Today I got all the wires labeled on the GRT EIS4000 Engine Info System wiring harness.  In addition, I was able to label the wires near the actual GRT Manifold Pressure sensor and the GRT Hall Effect sensor.  Since I ran out of wire labels —having burned through 2 cartridges in less than 3 days— the labels on the distant end of these wires (where they connect either to the EIS4000 or to ground) will come later.  Lastly, I was able to label 2 out of the 3 wires coming out of the left and right fuel tank level sensor control heads.

As you can see, I clearly made a sizable dent in the aft fuselage-located components’ wiring labels.

In my effort to lean as far forward as I can in getting the electrical components prepped as much as possible to facilitate as quick of an electrical system installation as I can eek out, I went ahead and soldered the 2 wire leads to the GIB PTT button.  These will get soldered onto the tabs of the GIB headset phone jacks when that gets installed.

Since I didn’t have standard sized solder tabs on the back side of this button to solder onto –remember, this came out of my F-15 throttle handle– I soldered the leads onto the legs of the existing capacitor that was mounted in place.  Nonetheless, when I toned it out with a continuity test all was good.

I then spent a couple of hours researching and doing some initial messing about with configuring my engine data info display on my HXr EFIS screen.  After seeing and assessing how I can go about configuring it, I got into the manual to find that I missed a HUGE piece of the installation puzzle . . . again, assumptions will bite you in the butt!

Since the EIS4000 is a standalone panel mounted instrument in its own right, but that can also be summarily hidden away so it’s sexier cousin (HXr) can get all the praise in presenting such wonderful data in bright shiny ways, all the parameters on the EIS4000 must be zeroed out with all the engine data max/min limits set in the EFIS.  Why?  Well, if an alarm rings off on the EIS4000 (remember, it’s a standalone instrument that shares its data with the HXr EFIS) with it tucked behind the GIB’s head, then there is no way to turn the alarm off!

Thus, by zeroing out the engine data parameters in the EIS4000, it then becomes an information collection point and conduit to further pass the data (and parameter limit control) to the HXr.  So along with deciding what exact info I want displayed, and how, a new task on my list is to now transfer all the engine data parameter limits from the EIS400 to the HXr (and Mini-X) and then zero out the engine data parameter limits on the EIS4000 box (except for the Aux functions… those are simply replicated between the two units).

Finally, my Winchester, Virginia-based engine builder, Tom Schweitz, called to ask me some configuration questions on the engine for the build next week.  To make absolutely sure I was answering his question on prop flange bolt size, I pulled the prop flange to confirm.  I figured since this a close-in objective, I would snap a pic of it so we can all get into an engine frame of mind….

Since my truck needs some TLC, especially before I make a couple of trips up to Winchester, VA and back…. the last trip most likely with engine in tow, I need to take a couple of days off my airplane building effort to focus on installing some new valve cover gaskets on the truck motor.  Thus, the next 3-4 days will be very light, if any, on the airplane build.

Yes, the cold wx spell persists (currently in the 20’s) so I’m reporting still even more news in the wonderful world of electrical system tasks completed! A lot of what I’m doing is cleanup or finalization from the original install of these components in my panel mockup. Since I’ve used this panel for months now, I am both happy with the design of it and comfortable with the flow.  Except for some 1/4″ shifts max –not that I have any planned except the center strut switches– everything is pretty much as it will be in the airplane.

My first order of business today was to solder in 2 lengths of 20 AWG wire (BLACK) for a new GNS480 ground wire(s) run.  First, as per my original plan my 2x 20 AWG power (RED) wires run forward from the aft plate of the GNS480 to the front lower LEFT corner of the panel (behind the panel), then from there traverse across the panel just above the leg holes to the 5A circuit breaker in the lower RIGHT corner of the panel.  Then one single 16 AWG wire exits the other side of the 5A CB, flows back to midpoint of the panel, then straight forward to the “Deslumpifier,” as depicted below.

After soldering the longer lengths of 20 AWG black ground wire into place, I then labeled the wire as a pair and then ran it from the GNS480 unit to the Deslumpifier, while twisting them with the power wires.  The GNS480 power wires are decent sized wires, so I should have thought of this initially when I installed the unit and took steps to mitigate any EMI/EMR noise then.  The main reason I soldered in lengths of wire vs just running brand new wires was the terminated ends that I didn’t want to waste, especially the right-angled PIDG FastONs that are a bit pricey.  In short, it was just easier and cheaper to solder in a couple of long new wires.

I then targeted the Trio autopilot wiring harness and finished labeling all the unlabeled wires in it.  The effort on the Trio autopilot also required me to add about a 6 ft extension of twisted pair of green and orange 22 AWG wires to the existing twisted pair exiting out the harness of the Trio autopilot for connection to the FT-60 Red Cube Fuel Flow transducer in the Hell Hole.  Once I cut and twisted (using a cordless drill) the new fuel flow extension wires together, I then soldered spliced them to the end of the fuel flow wires exiting out of the Trio autopilot.  I then added a few labels to the entire run of new twisted pair and called that task complete.

I added I would say at least another 30+ wire labels, both in minute recesses of the panel wiring that I had missed, or in the the new wiring schemas I was implementing today. I have to say that, except for a final, no-kidding check on the AG6 warning annunciators, CO meter, and TCW Start Smart module, with all those wires at least ~70% labeled currently, I could install the panel as-is today and be happy with the wire labeling and interconnectivity.  What I wouldn’t be happy is with the cable management, which is something I am going to undertake soon to start wrangling all those cables into a nice orderly fashion.

Another puzzle piece I had to figure out was all the OAT probes, specifically the ground points for them.  I have one OAT probe connected to the GRT HXr AHRS, one connected to the Mini-X (new design change from the EIS4000), one OAT probe that connects to the HXr but serves as an air/heat duct temperature gauge, and one OAT probe off the MGL clock.  I did some research and figured that with the signal voltage on these guys being so low (for example, the MGL uses 30 ga wiring) that I would simply tie all the OAT probe grounds in at one point on the G5 Avionics Ground Bus. I was actually shooting to tie all the OAT probe grounds into the lower, forward G4 Panel Ground Bus, but there’s a specific statement in the GRT manual to keep the OAT probe leads twisted as much as possible to optimize the signal from the sensor.  With the G5 bus being higher and farther aft on the Triparagon (i.e. closer to the positive signal wire ports of the respective OAT probes) I chose it as the best grounding point.

So that’s what I did.  Below you can see the 3 GRT OAT probes’ ground leads tied into one lead (lower right corner) ready to be connected to the G5 Avionics Ground Bus.  I labeled all the OAT probe wires and terminated the ends to match their respective tie in ports (all D-Sub: AHRS harness, J4A connector, and J3A connector).  Since my MGL Clock OAT probe is still on “probation” and subject to being swapped out if it’s numbers (temp accuracy) doesn’t improve, I simply left a pigtail hanging out of the ground harness below to tie in the MGL OAT probe.  Once that issue is resolved, I’ll solder in the MGL OAT probe ground wire and heat shrink the splice. [BTW, the GRT OAT probe leads do NOT come twisted… I had to do those by hand so as not to damage the sensors on the end of the leads].

My major push of the day was a 6-wire cable that I bought from Stein to manage and clean up a “myriad” of the single 22 AWG wires heading from in front of the panel to the D-Deck & Hell Hole areas in the back.  For a very minimal weight penalty, I now have six 22AWG wires bundled together for their journey aft (or forward…).  The 6 “chosen ones” for these wires are as follows:

• Engine data from EIS4000 to HXr & Mini-X
• Serial link from HXr to EIS4000 (for EIS software updates)
• EIS alarm output to AG6 warning annunciator
• Back-up Oil Pressure sensor power/alarm to AG6 warning annunciator
• Hobbs meter power
• “Starter On” alarm to AG6 warning annunciator

Today my focus would be on the forward (panel) end of this 6-wire consolidation cable. I started by stripping back the outer insulate that then allowed me to strip the ends of the wires for connection to their respective final end-point runs.

Before I connected the orange wire that provides engine information to the HXr and Mini-X, I soldered in a quick jumper wire that sends the signal from the EIS4000-to-HXr connection (J4 connector) simultaneously through the yellow jumper wire to the Mini-X (J3 connector).  Note that I created the 1/4″ bare-wire gap in the orange wire using my wire strippers, then trimmed the overhanging wire off the end when I terminated the wire with a D-Sub socket.

I then soldered the yellow jumper wire to the 1/4″ bare-wire section on the orange wire.

And covered the solder splice with some protective heat shrink.

With my initial jumper wire addition task out of the way, I then got busy soldering all the final extension wire runs into place onto the wire ends of the 6-wire cable.

And then covered all the solder splices with protective heat shrink.

I then finished up the extension wire run attachments with another couple pieces of larger red heat shrink.

After double-checking my wiring diagrams, I realized I needed another branch off the backup oil pressure sensor’s power lead to drive the AG6 warning annunciator (whenever the backup oil pressure sensor is in an alarm state).  However, as per the AG6 manual, this branch run to the AG6 requires an inline 2K Ohm resistor.  Ah, and for some reason (wink) I just happen to have some on hand!  So I bared yet another segment of wire on the backup oil pressure sensor’s red wire extension run and twisted a leg of the resistor into place.

I then soldered both the resistor connection to the backup oil pressure sensor’s red power wire extension run and white/brown lead to the actual AG6 annunciator.

I then covered all that up with some red protective heat shrink.

I spent another fair bit of time printing out wire labels and attaching them to the 6-wire consolidation cable front side wire extension runs.  I also terminated all the ends of these leads accept the ones headed to the AG6, since those simply get terminated into block terminals on the AG6.

Here’s the half finished 6-wire consolidation cable:

Of course figuring out the front side of the 6-wire consolidation cable meant determining the aft-side interfaces with the EIS4000.  During the process of building the cable above, I would fix other issues as I ran across them.  For example, now knowing that the panel On/Off LED indicator lights dim and push-to-test functions work, I cut, labeled and terminated the lead that goes from the PTT switch #4 to main bus power.

I also gleaned even more wires from the EIS4000 wiring harness, swapped some GRT wires for better quality Tefzel wires (I’m not a fan of the quality of wires that came on the EIS4000 <specifically> and swapped out 2 of the 3 wires that run into the engine compartment).  In addition, I swapped some colors out to better align with the components they were connecting to (say, yellow to yellow, etc.)  Finally, I labeled the majority of the wires in the EIS4000 wiring harness.  I’ll finish the labeling of a bunch of the EIS and D-Deck/Hell Hole area wires over the next few days.

The last big news of the day is that I spoke with my engine builder this afternoon and the engine build is a go, scheduled for next Tuesday and Wednesday.  So, as I mentioned before I will have to curtail my electrical system install shenanigans for a bit and focus on studying and prepping for my engine build.

With that, tomorrow will be another day finishing up a lot of the minutia to-do items on my electrical system tasks list.  But, besides the cable management portion, I really do see the panel wiring being pretty much a done deal by the end of the week, that includes design, configuration and labeling.  Clearly I’m moving way aft now into the D-Deck/Turtledeck components and am getting that stuff labeled as well as connectors crimped on and pigtails spliced into place, etc.  So on my engine info system and Electroair EIS, I’d say I’m near 100% on the design and will be around 75% complete on the actual installs on those two components, with actual cross-component wiring, trans-firewall feeds and mounting the only things left to do after I get the wiring harness leads labeled and terminated.

Movie’ Out!

I started out today gathering up my GRT EIS4000 wiring harness, a 300 Ohm 1/4w resistor, and my D-Sub socket removal tool.  My task here was to add a cross connect wire from the EIS4000’s blue 4.8V excitation wire to the engines oil pressure sensor’s EIS signal input lead.  This is required to ensure the ~5V signal strength is maintained at the oil pressure’s input port on the EIS unit.  Physically, it is simply a cross-connect wire from the blue to the orange/black wire in the EIS4000’s wiring harness.

I started off by removing the blue wire from the D-Sub connector, then trimmed about a 1/4″ of the insulation off of it a few inches from the D-Sub socket and then wrapped one of the resistor legs around the exposed wire segment.

I then soldered the resistor to the exposed wire segment on the blue 4.8V wire.  Next, I soldered a short length of 22 AWG orange/black cross-connect wire to the other leg of the resistor.

I then trimmed up any protruding sharp edges and enshrined my work in red heat shrink.

On the EIS4000 oil pressure sensor port’s orange/black lead I then exposed about a 1/4″ of bare wire just as I had done on the blue wire above, only this time it was 4-5″ downstream of where I had tapped into the blue wire.  I then wrapped the stripped end of the cross-connect wire around the bare part of the oil pressure sensor wire….

and soldered the cross-connect wire to the oil pressure sensor wire.

I finished off my task with another round of red heat shrink over the cross-connect/oil pressure sensor wire solder-spliced junction.

In other news… I finally received my Bob Nuckolls recommended and Eric Page built AD626 Op Amp board (for displaying Electroair Spark Advance on the EFIS via the EIS). Once again Eric did a phenomenal job constructing this board. I really like his concept of using PIDG FastON tabs for connecting wires to the board…. nice & EZ!  Moreover, I’m extremely thankful that we homebuilders have a corroborative means such as the AEC forum to figure this stuff out.  Such an excellent resource.

Although I won’t have any wire labels until Monday, thus keeping me from completely wiring up the AD626 Op Amp Board, I did start prepping the EIS wiring harness with connective wires to connect to this rather diminutive component.  As an aside, the FT-60 fuel flow connects to a 12V+ port on the EIS4000. In addition, the manual specifically states to use this 12V+ port to connect the Fuel Pressure sensor.  Thus, since I have 12V power at the ready (the AD626 Op Amp board uses very little power), I am merely going to tap into the EIS4000’s 12V+ port to drive the AD626 Op Amp as well.

Pictured below are 2 wires connected to the bared 1/4″ section (just like above) of the EIS4000’s 12V+ out power port, making 3 out leads from this one port.  The longer original Red/Blue lead is for the FT-60 Red Cube Fuel Flow Transducer.  The next longer Red/White lead is for the AD626 Op Amp board, while the shortest red lead is for the Fuel Pressure sensor lead.

I then soldered the 2 added power wires to the EIS4000’s 12V+ out lead.

And then added some heat shrink to the solder joint.

I pretty much did the same thing as above for the ground side of the circuit by tying into the EIS4000’s ground wire.

Besides my usual antics of updating associated wiring diagrams, and sending out some email inquires with a little bit of research sprinkled in, I was also able to finish editing a video that I recorded for my buddy Dave Berenholtz.  The video discusses some topics on aircraft electrical wiring.

Again, with cold weather at hand I’ll continue in my electrical-centric mode until it starts getting a bit warmer.

I started off today discussing a variety of issues via email with my buddy Dave Berenholtz, one of which was parts availability for the canopy latch system.  I took the pic below of my Wilhelmson RL-1 rotary canopy latch components to add some clarity to my email and thought I’d include it here.

I also thought this string of 1N4007G Diodes that I just got in from Mouser would also make a cool pic and show you guys what they look like in “raw” form.

Here’s one of those diodes in action on one of the pigtails I added to 5 of the 9 panel On/Off indicator lights that allows me to tie into switch #4, the Push-to-Test button’s wiring harness.  As I mention in the video (below) that I made to highlight the Push-to-Test button (and freshly wired dimmer) for these lights, I can only hook up 5 of the 9 lights to switch #4 for testing because the other 4 On/Off indicator lights contain closed systems…. where the configuration of the components that those lights report on do not support connecting them to the Push-to-Test circuitry.

The added wire –in the form of a pigtail at first– to each light is nothing more than an alternate power source that provides 12V+ input to each indicator light connected to the Push-to-Test (PTT) circuit.  The power provided by depressing the PTT button (switch #4) then flows to ground out of the other terminal of the light’s connector (via the dimmer switch).

Thus, I’m utilizing the diodes in the PTT circuitry (pigtails) on these lights as a one-way valve, preventing power being inadvertently applied to the other lights when only one has a real valid condition to cause the light to illuminate.  For example, due to the way I’ve constructed the switch #4 wiring harness, if I didn’t employ diodes on each line then when I pulled the parking brake handle, which closes a switch allowing 12V+ power to run to the indicator light, the power would then back-channel through the pigtail (switch #4 wiring harness) and power up the other connected indicator lights.  Obviously that would not be good, and as you can see these diodes prevent that scenario from happening.

Here is the same pigtail as above only covered with red (for indicator 12V+ power) heat shrink.  One thing I should point out is that the connection to these panel On/Off indicator lights for the Push-to-Test circuits utilize D-Sub pins and sockets that themselves will be secured with heat shrink.  I used D-Sub pins and sockets due to the fact over a myriad of configuration changes on the wiring system, I have spare wires terminated with these pins and sockets.  In addition, I have a good number of spare terminated 22 AWG wires of different colors (shown on the switch #4 side of the equation in its mini wiring harness) from included GRT and TCW wiring harnesses.

Just as I did on the panel On/Off indicator lights dimmer switch, I then determined the required wire lengths to the 5 lights that will be connected to switch #4 for the Push-to-Test circuit.  I stripped the ends of these 5 wires of varying lengths and then soldered them all to the lead hanging off one side of switch #4 (the Push-to-Test button).  The lead on the other side of switch #4 goes to 12V+ main bus power and since I didn’t know exactly how long this wire needs to be, I just terminated it with a cheap automotive connector for now. I then labeled the 5 terminated leads (4 pins/1socket) on this harness (I labeled the switch pigtail lead before soldering the harness together).

With my Push-to-Test switch & wiring harness complete, I hooked it up and tested it out.  I was quite pleased at how both the dimmer and the Push-to-Test functions were working.  So pleased in fact, that I decided to make a video, especially since it’s difficult to describe light dimming action, so I figured a video would help show it much better.  I also briefly touch upon the new Engine function display page on the Mini-X that I just recently loaded.

As I keep saying, with the weather as cold as it is, which prevents composite work in the shop, I am focusing on getting a bunch of these small electrical taskers –mainly panel related– knocked out.

Today was forecasted as the warmest day we’ll have for the rest of January, with the remaining temps in the high 40’s at the warmest.  So, besides building my engine this month, I really plan on getting all the electrical stuff that I can do knocked out, plus a few tasks that I can do in a fairly cold shop.

Today was still about cleaning up some panel electronics and getting some tasks crossed off the list. I decided as I started my endeavor to solder up my Pitch Trim power ON/OFF switch for the TCW Safety-Trim system that I would do a video on aircraft electrical wiring that my buddy Dave asked if I might be able to generate.  I still have some editing to do on the video, but will get it posted on YouTube in the next day or so.

First off, in my latest Mouser order I just received 2 new mini-toggle switches with flat bat levers (my preference) for switches #11 (Pitch Trim power) and #12 (Heated Pitot Tube on/off).  Besides having 2 different brands of switches in the row of switches on my center panel column (see pic below), the switches that I replaced were ON-OFF-ON while these new ones are simply ON-OFF.  No need to waste good switch capacity, especially when the switch levers were slightly different.

I started off by wiring the 18 AWG E-Bus lead to one side of the switch, then covered the solder joint with red heat shrink.

I then prepped the supposed two 20 AWG Pitch Trim power wires (as listed in the TCW Safety-Trim manual) for soldering, but then when I went to strip them found out they were actually 22 AWG.  No big deal, just a point on how robust Tefzel aircraft wiring is in handling amps and heat.

I then soldered the 2 twisted 22 AWG wires to the remaining post on switch 11.  This switch is the “master switch” that provides power to the Pitch Trim system and exists mainly as a safety switch in case there’s a runaway trim situation.

Here’s a shot of switch 11 (code sw011) remounted in the panel mockup with the soldered wires now attached.  I’m waiting to terminate the 18 AWG wire with a FastON connector to then mount to the E-Bus until after my next shipment of wire labels arrive.

I’ve circled switch 11 in the pic below in green.

I then pressed forward with my plan to mount both GRT OAT probes forward in the fuselage, specifically in the nose gear wheel well (NB).  I removed and then disassembled the GRT Mini-X wiring harness to slip the gray wire into the mix.  Nicely, I was able to use the original OAT probe wire off the GRT EIS4000 harness that was already terminated with a D-Sub socket at the Mini-X end.

After I inserted the wire and reassembled the D-Sub back shell on the Mini-X side, I realized I should probably grab a shot of my progress.  As I noted above, I’m out of wire labels but had just a long enough piece of blank white wire label heat shrink to hand write the label for this wire…. just so I could get it in and knocked out.

I then terminated the J3 connector side with a D-Sub pin and inserted the wire into the D-Sub connector.  Again, below is a pic of the OAT wire addition task complete, with the J3 side D-Sub jack back shell back in place.

I then reinstalled the Mini-X wiring harness, fired up the panel and checked the OAT settings.  I set the HXr on Celsius, set the Mini-X to Fahrenheit, then toggled the Mini-X setting to have the OAT show on the PFD page.

As I mentioned above, tomorrow will be more electrical system tasks since it’s still fairly cold for shop work.