September 24, 2020 – Well, it’s been an interesting few weeks. After losing both of my parents and a covid-like illness (I was negative!) I’m back. We won’t talk about my flying! That’s another issue. But things are moving forward with this project.
I looked more into locating various items in the airplane. Because of proximity to antennas, I decided to put the ADSB-In box back there, as well as the transponder. Van’s sells brackets that are for an ELT or strobe power supply. I decided to get one each for the left and right, one for the ELT in the future, and one for the ADSB. Because the ADSB antenna is on the right side, that’s where I placed this bracket.
ADSB
Access to install this bracket was a pain. It attached between two stringers behind the baggage compartment. It fits fantastically, but it gets pop-riveted in place in the stringers. Note to self: install the lower rivets first, then the top ones.
Antennas
My darling wife came out to the hangar and helped me install the ADSB and transponder antennas.
I also ran the coax cables for the com antennas.
Com Harness
I think the biggest part of this project is going to be the com harness. This connects the two transceivers, the intercom, and the two radio control heads in the panel. Dynon does not sell a harness for the whole thing, but they do sell one for the intercom, which appears to be the heart of the machine. Because I have two coms instead of the one officially supported by Dynon, I found out I had to add two pins to the intercom harness. Took me two tries because I wasn’t paying attention to what I was doing, but I got that done.
After much head-scratching and consultation with experts on the airport, I called Stein and found out they would sell me a drawing of the entire com system provisioned for my setup.
Armed with this information, I laid out my version of a harness board on my work table, with close approximations of distance and relative positions of each component.
I started with the connectors for the transceivers.
I haven’t closed them up because I need to install the power wires from the VPX.
In order to get distance correct, I wanted to locate the harness in the airplane where the connectors would be. I made up a template out of posterboard with the locations of the three panel items. I’m sure there’s am easier way to do this…
I think before I get too much farther along, I’ll consider starting to get the panel ready to cut.
Time: 27:00
planning on starting my project next year – i need to make a note or link to your September entry and try to install the mounting brackets prior to skinning the fuselage – looks like it would make the job so much easier.
Thanks for keeping such detailed entries.