I started off today accepting delivered packages from both Amazon and SteinAir.  My Amazon order contained this little gem right here:

This 90° right angle USB adapter is perfect for allowing me to hook up my panel mounted USB jack to the HXr.  Since the HXr’s back panel is farther forward than the panel mounted USB jack and cable, then the USB plug at the end of the cable needed to do a 180° to get to/fit into the back of the HXr.  The cable’s USB plug could literally touch the USB jack on the HXr, but the geometry was such that it couldn’t go in since there just wasn’t enough length on the cable.  This 90° USB adapter solves the problem by essentially turning the HXr’s rear-facing (again, technically forward in the real world) USB jack into a side-facing USB jack.

I secured the new 90° right angle USB adapter to the panel-mounted USB jack and cable with a piece of heat shrink.

I then mounted it into the back of the HXr.  I’m very happy that I now have a direct cable run and, moreover, that I don’t have to mess around with an extra foot of unneeded USB cable.

This view shows nearly the entire run of the panel-mounted USB jack and cable to the HXr, utilizing the new 90° USB adapter.  Again, I’m really happy with the minimal cable length required for this connection, yet still enough slack that it’s stress free.

I mounted the USB jack onto the aft side of the panel, and then plugged in the HXr’s thumb drive.

Since I’ll be updating the EFIS’s and adding some files to their respective thumb drives, I didn’t want to get them mixed up and wanted them easily identifiable.  So I took a few minutes to print off a snazzy label for each one.

Having just had separate discussions with both Dave B. and Marco on instrument panel and throttle/stick labeling, I decided since I had labeler in hand to make up a few test labels for the stick.

Not bad, but I see some modifications to these labels in the future . . .  I got plans!

I then got back to the build by drilling & prepping the 4 holes in the left fuselage sidewall for 4 RivNut hardpoints that will secure the cupholder to the sidewall.

I floxed the 4 RivNuts into the sidewall to create these 4 mounting hardpoints to allow for a removable cup holder.

A few hours later here are the 4 floxed-in and cured RivNut hardpoints for the cupholder.

I then rounded the cupholder’s mounting wings into a pleasing shape… although a friendly fire incident occurred when my Fein saw kicked back hard and took a small bite out of the lower mounting wing.  Minor fix, but annoying nonetheless.

I then test mounted the cupholder.

I then got to work cutting the cupholder access hole into the top of the left armrest.

Since the cupholder is a bit bigger in diameter than the armrest is wide, I needed a slot down the face of the armrest for the cupholder to peek out.

Here’s the left armrest in place over the cupholder after a few iterations of sanding and cutting away glass. It was almost midnight and my time for using the Fein saw was well past, so I called it good for the evening for any more work on the armrest.

I then moved onto something a bit more quiet.  Earlier in the day I decided on the mounting location for my PWM (pulse width modulator) board for controlling the oil heat pump.  I drilled the 4 x 4-40 mounting holes into the front face of the lower instrument panel, left side under the armrest.

Now it was time to flox in the 4-40 nutplate assemblies to mount the PWM board, using the 4-40 nutplates that I ordered from Stein.  Of course I had to make them first . . .

I then floxed in the 4 x 4-40 nutplate assemblies on the lower front side of the left instrument panel, with the PWM board mounted –with standoffs– on the aft side so as to ensure I got the correct screw alignment into the nutplate assemblies as they cured in place.

Here are the four 4-40 nutplate assemblies floxed in place on the lower left instrument panel for mounting the PWM board.

With that, I called it a night.  Tomorrow I’ll continue to press forward with my left armrest build endeavors with the goal –again– being the install of the 3 cable levers for the heat/air ducts that will allow me to install the heating/air ductwork in the GIB area left sidewall.

Today, again, was an unseasonably warm day . . . but I suspect that won’t last long. Yesterday was as well but I wasn’t mentally prepared to get something ‘on-the-block’ and painted.  Today I was.

I figure my current tasks are such that I can do them in the garage as long as I have heating of some sort.  Painting is a different animal however, and unless I want the entire shop filled with paint fumes for a good day or two, I like to get painting done outdoors.

So I started off today prepping my pilot seat headrest for paint.  I considered removing the hardware but that would be too much of a pain, so I simply covered it all with blue tape. I then gave it the once over and did some light sanding and hit it with a flat razor blade in some spots to get the surface smooth.  Then I gave it a good wash down with Simple Green, rinsed it well and then dried it off.

I took the headrest outside, hit it with 2 light coats of primer as you can see in the before & after pics below.

I suspected that I was going to run out of the darker Valspar Sand Stone top paint –which I did after 1.5 passes– so I picked up another can the other day while I was out.  But an odd thing occurred that I’m not sure if I’ve seen before.  The cans had different lids both in shape and color, yet the cans themselves were identical, with the same name, model number, etc.  Yet still, the paint was DIFFERENT, and did in fact match the color and texture on the lids which you can see are clearly different.  I tried shooting a test patch with the new paint, and sure enough it was different… how odd.  Good thing I noticed and didn’t dive right in and continue painting the headrest with a slightly different color!

A little later I brought the headrest inside.  Interesting how dark it looks under shop lights vs. out in the daylight.

I then spent quite a while determining the exact mounting location –specifically distance from the fuselage sidewall– of my throttle quadrant.  With this throttle handle, I have to be careful in how I route the throttle handle cable to prevent chaffing or rubbing.  I’ll be constructing a new, specifically designed throttle handle lever that will route the cable through the lever to ensure strain is minimized and keeps the cable from rubbing on the corner of the throttle quadrant plate.

After marking off the area for the throttle quadrant on the top of the left armrest, I then cut the area out using my trusty jig saw.

Below you can see the throttle quadrant mounted on the sidewall with the left armrest in place.  You may note also that I made a bit of a blunder in my up/down placement of the throttle handle IF I wanted the top of the throttle quadrant plate even with the top surface of the left armrest, which I did.

Ions ago I had drawn a line across the fuselage sidewall where the armrest would be located.  Unfortunately, this line was for the TOP of the armrest sidewall, but NOT the top of the armrest.  Essentially, I had drawn the intersection line of the armrest sidewall and the armrest top.  I kept this in mind when I mounted the throttle quadrant mounting hardpoints so the throttle quadrant base top was supposed to match the armrest top, but somewhere in the process I induced a slight mismatch.  Currently the throttle quadrant base sits about halfway down in the top of the armrest.  No big/uncorrectable deal, just another issue to work through.

This shot shows a bit more of the armrest fitted into the fuselage.

Today was kind of a lighter build day since I ended having my weekly outing with a buddy of mine.  We ended up seeing the new Thor movie so I didn’t get as much done as I had planned.  But tomorrow I should get a full day in on getting the left side pilot armrest components installed.

I actually started off today pulling peel ply and doing a rough cleanup on left armrest layup. I did a bit more thorough trimming later on in the pics below.

Then I started in on my cupholder.  I realize, without the plane being close to flying, that folks may wonder why I’m focusing on some things that seem rather insignificant in the grand scheme of things, especially in regards to getting this plane in the air.  I have to say that is quite often the mantra I hear either online or from other builders in person: “Just get ‘er in the air, all that other stuff will come later!”

Well, if you’ve been reading this blog for any amount of time you’ll know that I respectfully disagree, because in my mind what we’re building here is a system.  How often a $3 part is the one thing that keeps you from using a household appliance?  So, if I am to finish the left side armrest, I must know how ALL the pieces are going to fit inside it… you can really see how every new area becomes a puzzle with the goal to make all the pieces fit.

Having heard stories and seeing firsthand what a pain is to keep a bottle of water at the ready for some hydration during a 3 hour trip, and not tucked away in a spot where although you can feel the nice cold bottle pressed against you, alas, you know that you’re not going to drink anything until that plane is on the ground.  The bottom line is that Long-EZs are not Cessna 172s, and to get all the good out of them we must accept some of less than stellar characteristics of the design: as in NO space to put stuff.

Ok, off my soap box.

Here’s the cupholder with your typical soda bottle inside it.  Water bottles are most often narrower than this.

The cupholder will sit immediately in front of the throttle quadrant, which is really the only place I could place this nearly full armrest height component given that the throttle quadrant must have clearance aft of it for the throttle and mixture cables to head rearward into the engine compartment.

However, immediately forward of the cup holder for a good 1.7″, resides all the electronics for the aircraft’s 2 PAX heating systems: 1) Oil heat system, 2) Seat warmers.  These electronics include 3 individual relays, a PWM controller board and 4 switches (Oil heat/Seat warmer system select, PIC seat warmer OFF/ON, GIB seat warmer OFF/ON, PWM ON/speed control knob) on the surface of the very forward armrest at the base of the panel.  In other words, a lot of stuff that could require some type of maintenance, troubleshooting, definite mounting, and possible replacement.

It was clear then after some thought that the cupholder must be made removable, versus my original plan of slathering it up with flox and merely sticking it to the sidewall.

I made up some mounting wings out of some spare glass I had (the same stuff I used for the fuel select valve bracket mounting screw cover) and some G10, and 5-min glued them on each side of the flattest part of the cupholder . . .

I of course did this while it was laying horizontally, like this:

Before doing a final glassing of these mounting wings, I checked out the mounting fit of the cupholder in conjunction with the already test mounted throttle quadrant.  Since I dropped down the top mounting wings to clear the top forward throttle quadrant mounting reinforcement spacer, the cupholder looked like to integrate nicely.

I then whipped up some flocro, filled in the corner gaps between the cupholder body and the wings and glassed them with a ply of UNI and a top ply of BID.  I also laid up 1 small piece of BID to cover the last remaining inch-long gap on the bottom corner of the cup holder.  I peel plied all the layups and stuck the winged cupholder under the heat lamp.

BTW, that wood frame that the cupholder is surrounded by is the glassing stand I made for the left armrest.

Since I have so many pics in this post, I’m not covering my tasks chronologically, to keep from bouncing around topics with every new pic.  Thus, a few hours later, here was the result of my glassing on the cupholder.  I know it needs some cleaning up, a result of course of my initial screwup on not taping up the form!  Ahh, unintended consequences. But although being ever so slightly heavier, and much uglier, it will still do the job… and of course, except of the top opening, will be hidden away out of site like Quasimodo.

In the real world, while the glassed cupholder wings were curing, I grabbed my last little bit of 1/16″ thick G10 stock and got to work making a mount for the fuel vapor sensor.  I started off by making a cardboard template, then once I dialed that in, I transferred it to the G10.  In doing so I discovered that the mounting hole for the fuel vapor sensor is not 2-1/4″, nor 2″, but rather 2.034″ . . . some sanding required.

A quick discussion on the requirement for a fuel vapor sensor.  I got the idea of having a fuel vapor sensor, something that a lot of boaters have in their engine compartments, from some RV builders.  I had pulled it from the install line up, but with the GIB thigh support fuel sumps and a few fuel lines & connections in the cockpit, I decided since I had it on hand it was the prudent thing to do –at least initially– to install it.  I do realize that the grams start adding up into pounds, but this is really a lightweight, plastic housed instrument that it, combined with the wiring and aft-mounted sensor, weighs less than 4 oz.

I started by drilling a 2″ hole into the G10 plate.

After a few rounds of sanding I got the Fuel vapor sensor control head to slide into place.

Using my cardboard template I then finalized the shape of the mounting bracket.

I then used my trusty jig saw to cut out the fuel vapor sensor mounting bracket.

A quick test fit to confirm that the mount’s bottom profile was good.

And then, after sanding and cleaning the mounting site atop NB, I 5-min glued the fuel vapor bracket into place.

I then prepregged 2 plies of BID for the aft side, and 2 plies of BID sandwiching 1 ply of UNI for the front side.  I wet out the prepregged glass and laid it up on each side of the fuel vapor bracket.  I then peel plied the base of these layups.

Another look at the glassed fuel vapor sensor bracket.

While the fuel vapor sensor mounting bracket cured (under an added heat lamp as you can see in the pics below), I got to work finalizing the edge cleanup on the left armrest layup.

I then did a minor sanding on the front & aft outboard edge to get the left armrest to fit in place initially.  Although I still have a fair number of holes to punch into this thing, I have to tell you it was a great feeling knowing that my last armrest was glassed and that a task that I started over 5 years ago is finally complete!

After messing around with the left armrest for a while, I checked the layups on the fuel vapor sensor bracket.  The glass was barely pliable — I had let it go just a tad too long– so the razor trimming was a bit more of a workout than if I had caught it about 30 minutes earlier. Still, I got it rough trimmed to the point I could get the fuel vapor sensor control head installed.

To be honest, it felt as if I had mounted the fuel vapor sensor out from centerline a bit more than where I had originally set it in place.

I grabbed another shot looking straight ahead and it still seemed to be peeking out from the center panel strut just a tad more than it had in my original mockup.  Hmmm?

I finally decided that I couldn’t go to sleep tonight if I didn’t know exactly what the clearance would be between the fuel vapor sensor and my right leg . . . so I assembled all the dismantled pilot seat area stuff to allow me to climb in and check it out.  I have to say that it really presented no obstruction or clearance issues at all.  It IS CLOSE, but to touch it I have to force my knee unnaturally inward.  I still would have mounted it about 1/8″ to 3/16″ further inboard if I had a redo, but that’s more of a mental thing than it is a physical clearance issue.  Thus, this thing is pretty much in plain sight during my visual scan, being that I installed it about as far off CL as possible without having any leg clearance issues.

I may still sand down the outboard edge of the mounting bracket a hair just to keep it more in line with the instrument face, to keep any errant scrapes from happening during warm-weather flying in shorts.

This pic might provide a better visual as to the clearance I have between my leg and the fuel vapor sensor.  I’ll repeat that I had ZERO clearance issues, and that to actually touch the sensor to the point I really felt it, required in inward press on my knee that was not at all comfortable position-wise, and not from the pressure of the instrument mount.

Tomorrow I’ll continue to work on all this pilot area stuff, including populating the left sidewall with components. . . and getting the left armrest cut and shaped to both fit into its place on the left sidewall, but also to accept the throttle quadrant, cupholder, etc.

Today I started out by prepping the vertical wall and the narrow top piece of the left arm rest to micro & glass together.  I glassed one side of these these pieces, along with my other armrests, back in the 2012 timeframe.  I of course peel plied them and now it was time to remove the peel ply, which wasn’t too bad once I finally got a corner piece to grab ahold of.

I’m going to digress a bit from the armrest –which is really a basic micro together and secure with 2-ply BID tape deal– to do discuss a dire situation: my cup holder!  I have to tell you, I’m kicking myself for not grabbing a shot of the cured product before I pulled it off of its rather odd form: a kitchen fire extinguisher.  But I was looking for a 2.9″ diameter form and that was the only thing I could find.  Well, I didn’t follow protocol and take the time to tape up the very bottom with packing tape.  I did grease it down with a light coat of WD-40, but apparently that didn’t hold up to hours of cooking under a heat lamp.

Thus, I paid for my sin with quite a hassle getting the last 1/4″ of the bottom off the form… and man was it stuck! As you can see I had to resort to slicing the layup in half all the way around.  And I did NOT remove the bottom piece as you see in the pic below, it came off all on its own as a result of the brute force required to get these parts separated from the form.

Here’s the bottom of the fire extinguisher, replete with remnants of glass painfully extracted from my poor cup holder.  What’s a guy gotta do just to be able to have a cool beverage within reach while flying?!

Ok, so I micro’d and glassed the left side arm rest pieces together, and put it under the heat lamps.  Then after the initial repair layup on my sad cup holder, I put it under the heat lamps as well.

With my 2 layups curing under the heat lamps, I then got to work on the fire extinguisher.  I don’t plan on having the fire extinguisher sitting so deeply in its fiberglass mount (as I glassed it so high up), it’s just that since the fire extinguisher will be mounted on the same angle as the pilot seat, I’ll have to cut the mounting tube at an angle to be flush with the top of the armrest (see mockup below).  In short, I needed a longer mounting tube to allow for the mounting angle when I cut it.

As you can see, this layup extraction from its form –the actual fire extinguisher– went much, much easier (thank goodness!).

Here’s a peek into the inside of the fire extinguisher mounting tube.

Cleaned up extinguisher and its mounting tube.

Ahh, nice tight fit!

Here’s a basic idea where the fire extinguisher will get mounted.  Once the strake baggage area is cut out, I’ll turn the extinguisher 90° so that the gauge is facing forward and the handle overhangs just inside the baggage compartment.  This configuration may seem like it will get in the way of my elbow, but unless I push my arm back to a point that is uncomfortable, I won’t even feel it.  In addition and as I noted earlier, most importantly I’ll be able to reach it IN FLIGHT.

This may seem like the same shot as before, but this is showing the seam the I had to cut on the fire extinguisher mounting tube to remove it from its “form” resealed together by a cured 1-ply layer of BID.

By this point my 2 pieces of the left armrest were now just the left armrest. I then pulled the peel ply and cleaned up the glass overhanging on each end.

I then spent a few hours (yeah, it doesn’t seem like it should take that long!) first building a glassing stand, mounting the left armrest to the stand and then actually glassing the external surface of the left armrest.  Again, since I have a TON of spare UNI pieces I actually used 2 plies of UNI on this armrest vs the 1 ply of BID I used on the others to glass the top skin [Remember, since these armrests are now all removable, I’m not adding an extra layer of BID as per plans since the current structural strength is only for the armrest itself].

I wasn’t planning on peel plying the left armrest layup, but I accidentally poured way too much epoxy into the cup.  So, ended peel plying the layup and also glassing another couple of open areas on the seams of my now much happier cup holder.

Tomorrow I will continue working on getting the left side armrest installed, along with its ancillary components.