More wires
I wired up the autopilot pitch servo. I had ordered the twisted a/p wire from Stein. It is great to be able to pull all seven wires at once in a single cable. I soldered wires to the 9 pin d-sub connector at the servo. I was soldering along one wire at a time, noting on my schematic which color wires I was soldering on to each pin. I soldered on the last wire but still had one pin left to connect. This was a momentary head scratcher. I’m sure I had one of those classic dumbfounded looks on my face with the soldering iron in one hand ready to solder the next wire. This servo is a super-duper-whiz-bang servo that senses out of trim conditions for annunciation. That requires an “extra” wire compared to the roll servo. So I ran another wire and closed up the connector shell.
I finally finished up the wiring for my EFIS aux battery. I’m wiring it into my efis1 progressive transfer three position switch. This switch will be down off, middle efis1 and ahars on powered from the avionics buss, and up will be add the aux battery. I’m using an inline fuse from the battery to the switch and am charging it through a diode from the main battery always hot buss.
I got around to physically verifying that all of the wires that I intend to run out to each wing will fit in the snap bushings in the outer skin in the fuselage and the conduit in the wings. That is a major relief. I’m not planning on wing root disconnects so it is about time to start running wires and simply coiling them for the wings. The one thing that I haven’t done yet is run any antenna wires since they will begin consuming major snap bushing real estate. I have most of the power control wires run through the firewall to the contactors. I have not terminated any of the wires to the switches on the instrument panel yet, they are all just hanging there labeled and ready.
Lastly, I terminated all of the annunciator lamp wires into a 10 circuit c-grid SL (locking) connector for later connection to the lamps after painting the panel.
In other news: I’m still waiting on my GRT order through Steinair. That order was placed on 5/16/06, so it has been about 16 weeks so far. I called GRT a couple of weeks ago and was told that my order is about 1 month from being shipped. I noticed that Todd from GRT made a comment on a news group last week that almost all of their EFIS1 orders ship within 8-12 weeks. This feeds the frustration a little. So I figure I’ll start calling them for a status check at least bi-weekly. Update: I called GRT again today and Sandy said my order was still about four weeks out. Hmm… that is the same thing she said a couple of weeks ago.
Tanya is progressing in her pilot training and is getting close to her first solo. I went out this past weekend and did my BFR in a C-150. I had forgotten just how slow those things are. This was my first flight in over a year. It is time to start flying a lot more in the next few months in prep for transition training.
