Hey Guys,

I’ve left the painting and finishing world on this bird and am now primarily focused on the electrical system install and expect to start the avionics install in earnest in the next week or two.

Somewhat concurrently, at least mentally (ha!) I’m working to get the rudder/brake pedals configured and installed, along with the brake lines, master cylinders and reservoirs plumbed. 

Coming up soon will be the balancing, rigging and final installation of all the control surfaces.

…getting exponentially closer to finish every day!

Ok sports fans… I’ve knocked off a huge milestone in regards to the electrical system and instrument panel install.

In prep of installing the Tri-Paragon top shelf, I spent the first 75% of my day finalizing both ground and power bus connections to get nearly all the open, unconnected wires routed and terminated to their final points.  That being said, the primary G4 ground buss was the most difficult and time-consuming of all the busses to finalize the wiring to simply due to the limited access and position of this ‘Forest of Tabs.’

Part of my prerequisite tasks was doing the initial power and control wiring of the Video Camera MUX (MX) including the final 2 wires terminated into the P5 connector (throttle handle cable) to allow the camera fwd/rev cycling function.  No pic of this and of course all the final video cameras’ wiring and MX unit mounting still upcoming.

Another task was wiring up the Roll Trim Relay Board that is located on the top aft right vertical plate of the Tri-Paragon.  Since it’s physically covered behind a wall of wires currently, I’m including a much cleaner pic of that component here… but it is officially now completely wired and installed.

Finally, very late in the evening, I got the Tri-Paragon top shelf installed.  I realized I should have gotten a pic of it before I mounted the Trig TY-91 COM 2 and GRT AHRS atop of it, so here’s a “stock” photo of that when it was still in the panel mock-up frame (note the relay deck has all 4 of the larger capacity relays [black] installed, where I’m only running half of that complement until I may need more).

From the left side of the top shelf we again have the Trig COM 2 radio, which I verified I can remove from its snap-in base if required.  Note the rather robust D-Sub connector looking protrusion attached to the radio unit, which is the GRT adapter that allows a remote control interface of this radio via the HXr EFIS.

The top edge of that same D-Sub adapter device can be seen in the lower right corner of this pic on Trig TT-22 transponder, attached hanging ‘sideways’ on the right side of the top shelf.  Moreover, just inboard of the transponder’s D-Sub interface adapter is the attached transponder antenna cable connector, which I quickly threaded on to ensure that the length was good for attachment… thankfully it was.

Note just inboard of the transponder antenna connector and below the aft edge of the relay deck is a 37-position D-Sub connector, horizontally mounted.  This is the J4 connector (now) prewired for interfaces (minus power & ground) to the GRT HXr EFIS. Below J4, inboard/adjacent to the antenna connector is a vertically mounted 15-position D-Sub connector (J3) that is also pre-wired for the GRT Mini-X EFIS (this final wiring on both of them occurring over the last couple of days).

On the right side of the top shelf is the relay deck, with the 2 of the 4 relays on the integrated board on the front side of the shelf (blue) wired up to handle the JB Wilco warning module to throttle handle micro-switch to canopy latch handle lock micro-switch to AG6 warning annunciator interfaces.  The 2 larger capacity (black) relays in the middle and aft positions on the shelf are the standard install (as mentioned above) with a capacity to add up to 2 more of these relays if/when they might be needed.  The aft relay with wires installed is Relay #21, which handles the power switching between Cabin Heat and the StarLink antenna (more to discuss later on with StarLink).

Obviously the main attraction in this ensemble is the center-mounted GRT AHRS (Attitude Heading Reference System) for the GRT HXr EFIS display. The mostly wired D-Sub connector is in place, with still just a few more wires from its magnetometer to be terminated to be complete.  Not surprisingly, the forward AHRS box screws are a complete bear to get installed, and I still have to finish the left front screw install before I can call the physical AHRS installation 100% complete. That being said, it’s not like these components need to be removed hardly ever, so the tight fit is just about perfect in my opinion to minimize component footprints in this tight avionics bay.

Also note the antenna cable test connection on the Trig TY-91 COM 2 radio.  This will require a bit more creative routing and machinations once the GNS-480 GPS and Trio autopilot are installed, but I think we’ll be able the thread that needle to get ‘er done.

In my removal/reinstall check on the COM 2 radio I had forgot to replace the D-Sub connector in the pic above, so in my final pic of the populated Tri-Paragon top shelf (for this blog post) I added it back into place.  This D-Sub connector will also get a handful more wires terminated into it coming from both the Dynon Intercom and COM1↔COM2 switching relay #9 (the photo-bombing J21B connector in front of the AHRS goes to SD-8 & E-Bus-only switch #3 on the Warning Annunciator Sub-panel, due to have its other side connector wired up in the next day or two).

Finally, below is the front side lip of the installed Tri-Paragon top shelf, replete with 2 of the 3 airspeed switches installed… airspeed switch #1 is on the right side (left in pic) and only accessible for adjustment by temporarily removing the transponder unit.  Airspeed switch #1 (again, not visible) handles the fast/slow trim response based on airspeed (~100 kt = transition).  Airspeed switch #2 on the left side in pic handles both the lower speed requirement to deploy the flip-down taxi light on the nose, and any low speed alarm inputs (i.e. alarm if low speed and nose gear not down).

Airspeed #3 on right side of pic prohibits powering on the heated pitot tube below 70 knots.  Both airspeed switches #2 and #3 are wired, while airspeed switch #1’s wires are literally an inch too short to connect (due to moving it from the very right front edge of the shelf lip to midpoint right side of shelf due to clearance issues in relocating the transponder from the right top of the shelf to hanging off the right side).  This is a perfect example of minor mods and changes resulting in adding 45 minutes or more of work to add/shorten/splice/re-terminate wires, etc. in dealing with unintended consequences of such changes.

Speaking of changes, I had 3 power wires to terminate onto the Main Power Bus that couldn’t reach since they simply weren’t long enough until the top shelf was installed into its final position.  Even then, I had to physically swap Main Bus attach points on 2 of the 3 wires since they just couldn’t reach their originally ID’d fuse connection tabs.  This resulted in relabeling both the wires and of course in the wiring docs, let alone pulling those damn wire connectors off the bus tabs… which is a small miracle for each one in and of itself.  Confirming that no good deed goes unpunished!

Still, with all that being said… I’M PUSHING FORWARD!

This post covers the past few days, again with the following pics covering maybe 40% of the tasks and effort taken to get to this point.

First off, both AG6 warning annunciation units are completely wired and ready for operations.

In addition, the throttle quadrant micro-switches are now all wired up (pic 1), with the wires tidied up and wrangled (pic 2).

Also note that the “converted” OAT probe used as a temperature sensor inside the air heating duct is installed (with silicone RTV) —this after a call to GRT to ensure that the final wiring configuration (e.g. different than a standard OAT probe since its signal is connected to one of the HXr EFIS’s analog alarm inputs) was correct. Which required them to confer for a good 10 minutes before calling me back with the final circuit configuration… Ahem, which is what I had <smile>.

Besides splicing in a few wires to relays mounted on the underside shelf of the Tri-Paragon —not unlike sleeping bats— I also finalized the population of the JB Wilco (WG) canopy/gear warning module with a couple wires (that originate from the the nose gear limit micro-switches) to provide both up and down limits used for the warning annunciations.

In prepping for the install of the GNS-480 GPS unit, I found that 1 of the 3 coax connector assemblies that I have is missing a small internal “braid clamp,” that must be procured/acquisitioned prior to antenna cable install… another sideline task that ate up nearly 2 hours in searching both physically through my stuff for the part, then searching for it online.

Finally, amid all the Ground & Power wires terminated, the wire labels printed and applied, the routing and terminations of other various wires, so on and so forth… I also installed the forward motor portion of the pitch trim actuator which allowed me to run all the wires (power, ground, auto-trim, and EFIS reporting) and tie those into ‘the system.’

Here we have a shot of the installed and wired up pitch trim actuator, looking aft.

And another shot of the installed and wired up pitch trim actuator, looking forward.

And, as par usual: PUSHING FORWARD!

This blog post covers the past few days, where my mundane antics of splicing wires, crimping FastOn, D-Sub and/or CPC connectors onto wires, running wires, labeling wires, and terminating wires —all while verifying and annotating these wires in “the book”— are slowly coming to the final stages,

I’ve added countless ground wires to their respective ground busses, have a good number of Master Buss power wires connected (about half), all but one E-Bus component wire connected, the P5A/B plug (control stick) wires populated, and all but a pair [Video Camera MUX] wires connected on the P4A/B plug (throttle handle).

In the next day or two I should be ready to install the top shelf of the Tri-Paragon, with all its associated components installed (AHARS, transponder, COM2 radio, etc.), to then focus on the right pilot armrest intercom before installing the instrument panel display units and instruments.

With a good amount of the wiring ran, configured, labeled and documented, I temp installed the GNS-480 GPS mounting tube with its aft-side (yes… technically “front” side) bracket mock-up in place to get a bead on where to install the Clickbond for the support brace mounting on the aft side of the F28 bulkhead.

Here we have the GNS-480 GPS unit mounting tube in place (temporarily at this stage) with the back of the MiniUni2 backup EFIS and the wires heading to the Autopilot source [GPS or EFIS] switch in view as well.

Another shot of the GNS-480 mounting tube set in place, with the remaining wires of this bundle (there’s another small bundle hanging over the right sidewall) left to be ran and terminated… mostly magnetometer (6) wires and video camera and autopilot cables (4).

I’ll also note that I’ve printed off about 4 batches of labels the past few days and heat shrank those to wires (~25 labels).

As a reminder, here is the GNS-480 mounting tube brace in Marco’s bird.

And here is the Clickbond that I floxed and glassed into place on the aft side of my F28 bulkhead to allow me to also install a brace on my GNS-480 mounting tube.

And at the end of the evening with the Clickbond installed and ready for a brace to secure the forward end of the GNS-480 mounting tube.

I’m sure I missed covering a myriad of smaller tasks that I’ve knocked out in pushing to get the electrical wiring complete to allow installing the instrument panel components.

Tomorrow I plan on doing some machining for the GNS-480 mounting tube bracket and the G0 brass battery ground buss.

Pressing forward!

This post covers the past 2 days, with Day 1 being almost entirely focused on finishing up the ground connections as best possible.  All told I terminated at least a dozen grounds with about half of those on the G4 ground buss, a couple on the G5 avionics ground buss, and another few on the new G7 auxiliary ground buss.  I also routed and terminated a good few wires onto the Master Power Bus.

Today I added a couple more ground wires onto the G4 ground buss, which leaves very few left to terminate onto this ‘Forest of Tabs’… with the only outstanding wire left to attach (that I know of) is the pitch trim actuator, which I’ll do when I actually install it.  I’ll also note that the G4 ground buss is only physically populated to around 60%, so a good bit of capacity left on that for any future grounding requirements.

For the most part I took a break from all the wiring on Day 1 and focused on getting a couple of components designed in CAD that will be required for upcoming installs.

The first component is a 90° bracket that connects on the backside flange of the GNS-480 GPS navigator.  I’m essentially copying Marco in what he has on his Long-EZ, that is used to corral all the wires and antenna cables behind the bracket to keep them away from the nearby elevator control tube.  Also, as you can see in this pic, there is a brace arm that hangs down from the aft side of the F28 bulkhead and is bolted to the flange.  With the GNS-480 being about 11″ deep into the avionics bay, clearly this brace helps support the rather long and heavy GPS unit.

Here is another shot of Marco’s GNS-480 unit, with the bracket removed from the flange to show the particulars of shape and configuration.  Note that this flange is a new style that replaced what was essentially an aft plate (underneath bracket) that covered a lot more of the aft end of the GNS-480.

After making a number of measurements and extrapolating the configuration of Marco’s GNS-480 aft bracket, I then did a couple of iterations in CAD to get to my final version for my GNS-480.  Here it is 3D printed, with the aluminum angle stock that I will machine it out of sitting atop the GNS-480’s mounting “tube.”

As I was on the computer in my crazed CAD mode, I went ahead and measured the dimensions for my nose battery compartment G0 ground buss that will be really nothing more than a bent piece of brass plate with tabs soldered onto the vertical side.  I show two tab assemblies in place to check out sizing if I need it, but starting off I’ll just be using one tab assembly, so 10 tabs total.  A final note on this is that I plan to Velcro the vertical plate to the battery to keep it from vibrating or chattering.

As for actual work on the bird, I did splice one of the big wires coming from the nose area to one of the circuit breaker wires, and again I terminated a couple more wires to the G4 ground buss.  I know there are a probably a few more ground wires out there, but they are seriously getting fewer and farther in between now.  And that being said, my next major focus will be hooking up the Master Bus power wires.

I also did the final install (not wiring, yet) on the top row panel indicator lights by securing each one in place with a dollop of hot glue on the side and top edges.  In addition to the actual indicator lights, I installed the dimmer switch for those lights with E-9000 glue since the panel was too thick to get a nut on the threads of the dimmer switch.

Here’s a behind the panel shot of that.

Note the hot glue on the top row indicator lights. Also note that the bottom edge of the cured dimmer switch dips just a hair into the top edge area of the TruTrak ADI… which I test fitted to assess clearance before then using my Dremel tool to quite judiciously make a depression in the top case surface of the ADI, to allow for stress free installation when it gets mounted into the panel.  Yes, the component clearances are very tight as all the panel stuff gets packed into this small area.

And with that, I called it a bit earlier night than usual to have dinner with my wife at a somewhat normal hour (2100!) and actually relax a bit in front of the TV!

Another 2 day update here, and I have to admit that it’s hard to remember and recount all of the single wires that I’ve ran, spliced and/or terminated.

I did do the final connect on all the Garmin GNS-480 power and ground wires.  The thick green marker lines are how I’ve been denoting that wires are run and connected on the different wiring diagrams.

Now, see that chicken scratching at the top of the diagram?  I’d like to be able to print out new 11×17 inch diagrams but my Brother printer is not doing well and needs some rehabilitative TLC to get back online for printing… which of course takes time.  To add to my tale of woe, after printing out most of the GNS-480 Installation Manual on my regular Canon printer, 2 days later I get an error code that essentially said that barring a few YouTube hacks, I need a new printer head… which I pulled the trigger for on Amazon.

This is just all to say that I’ve spent well over 3 hours over these past 2 days just messing around and learning about printer operation issues!

I did solder splice the orange and orange/black wires from the E-Bus fuse tab F05 to the the white/orange wires in the respective 6-wire cables coming from the GIB headrest and Hell hole (no pic of that).

Also out of the 6-wire #2 I found the white/green and green wire pair that powers the RAM air valve open and close, via switch 16 (left side of panel).  In the pic below this pair —now spliced to the switch wires— travels from lower left to upper right.  And yes, the remaining wires are still a crazy rats nest… I’ll need to run around 20-30 wires before I can start making any real attempt at wire/cable management.

Since I moved the power source to the Pitch Trim module to the Battery Buss (from the Main/Master Buss) I had yet another splice job to tie the new power wire coming from the nose area to the existing (albeit shorter) power wire coming off the switch.  I then did the final install of the Pitch Trim Master power switch (lower left switch in pic).

Over the next couple of hours I worked on getting the Warning Annunciator Sub-Panel installed, with the wires passed through the panel for their final connections (shown after below pic).

I then finalized the colors and positions of the GNS-480 annunciation lights and affixed them in place with a dollop of hot glue on each outer edge of every light.  The lights sit in the their openings fairly snugly already, so the glue was just to ensure they don’t vibrate out.

I then prepped and added tubing to the alternate static source switch that is positioned about as close to the left sidewall as you can get.  I then mounted the switch hardware to finish off the install.

With the alternate static switch installed, that then allowed me to install the MiniUni-2 backup EFIS & fuel timer into the outboard top left instrument position.  In addition, I installed the AP SRC (aka “Autopilot Source”) switch just above this backup EFIS.  Of course note that the Warning Annunciator Sub-panel is installed at the top center of the panel.

Again, here we have another shot of the installed Warning Annunciator Sub-panel, as well as the freshly installed Vertical Compass Card on the right outboard top instrument position.  I’ll note that other than SW011, the Pitch Trim Master power switch, none of these other just-installed components’ wiring is complete yet.

And a parting shot with all the newly installed instrument panel tidbits in place. I expect to spend another 2  days simply wrangling and bedding down more stray wires, as I have been, before I start in on installing any other panel components.  As I mentioned in my last post, I also need to set a good bit of time aside to install/wire the Intercom as well.

Pressing forward!

Today was yet again one of those long days with seemingly little to show for it at the end of it.

Still a lot of sorting through wires to optimize their routing and flow, picking off the low hanging fruit that were easier to route and terminate into their final end points.  That being said, my primary targets today were the E-Bus, the G4 Ground Bus and the Main Bus.

The E-Bus got two new entrants into the club, with the power wire that feeds the HXr and AHRS primary power connections via the panel mounted “avionics” switch getting connected to the top fuse buss threaded stud.  Again, since GRT recommends fusing on power feeds AFTER a switch, the fuses for both the HXr and AHRS are inline fuses, with the power feed wire again going straight to the E-Bus threaded stud… no need to waste a fuse slot.

The switch on the panel that sits immediately inboard of the HXr & AHRS Master switch is the belly RAM air scoop open/close switch.  The power wire for this switch routes in a bundle horizontally across the top of the E-Bus and then terminates into a fuse position low on the front side of the E-Bus (left side in pic).  It’s targeted fuse tab was F06, with F07 being the bottom fuse position on the forward side.

However, the wire was about 2″ too short to be routed properly AND reach the F06 fuse position, so I swapped it with the currently open F04 fuse spot which is/was for the transponder (wire not ran yet).  Again, that meant some relabeling [I printed off and applied about ten labels today], fuse position swapping and document updating.  Moreover, the RAM air switch power also shares its fuse with the gas tanks’ fuel level probes and power to the GIB headrest avionics bay cooling fans.

A minor issue I ran into was that the white/orange striped wires from both 6-wire cable #1 and #2 that feed the fuel probes and cooling fans, respectively, were also not long enough to reach the E-Bus fuse tab, even after the swap.  With no white/orange wire on hand, I spliced a length of an orange wire and an orange/black wire in the FastOn connector to later connect/splice to the white/orange wires from the two 6-wire cables (which I plan to do tomorrow).

In other news… I then found and retrieved out of the bundle the two main wires that connect up to the B&C Voltage Regulator: the F-Lead from the L-40 alternator and the power lead from “ALT FLD” circuit breaker via the Master Switch.  As par usual (ha!) the F-lead wire was about a foot too short, so I spliced a length of white 20 AWG wire to the existing F-lead.

Here we have the B&C Voltage Regulator wired and installed.

I’ll note that BEFORE I installed the voltage regulator I spent over an hour reorganizing, consolidating (via piggyback FastOns) and re-terminating the G4 ground wires to move them all to the forward 2 of the 4 vertical rows of tabs, starting from the very top and moving down.

I also terminated and connected up a few more loose ground wires during this process, like the un-terminated piggy-back ground wire hanging free at the bottom of the pic above.  Once I terminate another ground wire I’ll connect the two and install them as a single unit onto the G4 ground buss.

If you look directly below the voltage regulator’s yellow label you can make out the open tabs on the G4 ground buss.  The reason for my reorganization on the G4 ground buss was simply for “easier” (as much as possible) access to install ground wires with the voltage regulator installed.

Thankfully, once the ground wires are connected in this out of the way corner, I expect to have to get in there very rarely, if it all, once the bird is flying.  I’ll further note that the main impediment to easy access to the ground buss tabs is a combination of the wire bundle coming from the nose and the nose hatch latch cable.

So the total for today was 4 ground wires terminated and installed on the G4 Ground Bus, a couple wires added to the E-Bus, a couple more terminated on the main bus and the CABIN HT indicator light power wire soldered into place.

And with that… pressing forward!

Another quick update for the past 2 days.

First, I’ll start off by saying that since I had knocked out most of the electrical wiring harnesses (usually in the cold winter months) over the past 10 years my thought on finishing the electrical system in situ inside the bird was going to be pretty much plug and play, with at least 70-80% of the wiring simply needing connection to other components, busses, etc.  However, that number is actually inverse with all but 20-30% of wiring needing further massaging for final routing, connection and termination.

Having taken a couple of years of organic chemistry in college, I explained it to my wife as such:  For any given molecule with a certain makeup of, say, 6 atoms of element X and 12 atoms of element Y, there can be a half dozen physical SHAPES of the molecule, some lending to better chemical reactions, others not as much… again, all due to the physical shape of the specific molecule.

In many ways that is very close to what is currently happening inside my aircraft.  For example, coming from the front-to-aft bundle of wires were 2 ground wires that on paper, based on amp level, I had getting terminated into the G5 ground buss, which is located midpoint on the LEFT side of the Tri-Paragon.

Now, as you’ve seen in the pics that I’ve been posting, I have A LOT of wires… as most aircraft do.  So why should I run 2 wires past the G4 Ground Buss (above) to a ground buss distinctly further away?  When I can simply cut them shorter and dive them right into the G4 Ground Buss and not have as many wires to contend with in open space.

The main couple of reasons NOT to would be to save time (always good) and lack of capacity on G4 (not an issue).

What it does require however is lopping off a perfectly good D-Sub pin to then crimp a FastOn connector AFTER relabeling the wire AND updating all the associated diagrams.

Yes, helps a lot with all my wires in the cleanup and management of the wiring, but it does take a bit more time to get from point A to point B.  This is just one example of many how my wiring management is going, and why it’s taking a bit more time than I had initially expected.

Switching gears… I got my new panel indicator lights from PCFlights in the mail today, with 2 of the 3 new lights installed (not permanently yet) in the panel: 3rd from left “FUEL PUMP” (top) and “TAXI LT” (bottom) and then a single light on the far right end, “AP SERVOS OFF/PCS” which will illuminate when I depress the AP OFF/PCS button on the control stick.

PCS is Pilot Controlled Steering that enables you to temporarily take control of the bird while it’s being flown under autopilot control then once released the control is handed back over to the autopilot/servos.  The trick here is to keep the button depressed for 5 seconds or more to engage the PCS function.  So yes, the light technically covers two somewhat separate functions, but they are both initiated by the physical act of pushing that single button.
[The final new light: “STARLINK” (top) and “CABIN HT” (bottom) is currently attached to Relay 21 and I was lazy in not wanting to disassemble that to mount the light… but it’s ready to install]

Back to my original point above, after installing the SmartStart module and attaching its D-Sub wiring harness, I then realized that nearly half the wires need to come out the left vs right side of the Tri-Paragon.  Plus I needed to solder a wire close to the connector coming from the front-to-aft wiring bundle.  So off the D-Sub connector came (which is a PITA!… requires a mirror), wiring routed as required, soldered, etc. and then back on went the D-Sub connector.  Note the red power wire connected to the lower right (aft) fuse tab on the E-Bus.

Also note the large white nylon nut to the immediate right of the SmartStart module. This is the GRT HXr OAT probe that installs into a hole from the outside-in, which was fine and happy for the many years it sat on my panel mockup.  But here in the real aircraft, it required removing one wire from the AHRS D-Sub connector and cutting the black ground wire to install it from inside the nose wheel cover to the inside of the bird.  Of course after it was installed it required me to then reinsert the wire into the D-Sub and solder splice the ground wire back to its other (terminated) half.
Yep… no free lunch on this electrical system endeavor!

Here we have the E-Bus (again, ‘E’ is for Endurance) on the left side of the Tri-Paragon with a good many power wires attached to it, nearly all with their own story of shortening or lengthening, combining, or re-terminating with FastOn connectors (couple scenarios where I had a “piggyback” FastOn on both wires to allow double-stacking wires on the fuse tab… only one required and will fit, so I had to lop off/replace the other one with a single).  I fully expect the E-Bus and most of the Main Bus to be populated over the next couple of days.

I spent well over 3 hours today on the P5 plug wires getting that rats nest untangled and the various wires oriented, grouped and flowing nicely from that point to points yonder.  This required multiple removal of wires from the P5 connector, often the same wire multiple times as the routings progressed, which again entailed using a mirror, good lighting and tons of patience to de-pin the wires in that tight corner with the P5 mounted face down.

The primary objective in my focus on untangling the P5 plug wires was first to get all the Dynon intercom wires through the bottom instrument panel bulkhead hole and ready for connection to the intercom (mid-right pilot armrest) and the headphone connections (aft right pilot armrest).  Ancillary to that was freeing up Relay #9 —handles the COM1 to COM2 radio swap between GNS-480 (COM1) and the Trig TY-91 (COM2)— which is the center hub/meeting point of all the mostly shielded wires that go to each radio unit.

Within the next 2-3 days I plan on setting aside most of a work day to focus solely on wiring up the intercom and headphone wires.

Inching forward…

Yep Sir, another post covering the past 2 days.  Barely if I’m honest since I had some much-needed chores to get done around the house on day one, so I printed out most of a new Garmin GNS-480 installation manual.  There’s a color heavy segment and some 11×17 diagrams that I’ll have printed down at Staples to save my printer ink.

I’ll note that a reprint on this guy was required since my original manual was ruined in the hurricane/tornado that hit my hangar just after moving down to NC in 2019.  Luckily the paperwork specific to my GPS unit was in a plastic sleeve which saved it.  I just don’t know where that document is at the moment… ha!

Continuing with my adminstrivia on Day 1, after a physical inventory inside the bird that involved removing a single wire, I did the final tweaks on the P5A connector pinout sheet.

Start of day 2: I pulled the battery out of the nose while ensuring that I documented every step.  I felt that it was akin to working on a car where you needed to remove half a dozen parts just to get the one that you need to work on.  Well, it’s not that bad but the tool box will have to come out (which I planned for and is why it’s easily removable) and the 6 AWG cable that feeds the master bus will need disconnected from the battery contactor to rotate it (and its attached ammeter) out of the way so that battery can slide in with a good 0.32 mm clearance to spare (I jest… kinda).

I even pondered making the IBBS on the left side (upper right in pic) removable, but then determined I didn’t need to with the 6 ga cable moved out of the way.

I then put the bottom battery tray into place, reinserted the battery to make sure it would fit with the tray installed, then removed the battery a final time to ensure process repeatability before I called the battery install & removal steps good.  I again documented that entire procedure.  I’ll note with the battery and tray in together, I marked the positive and ground battery cables for trimming to proper length.

Speaking of the 6 AWG cable in the nose —the one with the ammeter attached— my next task was lopping off a good 3 feet of excess of it that was hanging out through the panel and into the pilot’s seat.  Once I dialed in the no-kidding length of the cable, I crimped a #10 screw ring terminal onto it and mounted it into place on the master buss threaded post (pic 1), all AFTER I placed a rubber boot onto the cable.  I then slid the white rubber boot over the ring terminal and post (pic 2).  The Master Buss is now officially plugged into the system for power.

I then did pretty much the same thing on the E-Bus (opposite/left side) by cutting to length the 12 AWG feed wire from Relay 18 —which is the SD-8 b/u alternator to E-Bus only power feed— then crimped a ring terminal onto the cable before installing it onto the E-Bus’s threaded post.  Another major power circuit wire trimmed to length and terminated.

Note that the AMX-2A 10-channel signal mixer, that feeds into the intercom, has been installed… still to be secured when I do all the final cable/wire management.

I also spent a good bit of time wrangling all the wires hanging out of the top of the bird, and separating them out into groups depending on origin (or final destination).  I corralled and zip-tied the wire/cable feeds coming from the aft end of the bird along the bottom right edge of the panel to meet in the middle of the panel before 80-90% of them turn forward to get terminated onto Tri-Paragon components.  Some of those wires will head north to either the indicator lights or the Warning Annunciator Sub-panel.  Finally, a good few will head over to the points on the left sidewall (P4 throttle handle plug, etc).

I also spent some time isolating the feed wires to the the P5 plug that handles all the wires to the control stick.  I then installed the P5A plug onto the right upper sidewall mounting flange.  I still have a good number of wires left to terminate into the P5 plug, and will work and route those as I come across them.

Here’s a current shot of the panel with mostly the wires and cables from the aft end of the bird all spilling out through the HXr EFIS mounting hole.

To do some quick cleanup in getting wires installed and out of the rats nest “race” I focused on a group of ground wires mingling about near the F22 area, all whose final destination was the G4 Ground Buss just a scant few inches away.  One was a ground wire that I honestly don’t even know what component it went to (ALL my ground wire FastOn connectors have black heat shrink on them —for this very purpose of ID’ing— while ALL power wire FastOn connectors have red heat shrink) and next was the nose gear’s Relay Control Unit (RCU) and Automatic Extension Module (AEM) ground wires that I terminated into one FastOn (per plan) and installed onto the G4 Ground Buss.

The final set of ground wires took a bit more time, first in verifying the wires coming out out of that bundle in the pic above [again, an issue that I discovered was that wire labels do a great job, UNLESS they’re buried in a cable bundle!].  I did a continuity check on a suspicious pair of wires that I quickly determined went to the GIB cigarette lighter charger.

I also had a single labeled green wire (ground) to the GIB USB charger, and an unlabeled (the segment I could see) white wire (power) that APPEARED to be the green wire’s paired mate… but it wasn’t ringing off with my continuity check.  I chalked this up to my multimeter probe not being able to get into the flat USB plug to contact the positive pin, so I grabbed the battery and a 5 amp fuse and connected up the white and green pair.  Thankfully the LED light on the USB charger lit up and it charged my phone when I connected it up via a USB cable.  Sweet!

With my wire checks good, I then cut and terminated the two GIB charger ground wires into a butt splice connector about 6″ forward of the panel.  Separately, I then added a piggyback (2 tabs) FastOn connector to a length of 14 AWG wire, installed that onto the G4 Ground Buss to then allow me to get the proper length to splice it to the two GIB charger ground leads via the butt connector. Thus the GIB chargers’ ground circuit was complete.

A part of this whole endeavor was printing off another batch of wire labels, which I applied as required during all my above shenanigans.

But what about that piggyback FastOn connector?  Well, I cut and labeled the wire before crimping on a single FastOn connector for the pilot’s front seat cigarette lighter charger ground and terminated that onto the piggyback tab of the GIB charger ground wires… again, all per plan.  Now the only charger ground remaining to terminate is the pilot’s USB charger (not to this ground point)… when I find it!

Finally, here’s a pic of the right side of the bird now, with a lot less wires hanging out (3 of those ground wires came from this bundle)…

Compare the pic above to just a couple of days ago …. one by one, I’m slowly getting these wires to their final termination points.

Pressing forward!

I’m not going to lie, looking at the massive amount of wires hanging out of the bird from last night was a bit daunting and overwhelming.  I mean, where to start?

Well, luckily I had been building my to-do list so I just started on my post-Triparagon install section of it.  That list is a living document and changes day-by-day, and bumped up to the top of the list was both the P4 CPC plug, and more specifically the wiring for the Landing Brake out of the P4 plug.

Starting out late this afternoon (I got a late start), I terminated all but one wire (that goes to the AG6 warning annunciator) from the P4 plug/relays to the landing brake actuator and throttle quadrant micro switch, in that order.

Here we have the 2 white wires to microswitch SW082 on the throttle quadrant which closes a circuit when the throttle is wide open.  This in turn closes the landing brake in case it’s open either during a take-off roll or during a go-around.

I then attached the ground cable from the main battery to the G4 “Forest-of-Tabs” primary avionics bay ground buss (bottom end of yellow pointer)… note the white-labeled wires behind the yellow pointer are the G5 ground buss connector wires, while the wires immediately to the left of the G4 stud are the G7 ground buss connector wires. Note that the upper right half of the pic is the aft side of the F22 bulkhead.

Here’s that ground cable on the battery end inside the nose battery compartment, awaiting to be terminated with a ring connector.

I then reinstalled the TCW Safety-Trim box onto the Tri-Paragon lower right side, just aft of the center F22 bulkhead and below the G4 Ground Buss discussed above.

The top aft screw that secures the Safety-Trim box above is also the forward securing screw for the TCW SmartStart unit that I re-secured on the left side as well.  I then installed the D-Sub connectors for both the SmartUnit and the Safety-Trim box (which you can just make out through the circular opening above / left of the Smart-Start unit).

After nearly an hour of wrangling and organizing the wiring inside the avionics bay, I started to work on the remaining wires that feed into the P4 connector.  After hunting down a few wires, I realized something wasn’t right in Denmark… the component wires were just NOT matching what I had on my P4 connector pinout sheet.

I had used the pinout sheet to inventory the P4 connector just a couple of days ago, but now realized it was out of date as compared to the actual wiring diagram.  A perfect example of what happens when the paperwork is not updated!

So I took almost another hour (with coffee!) to compare the wiring diagram vs the pinout sheet, confirm the existing wiring inside the bird, and then update my P4 pinout sheet.

By this point it was getting later into the evening and I was ready to have dinner with my wife, so I called the workday done.

There are still a ton of wires to sort through and connect up, and I expect this to take at least another day or three, but I can already see good progress.

With that, I’ll add: Get ‘er done!