I’m still plumbing the EFIS displays. I haven’t applied power to them yet. I’m getting close. With a tipup canopy, everybody sees all of the wires behind the panel whenever the canopy is open. This is adding to the time and care taken in how the wire bundles look.
I received my Grand Rapids EFIS stuff on Friday. Great fun. On Thursday I dove into working out the control sticks which took me almost three days to complete.
Installing the control sticks started with a careful consideration of how long they should be. One problem with making a final decision on this is the fact that the final control stops aren’t installed without the elevator and ailerons. The main concern is the forward stick position clearance of the instrument panel and controls. I chose to simply trim the sticks to clear the bottom of the instrument panel, even though I don’t think they will get that far forward once the elevator is installed with the stops. As far as engine control interference, once again, I don’t think the stick will get that far with the aileron stops. We’ll just have to see much later at final assembly. Anyway, I went ahead and trimmed the sticks like I said and moved forward. It is a little bit of a gamble but the worst that could happen is to have to trim a little more (then with all of the wires in them) later.
Moving on to other considerations, I decided that the right side stick will not be removable because the passenger will almost always be Tanya (I’m not afraid of commitment to a plan :), and she will be a pilot just as much as me. I think we’re going to be flying this thing almost as much from the right seat. So, I drilled the right stick and put an AN3 bolt through it. This then allows for full controls in the stick grip. I drilled for a small grommet at the base of the sticks for the grip wires to pass through and used some expandable sleeve to protect the wires. I’m using RAC 307 grips on both sides with the two aux momentary switches being com1 flip-flop and autopilot disconnect (control wheel steering). Soldering all of the wires to the grip switches was a fun exercise. I love my new super-duper whiz-bang production soldering iron. It makes this kind of stuff so easy and repeatable with precisely controlled heat. The stick grips are all wired up and completely assembled. I also spent some time working with the aileron trim spring assembly. I concluded that this could only be a temporary setup that will need major adjustment in the linkage when the aileron stops are installed.
I kind of did a build sprint to complete the stick grips so I could move on to the EFIS wiring. The first thing I did was drill the holes for mounting the AHRS up front and the magnetometer in back. The paper templates that I made long ago as place holders and built around were perfect. Then I drug out all of the wires for the three EFIS displays, the EIS, and AHRS and began to identify what was what and the wires that I wasn’t going to use and could be removed. This took me a couple of hours. I got the harness thinned out quite a bit, mainly because I already have a lot of the interconnects in the plane hooked up to the radios. While I was doing the heavy thinking, Tanya came out and volunteered to pull wires. I happily set her up to pull all of the long wires from the AHRS to the magnetometer which she did with great skill. I decided to punch a 3/4″ hole on the left and right sides of the sub-panel to put a snap bushing that will pass all of the EFIS and EIS wires. With the wiring routing figured out now I’m pulling all these wires and terminating them into their 25pin D-sub connectors (9 connectors in all).
I spent the evening checking and double checking and triple checking a bunch of my wiring before I applied power to the expensive stuff through the ship’s own power. I powered up the master and alternate power feeds for the first time via their switches in the panel. Nothing jumpered for the first time. All very cool. No sparks and no blue smoke. It would be very bad to release the magical blue smoke at this point.
Now I know that the radios at least power up and some stuff talks to each other. I have not done any rx/tx tests. I know that the transponder is sending mode S traffic info to the 430 GPS. I also know that the GPS is sending data to the autopilot. Beyond that, I need the EFIS for more data (one more day). I took the day off of (real) work today to put in a full build day in prep for the EFIS equipment tomorrow. We’ll see what I get done. I’m starting to think it is about time to put the rudder pedals in for good.
My Grand Rapids EFIS order shipped from SteinAir yesterday. I talked to Stein for a while about how long it took (5 months). He said this is very normal, and has been the case for about two years, even though GRT is telling customers 8-12 weeks. It sure is the case that product delivery schedules are a very hit or miss endeavor in the experimental aircraft components market. The one, somewhat unique, thing that I can say about GRT is that they don’t hold your money hostage while you are waiting for product to ship. Anyway, I’m super excited that this stuff is finally on its way. This includes the three EFIS (Horizon 1) displays, EIS4000 and its sensors (fuel flow, map, oil and fuel pressures, cht, egt), ARINC 429 module, and internal GPS module. The XM weather module is on back order. The only other thing that I’m currently waiting on is a TruTrak 2.25″ ADI. This is the last of the major equipment expenses for this project. Tanya is happy about that.
I think I’ll have the rest of the radio stack powered up and initial circuit testing done by this Friday when the EFIS stuff is supposed to arrive. Then it will be on to a whole other set of wires :).
On another note, Tanya is progressing with her PPL training. She now has over 20 hours and is chugging right along for a timely completion. Yesterday she did her second cross country flight from Georgetown to Waco. Get this, she flew a new Diamond DA-40 with a Garmin G1000 glass panel for the 2hr flight. Lucky dog. I’m jealous. She said it was super cool. I think that she sometimes has a different experience than the rest of us due to the “chick factor” in this male dominated environment :). You won’t find her apologizing for it either.
First off, when I was verifying all of the radio pinout wiring, I found that Stark had already installed the required resistors in the annunciator flag power leads. He did a very nice job. They are packaged up inside the connector shells. So I quickly cut out the resistors that I installed inline on the power source.
We all struggle with the question of where to mount antennas and ultimately have to make a decision. This is a 9A, not a race car, so my primary GPS1 antenna is going right out in the wind on the top rear of the fuselage. I’m quite sure it will be very happy there. I drilled all the required holes using the Garmin supplied back plate as a template. The connector is just to the left of the of the rib web that is in the center of the fuselage skin there. I cut a round notch in the flange next to the skin for the connector pass through in between two rivets. I then cut the back plate in two so it could be reinstalled on either side of the rib on the back of the skin.
