Tonight I installed t-connectors on the Pitot and Static pneumatic lines, and routed all lines to their respective ports on the G5 and ADAHRS unit.
With that done, the panel wiring is complete!
Well almost complete, I still need to:
– safety wire some more connectors
– throughly inspect all wiring and fix all potential chafe points
– route the firewall-forward wires up to and through the firewall
– upgrade the battery-vertical power wire from #8 to #6 AWG
Tonight I installed a couple of adel clamps to hold the pitot static lines, keeping them clear of the sharp edges they pass near under the panel. The routing is a little weird because I don’t want to put too sharp of a bend in the tubes. The tubes come up out of the wiring channel, pass over the wiring frame I built, come out the bottom of the forward side of the sub panel, then up through a gap between the panel and sub panel. I plan to install t-connectors on the top of the shelf behind the PFD, sending air to both the G5 and the ADAHRS unit mounted on the back of the PFD..
I then mixed up some epoxy resin and glued some zip tie holders onto the shelf.
Over the last week I’ve been chipping away at the panel wiring in the evenings. It’s hard to measure progress sometimes because I’ve been spending a lot of time on very small tasks, and/or doing something one way only to do it again a different way.
The main accomplishment, however, has been installing the wiring channel that connects the center tunnel to the sub panel. This is a lightweight frame that allows the wiring and pitot static lines to neatly fit inside, keeping all the wiring out of sight and out of the way of the occupants. This was not as easy to install as I hoped. The problem is access to the rivets that attach the frame to the sub panel. On one side there is an existing frame, and on the other side are the many bundles of wiring. I ended up drilling out the rivets and removing the frame that was blocking my access. Then I set pop rivets in place, then reinstalled the frame I had removed.
Once I had that channel in place, I installed the cover and checked for clearance on all sides. I found the connector for the standby battery was just touching the connector for the CO detector. The standby battery is installed on a panel above the fuel pump, just forward of this wiring channel. The CO detector is installed on the backside of the cover that sits on the wiring channel.
To solve the issue I relocated the CO detector mount, moving it sideways and up. This required drilling out some rivets and making some new holes, but it was no big deal. It’s now in a position where the two connectors and their wiring runs are not contacting each other.
With all that work done, the whole area is looking much cleaner and tidier.
Over the course of the last week, I’ve spent time installing the wiring frame between the sub panel and firewall, and the slowly working to zip tie and secure the various wiring bundles onto the frame. Lots of time spent on my back with my head under the panel making slow but steady progress.
There has been plenty of trial and error as I’ve tried to secure the bundles, and simultaneously untangle things. Most the the antenna cables ended up unplugged, re-routed, and then plugged back in again. I experimented with gluing zip tie holders onto the sub panel, but ended up removing most of those, as I found it better to use clamps and/or to secure the zip tie around or through a piece of aluminum. The zip ties are good for keeping the bundles together.
It’s finally starting to look a bit more tidy now.
Tonight I installed an adel clamp to hold the wiring bundles on the right side of the sub panel. I also worked on safety wiring the various connectors on that same side of the panel. The safety wiring is going to be a challenge for some of the connectors behind the MFD, but I’ll figure something out I’m sure.
The last couple of evening I’ve been using trial and error to work out the right structure to support the wiring behind the sub panel.
One of the changes I’ve made is to rivet together two pieces of channel to reduce the sharp edges.
I also installed an adel clamp bracket on the right side of the subpanel to hold several wiring bundles.
Tonight I started on the daunting task of trying to tidy up the wiring under and behind the panel. It’s a giant, heavy, ball of spaghetti right now, and I’m not sure if I have enough length to position things where I need them.
I decided I needed some kind of frame behind the subpanel to support the main wiring harness. Using some spare channel, I mocked up a frame and started trying to figure out a solution. I eventually settled on two channels running from the sub panel to the firewall, and a cross beam made from another length of channel. I should be able to rivet the fore/aft channels on the sub-panel end, but not sure I’ll be able to get rivets in on the firewall end.
Quick job tonight, shortening up the wiring for the outside air temperature probe. Because I installed the probe in the air vent instead of the wing, I was able to shorten up the wiring considerably.
The wiring is a 3-conductor braided cable, and the braided portion of the cable needs to be grounded. I used a solder sleeve with attached wire to quickly solder a ground wire into position. I had plenty of spare pins and connectors, so I was able to install pins on the wires and wrap it up quickly.
Today I installed the FlyLED controller board and the light dimmer circuit board. These both went of the forward side of the sub panel. The mounting hardware protrudes through the sub panel, behind the vpower unit.
I uninstalled the shelf that holds the vpower box and transponder, to allow access to drill the mounting holes for both boards.
Dad made a template to mark the holes, and then we drilled them to the correct size. The plastic standoff pins for the FlyLED board worked nicely, the only tricky part was mounting the board, which I did by feel, since there’s no easy access.
With all the hardware in hand, I went ahead and installed the ELT.
Important to-do: register the ELT and do a self-test. Since I don’t have a registration number yet, I don’t think I can register the ELT, but I need to research. Testing is also something I need to research, as setting off a 406MHz ELT is not the same as the old 121.5 style which you can test in the first 5 minutes of every hour.
