May 8, 2020 – I finished the wiring for the taillight on the rudder.
I installed the molex connector (provided by AeroLEDs) to the pigtails on the light.
I drilled the hole in the vertical spar for the wire to pass through. After a lot of thought and soul-searching about how to route this wiring, I looked on the RV7 Plans CD I got from Van’s. I found OP-56 which covers tail lighting. So I drilled the hole as dictated by this drawing. It goes in the upper half of the lower rudder hinge bracket. The local ground here uses one of the mount bolts for the tailwheel bracket.
So I installed the other half of the molex connector on my shielded wire bundle, and put a piece of expandable wrap on the wire where it passes through the spar.
I doubled up the ground wires. One is for the light itself and the other is for the shield ground for the wire bundle. So I will have two wires connected to the local ground; this pigtail from the molex and the separate chassis ground wire from where the light attaches in the fairing.
Here’s where the wires will exit from the lower rudder fairing.
I have since enlarged that hole so the molex will fit through it. May never have to come apart, but being a mechanic, I’m always trying to think about maintenance, unlike engineers, who just design it to put it together, and solve the maintenance problem later.
I put power to the light to try it out. Wow! I couldn’t see for 15 minutes afterwards! Strobe and position light work great.
Time: 5:00
