I was putting together my last big Aircraft Spruce order before I left the Middle East to head back to the States and got to the spot where I needed to order my SAF-AIR oil drain valve. I mean everyone uses SAF-AIR right?!  But man, oh man, are these things expensive!  I decided to do a bit more research to see if there were any alternatives out there.  Well, as you all know I spend a lot of time checking out what our RV brethren are doing over on the VAF site.  There I found a bunch of RV’ers singing the praises of an oil drain valve that is used in just about every type, make and model of vehicle around the world… from huge mega dump trucks to Caterpillar tractors to, well, uh, airplanes!

The valve they were talking about was the Fumoto oil drain valve that carries all the features of the SAF-AIR oil drain valve: it has a quick drain lever and a nipple attachment to allow permanent or temporary mounting of a hose to help in directing the oil flow while draining. It got rave reviews from both the VAF folks, and by just about everyone else that has ever used one. Maybe one of the best features of the Fumoto oil drain valve is the price.  I found it on Amazon for way less than half the price of the equivalent SAF-AIR valve.  Another thing it got high marks on feedback from its users was that it doesn’t leak or drip!

One thing I was concerned about was weight.  Since the Fumoto valve is virtually all brass, while the SAF-AIR is aluminum & stainless steel, my initial thought was that the Fumoto might be significantly heavier.  But much to my surprise (and delight) the Fumoto is almost exactly the same weight (literally within a few grams) as the SAF-AIR valve. With that knowledge in hand I pulled the trigger and ordered my new oil drain valve.  I also ordered one for my truck while I was at it.

As I said in my last post, I’ve been really busy trying to get everything in order to relocate out of the Middle East back to the States.  I’ll be visiting family on the west coast for a couple of weeks when I get back, so I’m trying to set-up all my travels once I get back as well.

I was able to do a fair amount of work on my Electrical Subsystem Diagrams, and I added a few more to the list.  Unfortunately I haven’t had time to take any pics of them.  Here is the new updated list nonetheless:

Z.  Z-13/8 Electrical System
–    Switch Configuration
1.  Panel Components
1.1 Panel Components Power
2.  Radio & audio system
3.  Main Bus
4.  Batt Bus
5.  E-Bus
6.  Nose Gear
7.  Pitch & Roll Trim Systems
8.  Lights: LDG, TAXI, NAV, STROBE
9.  Engine Info Management
10. Fuel System
11. Cockpit Lighting
12. Landing Brake
13. Throttle Switches
14. Control Stick Wiring
15. Integrated Back-up Battery System
16. Alarm & Warning Systems
17. Charging System
18. Heater System
19. Electronic Ignition
20. P-Mag Ignition
21. Component Connections
22. Starting System
23. Panel, Battery & Avionics Grounds
24. Cockpit, Firewall & Engine Grounds
25. Heated Pitot Tube
26. Trio Autopilot
27. ELT
28. Connectors/Pin IDs
30. Long Wire Runs

This will probably be my last update on these Electrical System Subsystems for a while.  I should get back into the swing of things on the build starting early to mid-August when I’m settled back in my house in Northern Virginia.

I spoke with electronics guru, Eric Jones, from Perihelion Design for a couple of hours a few days ago.  Eric is a regular contributor to Bob Nuckolls’ Aeroelectric Connection forum.  IMO, two indispensable resources if you’re working your electrical system are Bob Nuckolls’ book, The Aeroelectric Connection, and his forum hosted on the Matt Dralle’s Matronics forums, which covers far more than just electrical systems.  My discussion with Eric turned to LED landing/taxi lights, which he is infinitely familiar with.  I wanted to see if there was a lower cost LED solution to those sold on Aircraft Spruce, Wicks, etc.  Eric recommended the MR16 light, which has many different derivatives, and sent me this specific model pictured below as his recommendation to try out.   As you can see in the pic below, it looks very solid with a robust heat sink & cooling air flow design.

I bought the Soraa MR16, Model # 00235, which is an 11.5-Watt Dimmable LED light.  In addition, this MR16 is a 75 Watt bulb equivalent with 3700 Candlepower.  It produces a 20° narrow flood beam and looks to be perfect as an ancillary landing/taxi light in the nose along with the AeroLED Sunray Plus LED landing light that I picked up about a week ago.  However, at less than $40 off of Amazon, including shipping, it may just work out to be an excellent deal.  Of course I will test the light, configurations, etc. before incorporating it into my nose light design, but for now it looks highly promising.  I’ll report more on it when I get to that stage of the build.