Monthly Archives: March 2017

Chapter 22 – Initial gear RCU wiring

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With the Nose Gear AEM box designed in CAD and sent to Marco for final collaboration and then 3D printing, I got organized to start wiring the internal components of both the RCU and the AEM.  Since the weather is getting better only sporadically, with the seemingly incessant high winds as the norm, I figured I would trudge on to finish up as much of my electronics as possible until good weather allows me to fly & glass.

The first order of business was implementing the $1.49 clamp I picked up at Michael’s to allow me to employ the fixed iron method that is detailed in a Youtube video that Marco sent me, and also as I had seen prior in an EAA soldering video (featuring one my local Chapter 186 members, Dick Koehler).  After using this method a bit without the clamp, I really liked it so I bought the clamp and made up my poor man’s version of it:

And here’s the YouTube video on the fixed iron method:

Ok, let’s talk about box configuration.  For mainly external reasons, I needed my RCU box to be no more than 2.1″ tall internally.  This meant the space for wiring connectors would be tight, and might have meant a fair amount of soldering, which as you can see above, I was fully prepared to do! ha!

Well, late last summer I had disassembled a friend’s dishwasher to get rid of it and recycle the parts.  I threw the wiring harness in the garage to use for test wire (vs Tefzel) any time I needed “trash” wire.  Well, I had it upstairs since I was cutting off pieces of this wiring harness to test circuits, and low and behold I found some 90° right angled 0.25″ FASTON connectors on the harness.  I cut them off and inspected them closely and was able to pull away the wires’ outer insulation from the plastic retainer to reveal bright shiny copper underneath.  Since the clamp part of the connector was spotless, I decided these would work great for the 22AWG ground side of the relay coils and pressed them into use.  Since I didn’t have enough, I bought a few more for the relay coils’ positive terminal sides.

Here I’ve laid out the components further so the wiring flows in accordance with the wiring diagram.  I crimped the normal FASTON terminals in place on the relay interconnect wires, first bending the terminals very slowly & carefully at a forward angle to give me just a bit more clearance under the lid.  Also, you can see on the blue flag connector on the right relay that besides the 18AWG power wire, I crimped the flyback diode and 56.2 Ohm resistor into the terminal as well.

[NOTE: my relay interconnect wires came out too long –meaning too tall to fit under the RCU box lid– so I need to cut the wires shorter & re-terminate the terminals on the outside relays].

I then focused on relay #3, which is the heart of incorporating the small 1.2A backup battery into this system, as Jack has in his original nose gear system (Note: Marc Z’s version doesn’t have this relay since he uses the mechanical gear down backup system).  I soldered the flyback diode in place between the relay coil tabs, then soldered the 22AWG black ground wire in place, with all this soldering taking place at the red terminal.  I then soldered a Schottky diode (middle left) to the resistor going to the positive side (blue terminal) of the relay coil.  This Schottky diode & resistor make up the backbone of the charging circuit for the 1.2A backup battery.

I then covered my solder joints with heat shrink tubing.

With that, I called it a night knowing that tomorrow I’ll have to cut my relay interconnects shorter and re-terminate…. (big sigh)

 

 

Chapter 22 – Gear Relay Control Unit

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Over the past couple of days I’ve been designing what I have come to term the Relay Control Unit (RCU) box in CAD  [prior to this multi-day endeavor I spent a day and a half rewriting & reconfiguring John York’s CSA article on installing FeatherLite’s strake & strake leading edge kit specific to my build, and adding in all my past strake construction notes from Mike Beasley, Bernie Siu, Wayne Hicks, Dave Berenholtz … just to name a few].

With the incorporation of Marc Zeitlin’s new wiring for the nose gear Auto Extension System (AEX), which is essentially a redesign of Jack Wilhelmson’s entire electrical scheme for the nose gear, I wanted to get this new system as organized and compartmentalized as possible.  In short, I wanted the rats’ nest of wires gone and out of my nose compartment.

Now, the 3 main components making up my new electric nose gear system is still Jack’s electric nose gear actuator at it’s core, with the actuator motor and limit switches all tucked away under the NG30 cover.  The wiring exits the NG30 cover via a 14-pin AMP CPC connector and heads in two directions: 1) the new Relay Control Unit (RCU) that will reside on the left, aft side of the Napster bulkhead, and 2) the new Auto Extension Module (AEM) which is simply a replacement unit for Jack’s AEX box.  The AEM will sit in the same spot on the front CL of F22 in the top, aft notch in the NG30 cover.  The RCU will tie into the system via a 19-pin AMP CPC connector while the AEM will be connected via a 15-pin DSub connector.  Beside the larger backup battery and laser altimeter, there are minor few connections to the Triparagon, P4 Throttle Connector, and panel switches.  But for the most part, the lion’s share of the actual nose gear electrical system is contained within 3 major components: NG30, RCU & AEM.

I was drawing up a version of the box I wanted in my antiquated TurboCad system, when in a discussion with Marco he graciously offered to 3D print the boxes for me (maybe not quite understanding that my CAD kung fu wasn’t up to par with his!).  He had to redraw my neanderthal CAD drawings into Fusion360 but in the end came up with the awesome box rendering you see below (note: the angled corner is the top left box corner and is specifically shaped to allow it to fit with the curvature of the Long-EZ’s nose at its install point).

After some further discussion we came up with the lid design that will also be the attach point for the AMP CPC connector, since –YES– space is tight!

After confirming the myriad of little details on this box, Marco pulled the trigger and made our RCU box collaboration a reality.  Pretty cool, eh?!

With the RCU box design complete and construction underway, I then got to work on designing the AEM box.

 

 

Chapter 23 – The Skybolt of tomorrow…!

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After another quick consult with Nick Ugolini, and after finally getting to the end of the proverbial research road on my Camloc/Skybolt solution (based on Nick’s fastener test) I had a Skybolt order sitting on my computer screen ready to go.  I wasn’t planning on buying these parts this month but since I had just spent over an hour performing some online price comparisons, and these were the lowest price I could find, I decided to not keep this in the queue any longer and pulled the trigger.

So, as with most everything on this build, besides the inevitable nickel & dime onesy-twosey pieces that will crop up and need bought, this purchase does it for my Camloc/Skybolt 1/4-turn fastener system.  This will allow me to virtually (but not completely) go Camloc on my cowlings, RAM air/hell hole cover, internal cockpit hatch covers, etc.

Concurrent to my Skybolt research and order trigger pulling, as I was watching Mike Beasley’s progress on his baggage pod installation, with the help of the ubiquitous baggage pod install master, Steve Beert, my curiosity around some particulars of the baggage pod installation got the best of me.  So late last night I pulled out my notes and ended up back on James Redmon’s Berkut13 site to see what he had to say about it.

I knew that if I wanted to use Camlocs on my baggage pods that I needed to use the removable grommet 4002-NS vs the SK-O18S grommet that is held in place with a snap ring.  If these numbers are new to you, welcome to the club!  As with so many components on these airplanes there are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of possible combinations.  Thus, I’m very thankful that Nick Ugolini documented his Camloc test.

Moreover, you may note that the the face of these grommets below look a bit different (to be clear: the grommet is the flange looking deal while the stud is the “screw”).  The one on the left is the non-removable (without tools) Skybolt SK-O18S, which I’ll be using for the majority of my Camloc installations.  The Camloc 4002-NS grommet on the right is meant to come out when the Camloc is unfastened and is used in places like the aft edges of the cowlings and on the baggage pods.

This view below clearly shows the difference between the SK-O18S on the left (secured to the cowling with a snap ring) and the removable 4002-NS on the left (for aft top/bottom cowling securing and baggage pods).

In addition, I discovered a nice surprise while re-reading stuff about installing the baggage pods on James Redmon’s Berkut13 site: he mentioned that Gary Hunter provided all the BID tapes required to mount these pods to your Long-EZ!  What?!  So I went digging in the box that I’ve had for a few years now and sure enough at the bottom was a box with the instructions in there and a bunch of MARKED bags with the BID required to mount the baggage pods . . . Now, how cool is that!!!  Who knew?!  ha!

One final point.  As I was reading through the how-to manuals & notes on installing the baggage pods, I discovered –the day after I got my Skybolt order!– that I needed one more of the -7 studs that I of course don’t have on hand.  See?!  I told you!  Build an airplane if you love never-ending goose chases… ha!

 

Chapter 22 – COM1/COM2 Radio Swap

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After pulling the trigger on my Garmin GNS480 I was doing some research on wiring it up when I found a post on the Dynon forum from a Dynon tech saying that the Dynon 2-place intercom should no longer be used to control two radios.  The huge selling point for me in buying the Dynon intercom was SPECIFICALLY that it was designed to handle TWO radios!

In a phone call with a very knowledgeable RV builder, Don, who I met on the Aeroelectric Connection forum and who happened to also be selling a Garmin GNS480, I pointed out my recent discovery regarding the Dynon statement on their intercom.  Don stated that he knew a number of RV drivers that were using this exact intercom to control two radios and they seemed really happy with their installations.  He further stated that since he was good friends with Rob Hickman, founder of Advanced Flight Systems, that I should give Rob a call to confirm this not-so-good information.  So, I did just that.

Rob and I talked for a good bit, and he did in fact confirm this disturbing news regarding the Dynon intercom (AFS sells the same exact intercom, and yes, these companies are now one….).  According to Rob, he knew of no work-around and that unless I wanted to keep my COM2 radio turned off or the volume all the way down, I would almost certainly get bleed over and crosstalk between the two radios.  In essence, he said the intercom simply came down to being a hopeful design in theory, but not a good one in practical application [as an aside, none of the advertising that I saw on this intercom changed to state that is was no longer a viable solution for controlling two comm radios].

I looked around for other alternatives but I was really relying on the size and touted functionality of this intercom as the linchpin of my two comm radio design in my Long-EZ. Every audio panel I found simply took up too much panel real estate that I just didn’t have, and the features were either way too much or way too little for what I had already dialed in with the Dynon intercom.  I figured in my mind there needed to be a way to make this little intercom do what it had been advertised to do.

Well, I posted my question on the Aeroelectric Connection forum (if you’re not on it, I highly recommend it) and got a response the next day with a link to the VAN’s forum.  There, an RV builder who moonlights as an electrical engineer (or is that vice versa?!), Deene Ogden, who had the exact answer to my issue.  In the Dynon intercom manual it merely has you hook up the intercom to common on a switch (or relay) with one side going to the COM1 radio and the other going to the COM2 radio.  Well, that results in the crosstalk issue I highlighted above.  The answer is simply go bigger, as in a bigger switch or relay.  Instead of a single pole relay (the white one below) I needed a 3 pole relay to also switch the Audio OUT of each comm radio into the appropriate pin on the Dynon intercom.

Thus, with the relay off (my control stick switch in the center off/COM1 position) the relay is as follows (1-3 represent the C-NO-NC set for each pole):

  1. PTT: COM1 (NC)
  2. COM1 Audio In: On/NC
  3. COM2 Audio In: Off/NC (pin not connected)

When the relay is powered on (my control stick switch moved up to the ON/COM2 position) the relay is as follows:

  1. PTT: COM2 (NO)
  2. COM1 Audio In: Off/NO (pin not connected)
  3. COM2 Audio In: On/NO

This is reported by Deene and others to do the trick, so as you can see above I bought & rewired/re-soldered the connections to a 3PDT relay.

I also have been doing a bit of verification on my headset jack connections, so below I used the wiring harness that I received with the intercom that I bought from Dick Rutan to test the headset jack housing configuration (yes, I’m name dropping because it’s pretty cool that I’m using something Dick Rutan constructed to check out my configuration!)

I of course need to finish up my COM1/COM2 swap relay with some heat shrink tubing & wire labels, but beyond that I’m done (again!) with my com radio swap relay wiring.

 

Chapter 21 – Newton Fuel Caps

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I got a note from fellow Long-EZ builder Brian Ashton from Alaska asking a question about my fuel caps that I mentioned in a post on acquiring fuel cap keys from ACS for these caps.  Well, to answer Brian’s question I had to go back and do a bit of research on my own fuel caps.  Turns out, I was remiss in ever actually posting anything about my fuel caps, so I am doing that now to correct my oversight!

Way back in May 2012 –after a back & forth discussion with a builder that decided he wasn’t going to use these caps anymore– I bought these Newton fuel caps on Ebay.

These are the locking style caps as you can see in the pic below.

I was looking for the Newton A36LFF style caps with the solid flange vs. the flange that has bolt holes around the perimeter for attachment.  I believe these are slightly different than the A36LFF in that the flanges on these are simply sans holes, while if I’m correct the actual A36LFF has a raised lip around the cap and a slightly lower flange to allow it to be glassed in place.

Below is a shot of the interior side of the fuel cap.

And a shot of the retaining flange, underside.

I definitely remember for the price that I would make this configuration work since the pair of these caps were way less than buying just one A36LFF cap from ACS!  Plus, the flange showing on the external fuel tank surface versus just the cap peeking out is much more visually appealing to me.  I understand the issues of securing it, and I have an idea or two that will keep these guys in place.

One cap does have a couple of very light scratches (which I believe will happen over time anyway) and I’ll make a point that while these have a goldish appearance in all these pics (from the original seller) they in fact have the normal fuel cap silver aluminum finish.

Ok, with the mystery of the missing fuel caps taken care of, I’ll press on!

 

Chapter 22 – Fake it ’til you make it!

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With the weather still not up to par for flying on the days I’ve been available, I’ve been working to get more stuff in the coffers for the eventual final push on this build.  I received an order from Mouser with everything but the Laser Altimeter that I’ll need to implement Marc Zeitlin’s new nose gear system AEX mod, combined with Jack Wilhelmson’s original emergency backup battery feature.  After sorting through a myriad of revisions on the melded, morphed version that falls between Marc’s new system with Jack’s old system, I think the new AEX with battery backup and emergency extend is about the best version it can be.

There are some tradeoffs of course with this new system, and some of that will be in weight.  Although I guesstimate it’s not huge, I’m thinking this new system will be a bit heavier with the required laser altimeter and beefy relays in the mix.  To offset some of the added weight effect, I’m mounting these new monster relays in an enclosed box on the left, aft side of the Napster bulkhead.  That should help a tad with moving the CG ever so slightly forward.

Speaking of weight, I also received two new brass fittings for the oil pump from Buly.  We actually talked a couple of weeks ago and he said he was going to ship them out, but understandably got sidetracked with the sale of his Cozy.  Sad to see him sell it… yet another one of the Ol’ Guard out of the game.

Obviously these fittings are somewhat unique, thus the reason Buly sent them to me rather than just have me order some off of ACS.  Nick Ugolini did recommend that I acquire fittings for 5/8″ tubing, but Buly had these 1/2″ fittings at the ready, and I figured 1/2″ will do just fine.   Maybe these will save a bit on weight with a little less oil coursing through the heating system lines.  Below you can see that I test fitted these new fittings on the oil pump.  Since these brutes are brass, they of course are significantly heavier than if they were aluminum.  But hey, they fit, are in hand and will allow me to have heat in my airplane!

Since I also got a rather sizable ACS order in as well, I decided it was time to take a break from my logistical duties and knock out something that I had started quite a number of months ago.  I had already spent quite a few hours at the beginning of the week logging a bunch of purchases in my tracking spreadsheet . . . and I’m talking stuff from last August, so I wanted to get a bit organized.  My goal before the weather gets warmer, when I can start back on doing some low cost (read: sans high heater settings) layups is to get my recent flurry of research, documentation and instruction manuals put away in my build HQ area (my living room!).  I also spent a good half-hour today doing a cursory cleanup of the shop, but another hour is in order before it will be ready for production again.

Ok, so my latest mini project was to assemble a bunch of pieces of wood that I cut late last summer to create a cockpit mockup & simulator to allow me test the ergonomics, placement, switchology and operation of my avionics and instruments.  This harks back to my original fuselage mock-up to check for how the plane would feel in its stock dimensions (remember, I widened the cockpit 1.4″).  Now, this version will enable me to mount all my current avionics, plan for new ones, and give me a really close estimate on final wiring requirements for all my panel components.  This latter reason is why I made this cockpit simulator to allow for the installation of the Triparagon.

When the Triparagon is installed I’ll wire up the panel and fire up the components not only to do a good ops check on them, but also to configure them in the panel.  Also, this cockpit mockup will also allow me to finalize any wiring required on the Triparagon.

You may note looking at the pics above that the wood looks a little ratty and non-uniform, and you’d be right!  So far, this entire mockup has been made of completely scrap wood.

Below you can see the right side armrest.  Since I won’t be mounting my second Infinity control stick into the actual airplane, it will get mounted here (although I probably won’t wire it up) into the right side armrest.

On the left side I’ll use the cockpit mockup to figure out exactly where the throttle will get mounted, and how everything else will be configured on the armrest.  You may note the different gray colors of the two armrests, which is me using these as paint color swatches to help me decide the color (or colors!) of my interior cockpit paint.

I’m accomplishing this cockpit simulator mockup construction in 6 phases, and right now I just finished Phase IV.  Phase V will be cutting and installing the avionics in the instrument panel, and Phase VI will be configuring the two separate armrests with the control stick and throttle.

As you can see, once I get this guy up and running, I’ll be able to test out different component and switch locations no matter what’s going on with the actual cockpit.  In addition, this mockup will really come in handy while I’m sanding away on my Long-EZ in prepping it for paint, all the while ensuring that my eletro-whizzies remain dust free!

As you can see, I’m slowly moving towards getting back onto the build.  I do need to really try to knock out this Instrument rating though, although the pace of instruction is very much glacial at the moment!

 

Chapter 22 – Success!

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I got word this morning that my IFR training is back on (there was an issue with my FBO and Part 141 training… all clear now).

In the mean time, I had two separate phone calls today with Rich at Aircraft Extras, Inc. to finally get these AG6 warning annunciators programmed!  After following some instructions in an email that didn’t work (my fault, I entered a data field incorrectly) I called Rich.  He talked me through some steps and helped me understand a couple of the data fields well enough that I got off the phone to tackle it all again.  Well, the umpteenth time is a charm because it worked!!!  Finally!  So I spent the next 6 hours programming and documenting every parameter for each warning screen.  I then did an operational check on each alarm screen by inputting the amount of voltage that it needed to see to kick off the alarm. Thus, now each alarm screen works exactly as it should… (yeah!)

It was a bit tough there for a while on getting these AG6s programmed, but I’m really glad I stuck to the plan for using them.  I can now say that all my major warning annunciations (non-EFIS) are good to go!  One other thing I’ll point out on my AG6 configuration is that on almost all of them I’ve turned off the “Green OK” screen so that I get just the warning screen & only when it alarms.  Clearly, on the canopy, landing brake and nose gear I wanted positive feedback of what was going on with these components.  I’ll also point out that only those issues that would result in an immediate safety of flight issue, damage to the aircraft/engine, or fire are denoted with a red color.  The amber alarms screens show up clearly visible and are an attention getter as well, but I wanted the really bad stuff (obviously, my opinion here) depicted with red.  Finally, I’ll note that the green screens only come alive when the action they represent has been 100% completed.  For the canopy, note that it doesn’t say “Canopy Closed,” but rather “CANOPY LOCKED.”  Same for the landing brake being stowed away and the nose gear extended all the way down.  I actually had a screen stating “gear locked” (since it solved my double gear up/down alarm entry … see below), but after a bit of thinking I decided that I wanted to denote “GEAR DOWN” since to me that communicates more succinctly where the gear is compared to “GEAR LOCKED”.

Moreover, Marc Zeitlin just released his new version of the nose gear automatic extension system (AEX) which streamlined the signal output from the nose gear system with a single wire to each nose gear status indicator light.  What I had to take into account however was that with these one wire outputs it meant one input for the respective gear up and gear down signals.   This meant I had to parse out the normally paired GEAR UP and GEAR DOWN warning screens and put them on separate inputs.  Well, the way the AG6 works is that each alarm has a specific screen code, and the screen code can only be used once in the system since it points all the data to that code.  Well, luckily I communicated what I wanted and Rich talked me through how to “trick the system” by using all the descriptive parameters of the GEAR UP/GEAR DOWN reference number under another unique alarm code (I overwrote the vacuum pump alarm code since I definitely will not be installing one of those in my plane).  With two separate GEAR UP/GEAR DOWN alarms on Annunciator #1, all I had to do (yeah, right!) was turn off the alarm screen (red or green) that I didn’t want to see for each separate GEAR UP/DOWN alarm.

[As a point of note, there were 2 EZ workarounds for the above issue even if Rich hadn’t helped me out.  As I mentioned before, I could have used “GEAR LOCKED” which is a different screen number.  Also, I could have programmed one gear condition on AG6 #1 and the other on AG6 #2, although I did want my final gear positions annunciations in the same place… ALTHOUGH, to further convolute this: my “GEAR UP TRANSIT” and “GEAR DN TRANSIT” indicator lights (not AG6) will not be colocated on the panel so that peripheral vision and color tell me gear moving up or gear moving down … nuff said!]

Ok, speaking of Marc Zeitlin’s new AEX, I’m starting to actually receive my component orders to implement that system.  I have yet to order the actual Laser Altimeter, but pretty much everything else is on its way.  Below is the 12V-to-5V converter that I just got that is needed to drive the 5V laser altimeter.  I wasn’t sure which one to get so I just bought the same exact one that Marc has since his system is working.  Hey, if it works, don’t mess with success . . .  right?!

The other components I got in (as if I didn’t have enough of these things!) were 2 different airspeed switches.  The one to the left is a Normally Closed airspeed switch and used to sense when the aircraft is less than 90 KIAS.  The one to the right is a Normally Open airspeed switch that senses when the aircraft is traveling 40 knots or faster.  These will be installed in series so both parameters must hold true for the AEX to function (along with the throttle being retarded to <10% power and the laser altimeter reading less than approximately 350 ft AGL).

Marco had a question on my last blog post regarding Marc Z’s system that I wanted to clear up here.  Here’s Marco’s question:

“What happens if all those [AEX] conditions are met and the gear auto-deploys, then you find yourself a little low on the glide path, and add more than 10% power to correct just before you land? Will the landing gear go back up? Or does it stay down after deployment?”

 

This is an excellent point, and I should have clarified this in my last post.  The answer is NO, the gear will not go back up because the AEX circuit latches.  Only by cycling the gear switch all the way down and back up will it then raise the nose gear on the command of the pilot to very specifically override the AEX system.  Otherwise, the AEX will keep the gear deployed until the pilot either lands the plane or cycles the gear switch toggle to intentional raise the gear.  I’m glad Marco asked this question so I could clarify this point!

Depending on weather my Instrument training schedule is up in the air.  As for the build, as time allows I have about 4-5 electrical system tasks I want to finish up.  Then I plan on seriously getting back to some glassing, including (don’t laugh!) . . . the wheel pants!