022     pannel lights dim? - (6 hours)       Category: Avionics

warning, potential bummer ahead.

So, the other day I wired up the LED baggage light via the GAD27 PWM cabin light output and it was great. Project 2 for today was wiring for the light strips that will eventually go under the glare shield, which won't go in for a while.

The plan is to run wiring for them and the defrost fans, the cap it off until the upper fwd skin gets installed, then just plug those components in.

I wanted to ops check my wire runs so I just temporarily hooked up the led strips and tried to turn them on with the GAD27 dimmers. turns out I initially had two of them controlled by one PWM circuit, and I think that the amp draw was to much for the box to handle. All 3 lights are now about 1/2 as bright as the baggage light was originally.

Research showed that each GAD27 light output can handle 500 milliamps max. I put a meter on the light strips I got from stein and discovered that they actually draw about 680 milliamps and I was briefly (accidentally) running two of them on one output.

I cut about a foot off the end of each strips and checked again with a multimeter, and they re now below 500 milliamps each, but they didn't get any brighter. I've got an email in to garmin g3xpert to see if I damaged the GAD27 or if something else is going on.

They are plenty bright for instrument panel lights as is, but I don't want to set myself up for some sort of cascading failure mode. more on this after I hear back from garmin.

  Sep 08, 2022     wired linkage for roll trim - (1 hour)       Category: Avionics

plan calls for .041 safely wire for to connect the springs to the lever arm coming off the roll trim motor. When I first installed and ops checked this, I didn't have any .041, so I just temporarily connected it with some .020.

I did a BFR for one of my friends a month or so ago and charged him teh whopping price of 3' of .041 safety wire for my trouble. Making Bank Baby!

Had a little time this morning, so I cut off the light weight stuff and replaced it with the well earned .041. Then I had one of those face pam moments. When I had wired this up originally, I had set it so that hat switch left moved the trim motor bell crank left, and vice versa. Playing with it this morning, i realized that he trim is set up so that the motor pulls the springs on the stick linkage below teh pivot point, so it actually needs to move the other way d'oh!

Fortunately, garmin makes stuff like this pretty easy. Go into config, go to the trim menu, select; invert/reverse/go backwards...whatever the terminology is, and magically it works correctly.

  Aug 04, 2022     pitot static lines - (7 hours)       Category: Avionics

I spent most of my shop time today routing and installing pitot static lines. The bad news is that it was over 100* outside and not much cooler in the shop. The good news is that the nylon Pitot Static lines are a lot more bendy when it's that hot.

nothing really worth calling out specifically on this process. They are routed and plumbed. The static comes up the left longhorn from teh tailbone per Vans design, plumbs into the G5 and Alt static valve before making it's way to the GSU25. I had to fabricate a little bracket to stand it off one of the upper deck ribs.

The Pitot and AOA are routed with the antenna coax thru the tunnel, up the left side of the firewall and thru the center radio stack sub panel cutout to the AHARS. Pitot Tees off prior to AHARS and runs over to the G5.

I also had to run to Ace hardware handpick up a union to transition the alt static switch to one of the press on fittings in the Stein kit. I haven't leak checked this yet, but I will before I button everything up.

I think I've officially shoved every wire and tube thru the spar that could possibly fit, so I must be done back there.

  Jul 23, 2022     mag switch wiring + Aux harness connectors - (6 hours)       Category: Avionics

tidied up the shop a little this morning, then pulled and ops checked power and ground wires from the panel switches thru the firewall.

Interestingly, during the ops check I discovered that power to internally excite the mags is hot as soon as the master comes on and is only interrupted when the toggles are moved to the test position. This makes perfect sense when I think about it and isn't really any different that a normal magneto as far as the mag being "hot" but In my mind, it just seemed logical that there shouldn't be any power going out there until the switch is moved to the on position, which of course, also grounds out the P leads.

I'm going to check the schematics to make sure that this is correct, but I'm 90% sure it should be this way when I think about it logically.

Also debated and schemed for a while about how and where to best secure the aux connectors that all of the lights and panel switches pin into. Ultimately decided the simplest solution is probably the best and just secured them to a rib flange with appropriate sized adel clamps into a nut plate.

Unless I missed something, I think I'm done with the final wiring cleanup/securing on the port side panel over to basically where the engine control cables will run.

This also brings up an issue I've known about for a while; There is an angle hanging down from the sub panel where you are supposed to install adel clamps to support the engine control cables. I thought I was being smart by installing this with nut plates instead of riveting it so once those cables are positioned it would be cake to pull that panel back out and install nut plates for those adel clamps.

Unfortunately, where I ended up installing the transponder, It's going to be tough to get to the heads of those screws to remove that thing. My choices are to wait until the cables are installed and then try to install adel clamps without drilling through any wiring (tight, especially trying to either get a nutplate in there or a wrench on the back side) or pull it out now and see if i can guesstimate where they go.

I will have to think about this some more, because it i decide to pull it out of there at this point it will be a lot easier before I get all the rest of the wiring high and tight

  Jul 22, 2022     various stuff - (18 hours)       Category: Avionics

Holy cow, time gets away.

Was gone for about 10 days over the 4th of July and have been flying a ton at work. Also, its been over 100 in my shop during my normal working hours for the last couple of weeks, so I've been really hit or miss on the shop time.

Since my last entry I mounted and ops checked the flyLED board, routed wiring and ops checked the taxi camera, drilled another wire routing hole on the left side of the fuselage, and a bunch of 20 minute jobs that aren't worthy of their own entry.

Will post better installation pictures when I get everything tidied up and the wire bundles secured.

  Jun 29, 2022     ELT won't talk to Garmin PFD - (20 hours) Category: Avionics

Man, it's the little things that give you the most trouble. I'm logging 20 hours for this one entry. The touch labor in the shop wants nearly that long, but the troubleshooting and research into what was happening really got down in the weeds.

Anyway- I went with an Artex ELT. It doesn't require any external batteries, wiring is simple, and the main battery life is a year more than the ACK.

You may recall that way back when, I discovered that the mounting plate hole pattern was different that on the Van's supplied ELT mount, and I ended up having to rework the mount. Also, a few entries ago, I added a tab to mount and locally ground the buzzer.

All good so far, but when I got to the functional test, I was getting an error code. On the Artex, when you put it in test mode, you get a series of flashes on the LED's , both on the unit itself, and on the remote switch on the panel. You also get corresponding beeps on the buzzer. You then go into the manual to a chart to see what the code means.

In my case, I was getting 5 beeps, which means that the ELT isn't receiving detailed position data from the navigation source.

How this is supposed to work is that if it's triggered, the ELT still transmits on 121.5, and also to SAR-SAT but the data it sends to the satellites also includes its exact position down to 100 meters or so based on data it's getting from the GPS.

I starting wringing out wiring, reviewing schematics, checking for pins in the wrong hole, etc. Nothing was wrong with the installation that I could find.

I went to the internet and found a solution on VAF, which is probably where I should have started.

It turns out that even though the manual and ad copy both make a big deal about how this ELT can receive nav data from either NMEA or Aviation Protocol formats, it's an either/or situation. The default is Aviation protocol at 9600 baud rate. Thats what it comes set to, and it's not field adjustable. If you want the other one, you have to send it back to a dealer and have it reprogrammed to the tune of $250!

Cut to the chase; The reason I'm getting the error message is that the way my ships wiring works, the elt is getting data from the Garmin GDU460 pfd. Turns out that unit only outputs NEMA data, so the two units won't speak the same language unless I have the ELT reprogrammed!

The good news is that a Garmin IFR navigator has the ability to output in either format. I called my avionics guy and he was kind enough to tell me a connector and pin on the back of the GTN650 that would output serial data, so I didn't have to look that up.

Once I understood what the heck was happening, It really didn't take that long to fix. I unpinned the appropriate wire from the PFD and after working it out of that branch of the bundle, had enough length to reroute into the GTN650 without having to spruce anything.

I did have to cut off the D-sub pin and replace it with a hi-density version for the different connector style.

Got everything dis-assembled, re-assembled, and configured the channel to speak the correct language from the GTN. All is now well.

  Jun 27, 2022     Magnetometer GMU11 install - (5 hours)       Category: Avionics

Fabricated a tray for the GMU11, Installed on the back deck with 4 pan head -3 rivets. There are none of these in any of the Van's supplied hardware because all the -3 rivets vans uses are flush head, but I find these invaluable for stuff like this.

Before I riveted the tray in place, I squirmed my way into the tailcone for hopefully the last time and secured the wire run that goes back to the magnetometer and elevator trim. This bundle is routed via stick on wire tie mounts that are glued in place with E6000 adhesive. The wire ties are on standoffs so that the bundles are elevated slightly. I'm not worried about chaffing since they're sleeved in snakeskin anti-chafe, but I want them off the floor in case of potential water intrusion back there.

I was a little concerned about magnetic interference while the trim motor is running, so I temporarily attached it. and redid the magnetometer check.

With the wire bundles run together and routed as shown in the pictures below, and with the trim servo running, I was getting somewhere around 7% of max allowable interference. Also, that was with the magnetometer tray attached with steel clecos. Good to go.

The CanBus terminates at the GMU11 and they left it long to account for routing variations. Ended up with the bundle being about 2' too long back there. Simple to modify since it's the end of the road and doesn't continue on anywhere else from there. I cut to a more reasonable length and re-terminated, including a new shield ground via solder sleeve.

Left enough for a good service loop, and secured everything down. Re-did the magnetometer check. Without the steel clecoes holding the tray in I thought it would be better, but amazingly, it actually got worse. 24% of max magnetic interference. Oh well. it seems like it's going to be well within tolerance. The only thing I haven't done is turn the strobes on because there not hooked up yet, but that wire bundle is nowhere near the magnetometer so I can't imagine it being a problem.

  Jun 16, 2022     ELT wiring. - (3 hours)       Category: Avionics

Went flying a couple of days ago with a student and at 3000msl had over 50 kts wind. pointed upstream and had him do some slow flight and at one point was actually showing a negative 4 kts ground speed. pretty cool

Spent the afternoon sweltering in the shop and finished up this task today;

When I mounted the ELT, it would have been super easy to have included another nutplate for a ground stud for the warning buzzer. Then I could have easily just velcroed it to the case or something.

Unfortunately, I wasn't that forward thinking. I thought of several options which required one or teh other wires going to this thing to be pretty long, but ultimately, teh simplest solution seemed to be just making a mounting tab with a built in ground stud and pop riveting it to the elt mount.

Crafted this put of .032 scrap I had laying around. The bezel that holds the buzzer in is just plastic. Even though its not like it would hurt anything is it unscrewed itself and fell out of the hole, I don't like the idea of stuff like that happening, so one it was tightened down, I gave it a health dollop of E6000 to glue everything in place.

wired it into the connector for the ELT. It was the wrong time for testing when I finished (not the first 5 minutes of the hour) and it was approaching 100* in my garage, so I called it a day. I'll go out and check this after it cools off, or maybe tomorrow morning.

  Jun 15, 2022     re-pinned audio panel connector - (2 hours) Category: Avionics

I decided I couldn't live with the idea of only having 1 hi density pin providing power to the audio panel when the install manual calls for two. Yeah, I know. Like I said in a previous entry 1 pin is rated for 3 amps, and this whole thing is on a 3 amp breaker and only pulls about 2.5 assuming you've got a charger plugged in to teh USB port on the front.

But I started thinking; what happens if I upgrade to a new sooper-dooper box at some point in the future and that box expects to see power on both pins?

Probably a far fetched scenario, but still. I ordered a new Hi dens connector from stein. It only cost about $12, which isn't much for my peace of mind. R&R all the pins from the old one, repinned the one power wire I goofed up, and reinstalled everything. Ops checked good and even though it's a pain to get all those hi-dens pens out, it's way easier now than it would be during a "what if" after this whole thing is buttoned up.

  Jun 12, 2022     issue resolved - (8 hours)       Category: Avionics

Yesterday I wasn't getting any power to the flap motor through the GAD27. Though that it might be a config issue, so I set the speed scheduling to deploy flaps at max 100kts, but it still didn't work. Then reasoned that maybe it needed a signal from the flap position potentiometer, which I haven't installed yet.

I asked last night on VAF. Everybody agreed that wasn't the issue, and I got some really helpful suggestions on troubleshooting.

This morning, I started checking wiring, starting with the switch. Switch good, so I made a set of jumper wires with the appropriate D sub pins so that I could check continuity all the way to the other end.

Wire job good from the switch to the aux connector that most of the stick and panel switches get pinned into, most of which come out the other end of the aux connector and go into the main wire bundle to continue on to the GAD27.

I was going to check continuity from the Aux connector to the GAD 27, but when I looked at it, it was immediately obvious that there were no pins n the aux connector holes that were called out in the pinout diagram for flap switch signal in.

How it's supposed to work; The switch pulls to ground instead of power. In my pinout diagram from the avionics shop, they have the leads from the switch going to pin 24 & 25 on the aux connector, then those positions on the mating half of the aux connector go to GAD connector 271-1 pins 18 & 19. Move the switch up and it grounds pin 18 which tell the GAD to retract the flaps, move the switch down and it grounds pin 19 telling the GAD to lower the flaps.

Like I said, there were no pins in position 24 & 25 on the 1/2 of the aux connector that had been prewired when they fabricated my main bundle. I initially assumed that they had gotten off by a hole when they pinned it, but when I referenced against my pinout diagram, there were no pins in holes that should have been empty. I then counted the number of pins in the connector and came up two short.

Pulled the Gad 271-1 connector and there were empty holes in that end as well. Specifically position 18 & 19 were empty. What the heck?

Pulled the backshells off both connectors and started identifying wires. Discovered that pair of wires had never been installed. With the jillions of wires running every which way in this full garmin IFR monster, they just missed these two when they built this bundle up on the bench.

When they were building this, they bench checked it and it was all good as far as the CAN bus and the avionics, but they evidently didn't put power on the GAD and confirm all the individual stuff that might plug into it, not that I would have expected them to.

Spent a while cutting off a bunch of zip ties and loosening up some adel clamps. Fished two 22awg wires into the bundle and pinned from position 24 & 25 on the aux connector to GAD27 271-18 &19. All good. Checked with a meter and then plugged in, temporarily wired to the flap motor and verified the switch runs it in the appropriate directions.

Spent the next hour or two verifying that the rest of the switches send power where it's supposed to go.

Spent the remainder of the day wiring discrete inputs into the GAD27 connector 271 while I had it apart. As of now, I have discrete inputs that will trigger a CAS message for the following:

Pitot heat
Stick start button armed
Battery fault
Parking brake on
Carbon Monoxide warning
Event marker

The last one is a suggestion from Levi Self. There is a tiny little flush button below the trigger that is out of the way and I was toying with the idea of making it a remote ident. In talking to him, he said on his own airplane, he has a discrete input that's just labeled "Event" if something happens like an engine bobble or whatever that would make him look at he data later, he just hits the event button and in makes it easy to find that exact spot in the data later. Souded like a great use for that button, so I did the same.

I'll annotate this elsewhere, but the stick functions are as follows;

Left Thumb - remote start relay
Hat - Trim
Right thumb - A/P disconnect /CWS
Trigger - PTT
Index below trigger - Event mark
Low thumb - TOGA

  Jun 11, 2022     Wired pilot stick + troubleshooting - (7 hours)       Category: Avionics

Routed bundle and wired most of the pilot stick controls and the copilot PTT into the GAD27. All that type of stuff runs through the Gad 27, and the avionics shop set up a aux cannon plug type connector to pin all that stuff into to integrate it into the system. Both PTT buttons, Ap disconnect and the trim Hat switches work perfectly, but I'm not getting power to the flap motor. That switch is on the panel, but it runs through the same plug so I pinned it at the same time.

I checked continuity and thought it was fine, but when I hit the go button there's no voltage on the gad output for the motor.

Since the GAD can speed schedule the flaps, I though maybe I had a setting wrong, so I went in the setup menu and set the flap operating speed to a max of 100 kts. No joy.

Also thought that maybe since I don't have the position indication system wired n yet, maybe that was preventing them from getting power, but eeh guys on VAF say they should work anyway.

I chased this for most of the afternoon with no luck and will continue troubleshooting it tomorrow. Not much to show for today, other than 1/2 the stick working, which I guess is something.

Teh pic below is how I elected to route the wire bundle coming out of the stick grip. The prefab bundle comes straight out the bottom, has a big loop aft with lots of room to move around without rubbing on anything then a nice big service loop on the next port bay over. I spliced into it there with simple D sub pins covered with heat shrink and ran fwd with the main wire bundle in the tunnel and up the right side of the firewall where it then ties into the aux connector that feeds it into the GAD.

Hard to tell in the picture, but everything is secured to the floor with adhesive backed wire tie mounts. I don't trust the peel and stick tape that comes on these for something this critical, so I peeled it off and glued them down with E6000.

  Jun 09, 2022     installed pitch servo, terminated can bus - (7 hours)       Category: Avionics

Installed Pitch servo. Garmin is pretty adamant that the pushrod should be rigged so that the control hits the stops before you have any chance of an over center condition that would lock up a flight control, and that it happen prior to the horn hitting the stop bracket on the servo itself. Sort of a belt and suspenders approach.

This is easier said than done. The RV7 mount kit for the pitch servo comes with a 4" pushrod, and of course there's a requirement for a 3/8" min thread engagement, .45" ish preferred. I started with the pushrod ends set to approx 0.45" and used the center of the 3 holes afforded in the servo crank arm.

Running it through the range of motion prior to installing the stop bracket it was immediately obvious that sure enough, as soon as you ran the bellcrank fwd (up elevator) it would pull the servo pushrod over center, potentially bind you up in a full up elevator condition, and kill you dead.

This is the first design feature I've ran across on this airplane that made me feel that it could easily get you in serious airplane-destroying trouble if you didn't know what you were doing when you rigged it.

I played with this for quite a while, and some combinations of length and different control horn hole selection either caused me to hit the servo safety bracket before reaching full travel, or had good travel in one direction but hit the stop in the other.

The combination that worked was to use the pushrod mounting hole furthest away from the servo "axle"and adjust the pushrod for maximum allowable length while still maintaining the minimum of 3/8" thread engagement on each end. By setting it up this way I was able to achieve a nice safely margin against an over center condition. Also the elevator hits the up stop with about 1/8" clearance from the safety stop. At the aft throw it hits the down stop with enough clearance to slip a .020" feeler gage between the horn and the stop. If it turns out that the servo throw is too sensitive and I need to move this mechanism to a closer hole in the servo horn, I'll need to fabricate a new pushrod maybe 3/8" longer to get good thread engagement on the pushrod threads, but this meets the spec, so good enough for now.

Couldn't get much closer than that. I torqued everything to spec, then pinned and installed the wire connections.

I'm obviously not permanently installing and wiring up the roll servo because the wing isn't on, but I pinned the connector including the jumper wire that terminates the can bus on that end, and installed the dummy load connector that comes with the servo for testing.

A note on this dummy load; It's possible that at some point in the future, a servo might tank and I would need to pull it for replacement. Garmin has foreseen this possibility, as well as the likelihood that a guy wouldn't want to be grounded because removing an inop autopilot servo would open up the can bus and take a bunch of stuff off line.

They've come up with clever solution for this; both servos came with a D-sub connector that has the appropriate connections and resistors in it to simulate the presence of a servo in the system. In the event that you remove a servo for some reason, you stick this plug in the harness where normally it plugs into the servo, and the can bus remains healthy and everything else still works as normal. The instructions recommend keeping these plugs with the servos, so I think for the final install I'll bag these and zip tie one onto the wire bundle near each servo so they're handy if I or someone else has that scenario at some future point.

I was hoping that getting the can bus online would magically cure my Arinc data path fail issue on channel 2, but no such luck. While I was working on this, the fedex truck showed up with my charger/power supply from earthX so I was able to power everything up and I still had the same issue. Lot's more head scratching ensued.

  Jun 07, 2022     Pilot Stick grip - (6 hours)       Category: Avionics

Installed stick grip etc.

I can't resolve the Arinc issue until I can spend some time with power on to troubleshoot, and my power supply hasn't come in yet, so I worked on some other stuff today.

I'm a somewhat linear thinker, and I find it really difficult to put one problem in the parking lot and move on, so I wanted to do something fun and not too mentally taxing because that Arinc and pin issue I mentioned yesterday are still forefront in my mind.

With that in mind, I decided to install the stick grip for fun, and also because a lot of the system inputs are on the buttons on the super dooper tosten military grip and it will have to be installed sooner rather than later for stuff to work.

You have to cut off a shocking amount of the Van's stick to clear the panel with this grip. Specifically, the grip and attach mechanism are about 6.5" tall.

I measured this several times, sat in the airplane with this in simulated flight position etc and ended up cutting 7" off the stick. This is around 1/2 of the stick cut off, which looks like way too much, but in fact makes the top of this stick grip only about 1" below the bottom of the panel at full fwd travel.

I cut the stick with a plumbing tubing cutter that I had laying around and that already had a somewhat dull cutting wheel. It took a while to get through the steel tube, but I didn't want to use my good cutter that I'm using for fuel lines.

I dressed the edges so the bushing would insert freely, measured and drilled for the set screw, and put everything together. The height is perfect.

I played around with how to route the wire harness. and came to the conclusion that the best solution is to just run the bundle straight out the bottom of the stick. I came from Tosten with 40" of wire thats nicely chafe protected, and that length/size is skinny enough to come straight out the bottom between the heim joints for the aileron pushrods and then go fwd through a spar passthrough and be terminated/spliced in front of the spar.

I see guys who run these to a terminal block or d sub connector under the seat and go fwd from there, but I don't see the advantage to that, so I'm going to take advantage of the length of wire that came installed and run it as far fwd as possible while still leaving a service loop, then splice in with d-sub pins heat shrinked together to the wires that will carry the button signals fwd to the panel devices.

I'm rapidly running out of holes in the spar to poke wires through, so before I commit to a routing, I need to make sure I leave myself a method of getting pitot and AOA tubes fwd and VOR coax aft as well. That led to a couple of hours of experimenting with a couple of short pieces of tube to see how this might all work out as some kind of wire based Tetris. I'm so glad I took advantage of Van's supplemental engineering and drilled those extra access holes in the spars way back when. There's simply no way this would have worked out without them, as every one will be crammed full of stuff by the time this is over.

I also started working on fwf wiring and installed 2 inline fuses and attached the leads for my ammeter, but forgot to get a picture.

Wrapped up the day by sitting on a stool and pondering how to get static tube from the left side rail behind the panel over to the AHRS, chafe protection where it exits out from under the side rail, stuff like that. Not much progress in that area, but lots of thinking about options.

  Jun 07, 2022     audio panel pinout - (9 hours)       Category: Avionics

I knew it was going to be problematic to get that bent pin out. I disassembled the back of the audio panel rack and gently pried it back more or less straight with a tiny screwdriver, then had at it with a pin extractor. Unfortunately, either the bending or the straightening damaged the socket and the tiny locking mechanism came out with the pin. No way to come back from that. That position on the connector is toast.

Spent some time cleaning the shop, reviewing the pinout diagram, etc. then called my avionics guy Levi for advise. Specifically, I wanted to know if there might be an unused power position somewhere else on that same connector by chance. I also wanted to discuss the Arinc data path fail to get suggestions on what's going on there.

Levi talked me through the setup process for the arnic. He also told me that the Audio panel would run just fine with just one power wire hooked up. Specifically, the garmin rack uses pin 8&9 on that connector to power. They are both coming off of the same 3v breaker, wired in parallel, and one by itself could handle 3 amps if need be, but the max draw for the audio panel is around 2.5 amps, and thats if you're using the built in USB power port.

I'm a belt and suspenders kind of guy, so I looked it up, and sure enough, I found a spec for that pin that notes the max amperage continuous for one pin is 3 amps.

I capped and stowed the power wire from the bent pin socket and put everything back together, and sure enough, the audio panel seems to work just fine.

I'll ponder this a little more to decide if I want to go that way or if I want to re-pin with a new connector, just so I can have 2 power pins with a capacity more than double what this unit is capable of pulling. undecided at this point.

I also went into the G3x setup and followed levi's suggestions for the arnic issue, but no joy on clearing up that problem. I don't have autopilot servos installed yet so the can bus isn't terminated. I also dont have a VOR antenna attached and this channel is VOR data, so I'm wondering if that is confusing the GAD somehow.

I'm going to need to play with this some more, but my main ship battery is getting low and I don't have a bench power supply for avionics yet so I'm going to have to move on to something else for now.

  Jun 07, 2022     Behold, it's alive! - (9 hours)       Category: Avionics

yesterday I finished connecting things up to a point that I spend this morning looking for loose wires etc. Finally felt confident enough that I flipped teh switch and darned if stuff didn't light up!

Two squawks though; The audio panel circuit breaker immediate tripped and I got an error message for a data path fail on Arinc channel 2, which is the Gad talking to the GTN regarding the Nav 2 VOR.

Went and did some stuff with Kriya, then later this afternoon I circled back to this and discovered a bent power pin on the 44 pin high density D-sub connector into the audio panel. It was misaligned and when I seated the unit in the rack, it bent the pin over to a point that it shorted against the connector :(

Time to step back and take a minute here, but I'm considering it a win.

  Jun 02, 2022     panel switches done + other stuff - (17 hours)       Category: Avionics

Over the last 3 days, I pinned the d sub connector for the elt, wired and connected the panel switch for the elt. The pre-fab wire bundle was designed for a ACK elt, which utilizes ships power. I blindly added a breaker for this because it was in the interconnect drawing, but it turns out the Artex elt doesn't use external power, so I capped and stowed the power wire and will likely use that breaker position for something else.

Finished the panel switches & pulled wires to appropriate locations. Wasn't happy with the fuse link I had fabricated for the pitot heat annunciator discrete input. specifically, it was a 18 awg wire with a 22 awg link and the 18 is too big to fit in a sub D pin for the GAD27 connector. Ended up redoing this with a 1 amp inline glass fuse.

finally was able to solder the co-pilot PTT. It's a good thing these switches from Stein are cheap. I melted 2 of them trying to solder wires on before I got the hang of it. I was trying to heat the terminal tab and wick solder toward it, but that didn't work at all. much better result when you heat the wire and tab at the same time from the top and wick solder on it from the same area. FYI- the nut on the front side of the PTT is effing metric. 10mm.

Started wiring up the CO detector today and ran into a couple of problems. The wiring diagram shows a pin that's already in use for something else on the PFD.

Called Levi to see if there was a solution, and he told me I could just wire it into the MFD and it would work just as well. During that conversation, we discovered that there was a pin in the wrong position on the PFD connector. Specifically it was in position 36 but it was supposed to be in position 37. I unpinned and relocated per his instruction.

Tomorrow I will finish wiring the CO detector and it's entirely possible I will get far enough along to put power on this thing!

  May 21, 2022     aileron servo, elevator bell crank, flyLED board, rudder links - (5 hours)       Category: Avionics

When I was assembling the elevator pushrod system, I didn't read far enough ahead in the optional kits. You have to drill a hole in the bell crank that sits just aft of the baggage bulkhead for the autopilot servo pushrod. I took all that apart, located and drilled the hole.

Because there is a gap between the L & R halves of the bell crank, you have to slip a washer in between to take up the gap so that you can torque the bolt down that holds the heim on. Seems like that would be a real bear to fish in after it's installed, so I went ahead and installed and torqued to spec while it was on the bench.

Installed a D-sub connector on aileron trim servo and mounted servo.

Installed the co-ax connector for the GTN650 GPS and managed to cut myself trimming the insulation. I bleed for my art.

After thinking about it for a while, I decided on the location for the FlyLED controller board that makes the most sense for my particular wire routing. Drilled the mounting holes and installed the standoffs. I'm not installing the board yet, just ready for when those particular wires are run from up front.

Has a bit of time left, so I installed teh links between the rudder pedals and the cables

  May 19, 2022     more wiring... - (24 hours)       Category: Avionics

I haven't been doing separate entries lately. There's only so many times you can say "pulled more wires" without getting depressed. However, I've got to say that the end is (hopefully) in sight.

Went to Tucson last week to get kid 2 graduated from UofA. A good time was had by all :)

Was planning to use a fuse link from the downstream side of the pitot switch to a discreet input on the GAD27 for a cool "pitot heat on" CAS message on the PFD. The smallest wire I had on hand was 22, so I used that for a link into an 18awg that was intended to go to the GAD, but realized today that there's no way I can cram a wire that big (18awg) into a D-sub pin, so I'm going to have to re-think this.

Discovered a cut in the insulation on a power wire I had just installed. It was right off the roll and I'm 90% certain I didn't cut it installing it. I got it in a "by the foot" order from B&C where they just roll it off a big spool and send you however much you want, and I'm pretty sure it was that way out of the bag. R&R and then moved on.

Started running coax. The goal is to pull all the wiring to the back of the plane, then close up the floors so I can sit in it. I'm at the point that it would be easier to do some of the cabin side stuff sitting in the plane instead of leaning over so much.

I took a break from wiring today and installed the certified GPS antenna. Lot's of guys have had success putting this on a tray under the cowl, but since this is a certified unit for a IFR plane, I'm staying on the reservation with this one. Back deck, aft of the canopy, following all of garmin's instructions as much as the physically small size of the RV will allow.

Garmin has a bunch of limitations on antenna placement. For example, they say this antenna should be 2' from a comm antenna and 3 inches from a window. You may recall that I elected to put both com antenna on the bottom of the plane, but if that doesn't work out and I end up having to move one to the top, I don't want the placement of the GPS antenna to be a problem, so I kept it as fat forward on the tailcone as I thought I could get away with.

Due to the way the canopy pops up on the track as it moves aft, it will clear the antenna no problem. I verified that by making an antenna shape out of foam and simulating the canopy skirt with a ruler taped to the trailing edge of the plexiglass. It turns out that the limiting factor is the canopy bow. If it clears that, it will clear the skirt as well.

Based on all these considerations, I located the leading edge of the antenna 4" aft of the rivet line for the baggage bulkhead frame. This is in a pretty beefy area, with a rib and internal gusset on one side and a J channel on the other, so I toyed with the idea of skipping the doubler, but the skin back there is only .025, so I erred on the side of caution and fabricated. a doubler out of .040 scrap.

Spent most of the morning fabricating the doubler, laying out a rivet pattern that made sense, dimpling, and then installing it. I was able to reach both sides by myself, and I got it installed no problem.

I'm also planning to have a remote start button on the stick, so I found a location on the sub panel that made sense (left side of IBBS battery) and installed nut plates and mounted a relay for that system. It's getting really crowded behind the panel!

  May 11, 2022     wire bundles pt. 4 - (12 hours)       Category: Avionics

Spent the last 2 days continuing to pull wires, install switches, etc. At this point, I have the right side of the panel done as well as the boost and pitot heat switches in.

This wiring isn't really difficult, but it's taking me a long time to figure out the best way to route everything with chaffing and ease of future maintenance in mind.

One thing that held me up today was that I realized I didn't bake the bowden cable for cabin heat installed, and I had a momentary freak out thinking it would want to run smack in the middle of all the hot wires coming off the breakers.

everything came to a stop as I installed that cable, found a way to secure it, and determined that everything was going to work out okay with clearance from wire bundles.

The cabin dimmer kit that stein sells in a tidy solution, and it's nice that it's already soldered up, but teh shafts that go into the pots are really long and cause the knobs to stick way out from the standard Vans panel. I cut 5/16" off with an abrasive wheel on my drummer and they look much better.

Also got a new soldering iron and re-taught myself how to solder when installing the micro toggle for teh defroster fan and the co-pilot PTT.

Headed to Tucson tomorrow for Hollys college graduation, so I won't be working on the plane for the next few days.

  May 03, 2022     more wiring - (8 hours)       Category: Avionics

Finished wiring up the breaker panel, continued to tidy up the wire bundles.

Reviewed G3X system diagrams to make sure I understood wiring logic.

I spend about an hour online searching for detailed info on the GAD27. Tons of overview level materials, but not much detail on what options I had for the discrete inputs. I finally gave up and called my avionics guru. The answer is that they can be activated by pulling either to ground or power.

I asked the question because I was trying to determine how to have a CAS message for pitot heat on when the switch was activated. I was really overthinking it with the idea that I had to have a DPDT switch to power one side then pull the other side to ground at the same time for the indication. Turns out the only thing I really need is a simple SPST switch and power both the pitot heater and the CAS off the same terminal.

The pitot takes a 20 amp breaker per Garmin, so for the tiny wire to the GAD, I'll need either an inline fuse or just a fusable link. TBD.

  May 02, 2022     Brake line supports, Nutplates etc. - (3 hours)       Category: Avionics

I also removed the temporary fasteners from all locations across the sub panel that had been drilled for adel clamps and installed nut plates. That took a while, as I had to get some slack in the main wire bundle to get in there as well as remove the GAD box to get to one of them.

While I had the GAD out, I fabricated some 1/8" thick spacers to go under the mounting flanges and move it fwd a little bit. The connectors come out of the bottom side of that unit and there was the potential for a conflict, which this helps. I'll eventually secure the wires coming out if it to the horizontal main trunk bundle, and taht will make everything high and tight

  Apr 23, 2022     avionics part..whatever - (30 hours)       Category: Avionics

Haven't really posted individual entries this week because it's pretty much just been the same thing over and over. locate box, install nut plates where possible, mount boxes, pull wires, etc. at this point, I believe all the boxes are in the airplane except the fly led light control board. I also have the prefabricated main avionics bundle routed throughout the airplane and everything seems to fit.

Buss bar interconnects are done. I have 3/8" clearance from the buss to the plastic case of the MFD, which is plenty. Also I devised a way to get power to the secondary fuse block.

My consideration was that I'm only going to put ships lighting on it, so it really doesn't need to support more than about 20 amps max. in that regard, a 14awg supply wire would have been plenty, but that wire would have been to small for the 60amp circuit protection I have on the whole thing. I debated making a usable link etc. in the power line for that buss, and ultimately decided I was making this way harder than it needed to be and just ran a #8 wire back from my main buss to this fuse block. Now everything is supported by nice fat wires and if they short out, the ANL should blow before anything melts.

Next up is wiring all the switches and running wiring from them to various systems plus pulling all the antenna wires

Note- I thought that I was being smart by prewiring the tailcone before installing the top skin way back when. It turns out that the G3X system drives the elevator trim off the autopilot servo to allow for variable speed scheduling, so the 5 conductor trim wire I already ran has to come out. I thought I would just leave it installed but unused and pull the avionics stuff through the conduit I already had back there, but it was too big to fit through the conduit with the antenna wire that's already installed, so back into the tail cone I went. At this point it's in there, but just laying on the floor. I won't secure anything until the magnetometer passes it's interference check.

  Apr 17, 2022     Voltage regulator & CO detector - (5 hours)       Category: Avionics

located and installed these two boxes, cleaned up the bundles a little more, few other little things.

I really hate to put a ton of stuff up behind the sub panel, but this layout makes the most sense of the available locations with respect to wire routing.

  Apr 14, 2022     wire bundles pt. 3 - (3 hours)       Category: Avionics

continued to suck stuff up under the panel- add a wire tie here, remove one there, rinse, repeat. I think I'm pretty much done with the can-bus stuff behind the panel all the way down the firewall.

  Apr 13, 2022     Wire Bundles pt.2 - (20 hours)       Category: Avionics

All the G3x grounds were too short for where I had the forrest of tabs. Easier to relocate that than splice all this ground wires. While I was at it, I added a second one on the other side of the rib, just because I already had it.

I also started installing breakers and made the buss straps out of brass that I got from B&C just fo that purpose. I'm not super happy with how the came out. I'm going to B&C in a couple of days to pick up some stuff and I'm going to grab some more brass stock and remake these. If you look at the picture below, the 90* angle on the right of those strips is where a jumper will bolt to tie them all together. As of right now, thats only about 3/4" away from the MFD. If I remake these, I can get another 1/4" or so of clearance, and since it's only $6 worth of brass, I'm going to do that.

The prefab wire bundle has the stuff that runs aft coming off the corners of the main trunk, as if Levi planned for it to come down the outside bulkheads where the fuel vent lines run. I called him and he said that I could either do it like that or I could go fwd to the firewall per one of Vans plans.

If I go down the vertical, I'd have to secure part of the run to the fuel vent line where the rudder cable runs by to prevent any possibility of chafing. Levi said that's what they do when then have to run wires there. I tried it per his suggestion, with double wrap of silicone tape on the vent line wherever I used a wire tie and decided I couldn't live with that as a practice if there were absolutely any other possibility.

The concern with routing fwd and then down the firewall was that it was going to eat up a couple of extra feet of can bus and it's not like you can just butt splice that stuff. He cautioned me that length would be the limitation.

I got out a tape measure and after a lot of back and forth, determined that it would work. I didn't want to do a lot of trial fitting, since the can-bus legs that run aft both have branches coming off them (ELT, roll trim roll servo, pitch servo, magnetometer) and they are so fat that they won't fit through a 5/8" hole with the grommet in. (FYI- after the fact, I split snap bushings and popped them into the holes where appropriate).

In fact, to get them to squeeze through there at all, I had to remove some silicone tape and shrink wrap that the fabricator had applied, and wrap a couple of areas tight with blue 3M tape to get them through at all.

The more I play with this the more chance for damage to the bundle, hence all the pondering and measuring.

So anyway, after 2.5 days and about 20 hours including phone calls, VAF research and a bunch of trial and error, here's where we are. Bundle is in with legs routed to appropriate locations.

Making progress.

  Apr 10, 2022     Garmin boxes installed + wire bundles pt.1 - (30 hours)       Category: Avionics

It took a long time, but I finally worked out a layout that worked for all the garmin boxes.

When I had Midwest Avionics build the wire bundles, I really had no idea where any of the remote boxes should go, so I told them to build the bundles based on what they had done previously and let me know what layout they designed for.

This worked great from the standpoint of not having to spend a month pulling wires one at a time, but it definitely took a while to figure out how to best position everything. to work with the prefab main avionics bundle

One example, they had planned for the xponder to mount vertically through the sub panel, and the remote comm2 to go under the center stack. This would have required yet another hole cut in the sub panel, and after looking at this for a while, I determined that I could swap those two, mount the comm from a couple of ribs, and teh transponder sideways under the radio rack.

It gets pretty tight under there, with switches and whatnot, but with a lot of trial and error, I was able to position everything with future maintenance in mind.

Once the boxes and racks were in, I started mounting and routing branches off of the main bundle.

There's simply no good way to do this. You just have to start at one end and go for it.

Amazingly, what you see below represents 4 days of work.

  Nov 08, 2021     Avionics arrived! - (3 hours)       Category: Avionics

I elected to have a hired gun fabricate my avionics bundles. A while back I coordinated the purchase of the magic boxes with Brad Brensing from Garmin and Levi Self from Midwest Avionics at Lee Summit airport. All the boxes were delivered to Levi, and his guys built the bundles and bench checked everything.

I didn't want to trust all that expensive stuff to FedEx, so I was going to drive to KC to pick it all up, but Levi and one of his guys (Tony) offer to fly everything down in an RV10, so I met them at Stearman Field for lunch and to pick everything up.

Really happy with my decision to work with these guys. Levi is currently flying a friends RV10, used to have a RV6, and is building a 7. Tony is flying a non-Rv EAB, but I don't remember what flavor. Both of them are former Garmin employees and really easy to work with.

For future reference, I paid $33,891.98 when they ordered the boxes, which was the cost of the hardware, and the balance of $6,310.14 today for the parts and labor to build the harnesses. This includes a $400 credit for Garmin bucks that they gave me for committing to purchase during the timeframe they were giving credits in conjunction with the oshkosh show discounts. Total avionics cost; $40,202.12.

This is obviously a big chunk of cash, but something interesting here; The rule of thumb everybody talks about is the rule of thirds; cost breakdown is 1/3 airframe, 1/3 avionics, 1/3 engine. I believe due to careful shopping, I'll come in significantly under $40k on the airframe. Also, if bought that Thunderbolt IO390 today it would be $50,198. I ordered it 10-28-20, which was before the last 2 price increases and got it for a cool $37,179. I still have to buy a prop, but saving myself a cool $13k on the engine makes me feel better about writing that big check for avionics.

I started this project hoping to be flying before paint and interior for around $100k and it looks like we'll probably come in around $115k, which I'm going to call a victory with the project creep of a monster Thunderbolt engine, a full IFR touch screen glass panel and a planned for sweet composite prop.

  Apr 03, 2020     pitot wiring - (1 hour)       Category: Avionics

Wired the pitot heater pigtails into a molex connector. The Garmin has 2 pos and 2 neg wires because you can wire in parallel for 14v or series for 28v. I've gone with a convention for molex connectors where whenever possible, positive will be pin 1. in this case, I'm not doing a local ground for the pitot so pin 2 is neg back to the cabin.