I started out today by updating my Master Project Build Schedule which I call my “Order of Battle.”  I figured I need to start with the master schedule to better detail what tasks that I am specifically going to do on my Chapter 9 To-Do sheet.  In doing so, I broke out the hell hole cover and RAM air scoop for a later date after other prerequisite tasks are completed.

I then set about to figure out this pesky toe-in issue that needs finalized.  I put the fuselage up on a fold out table vs. fuselage dolly so that I could get a clear shot of the CL & the front gear leg.

I started by leveling the longerons side-to-side.  I also clamped a board onto the table legs perpendicular to the fuselage and then positioned the fuselage so that the axles were set back from this board 24″.

I then removed the wheels/tires, brake disks and pads off of each axle.

At this point I needed to find the aircraft CL, so I shot a laser line which allowed me to check the toe-in of each wheel not just in comparison to each other, but to the CL as well. I took the pic below a little off center, that’s why the line seems a bit askew.

I then clamped a 24″ square to each side and checked the toe-in.  The plans say that the max toe in delta between the “B” measurement (at the axles, or 0 inches) and the “A” measurement (at 24″ forward of the axles) should be between 0.2 and 0.45 inches.  Right now, I’m sitting at 0.62 inches, with my right wheel toed-in 0.08″ more than my left.  If I can get the right wheel toe-in the same as the left, then at 0.54″ I’ll be happy and call it a day.  This may be a bit more than Burt called for in the plans, but then again, my aircraft weight is a bit more than what Burt advised as well.  One other thought is that I’m not going to jump through a lot of hoops now until I start doing some high speed taxi tests & a few landings, at which point I’ll tweak what needs tweaking!

Now, a few more figures.  Before I took the wheels off I measured from the front center of each tire near the ground to the large nut on the nose wheel fork.  Each side came out very close to 110″.  Then, after I removed the wheels I also measured from the bottom of each axle to the 6-foot level I had across the longerons, with each side measuring close to exactly 48.5 inches.  I then measured from the aft side of each of the inside, top-forward axle mounting bolt to the fuselage CL at the back edge of the fuselage bottom: Right side 34.32″ and left side 34.25″.  I also checked the dip angle of each axle hanging free, both came out to 12.4°.  Finally, with the longerons level I laid the long level across the squares as close to the gear legs as possible: perfectly level as well!

So . . .

Interestingly, when I checked the distance between the end of each axle, straight out perpendicular to the fuselage, I kept coming up with the left side axle end being 0.7″ closer to the fuselage than the right side!  I did this a number of times, in a number of different fashions, and each time it told the same story.  Very odd!  The only correlating data that helps support this –that I didn’t mention above– is that through my “A” & “B” measurements for the toe-in, I again measured that my left AXLE is 0.33″ closer to the centerline than is my right.  This actually makes some sense, because I mistakenly added nearly 0.2″ more BID to the right side gear leg due to my misID’ing the CL when the fuselage was upside down and I read the wrong mark on the freshly extended firewall.

My conclusion is that I MAY add a spacer to help clean some of this up.  I talked to my buddy Marco and he advised to leave it and press on (good advice), but a big factor in this decision will be the affect it has on the asymmetry between the wheel pants.  I’ll being doing a fair number of measurements tomorrow on those in prep of installing the wheel pants.  In short, more to follow on this.

In other news, I was able to trim the offending right heat shield on the aft side where it was barely touching the brake caliper (actually visible in last pic above).  I also topped off the tire pressure raising it to the recommended 70 PSI from the 50 PSI I had filled them up to (actually, after 6 months, both tires were down to 30 PSI each).

Today I got my Trio Pro Pilot autopilot pitch servo back from Chuck at Trio Avionics.  As he said he was going to do he upgraded my pitch servo with the Auto Trim feature.  And in short order too!

Here’s the pitch servo before I sent it to Trio.  Note that there’s only 4 wires coming out of the servo.

And here’s the pitch servo after the Auto Trim feature was added.  Note that there are now 6 wires coming out of the servo, the 2 extra obviously being for the Auto Trim feature.

As an aside to this story, the US Postal Service gets a ding (pardon the pun) against their service in my book, considering that as overpacked as I had that servo in the box that Trio had sent out my autopilot control head to me, the Post Office still managed to crush the box and damage the bottom plate of the servo!  Luckily there was not such damage on the return trip.  Here’s the damaged bottom plate that Chuck threw in the box when he shipped the servo back to me:

Still, no worries and all is good.  One more item off the list and I can move on to the actual build . . . SOON!  (I promise!)

Quick update in that today I sent the Trio Pro Pilot autopilot pitch servo to Trio Avionics to have the Auto Trim feature added to the servo.  As I posted before, I talked to Chuck and he will upgrade it for me shortly after they all get back from Oshkosh, so I wanted to time my shipment so that the servo arrives Trio right about the time he gets back from Oshkosh.

One more thing off the list!

I’ve spent a few hours over the last couple of days updating my Control Stick Switches wiring diagram (#14) which institutes a major redesign on my control stick switchology. This is of course is the first draft with all the foundational components in place.  It still needs much refining.  For example, I still need to design & emplace a switch into the mix that will allow me to disable the GIB control stick switches for those times when I’m hauling kids (or Marco!) in the back, who may be just a tad too inquisitive and want to get handsy with the buttons! (sorry for the poor pic quality…)

I would say one of the big electrical system breakthroughs I achieved over the past week is taking the stock ON-NONE-(ON) toggle switch located just to the left of the china hat switch on the Infinity stick grip, and making it work to suite my design goals.  I wanted it to control my COM1 ↔ COM2 radio swap [COM1 = Garmin GTN650 & COM2 = GRT HXr EFIS-controlled Trig TY-91] and wasn’t past swapping out this switch if I needed to, but I definitely wanted to make it work if possible.  In my monkey brain I intuitively “knew” when I bought these sticks from JD that I should be able to design what I wanted circuit-wise.

With that extra momentary ON position when the switch is toggled aft, I wanted a way to use that switch for controlling the frequency flip-flop for BOTH radios, as well as the COM1 ↔ COM2 radio swap.  This is where digging into the installation manuals and discussing with GRT really helped, since there is no remote freq flipflop feature on the GRT HXr (this is accomplished with a button on the right side of the EFIS).  Since the inherent features of the GRT HXr EFIS removed the remote freq flip-flop feature off this switch’s ‘to-do’ list, I was then left with my COM1 ↔ COM2 radio swap requirement, plus controlling ONLY the COM1 freq flip-flop.

As a point of clarification, remember that Garmin doesn’t allow third-party vendors (AKA GRT) to remotely control their radio functionality through a separate component like an EFIS (yes, there are remote functions via switches/buttons and some SL30/SL40 command features, but not full control of the GT650/GNS430 communications functions). Thus, my setup is the Garmin GTN650 (COM1) as a separate radio controlled totally outside of the GRT realm, and then a remote Trig TY-91 transceiver (COM2) controlled via the GRT HXr EFIS.  The sound and headset features of both of these radios are controlled via a Dynon Intercom.  It is the COM1, COM2 select feature of the Dynon Intercom that the stick mounted toggle is controlling.  The COM1 freq flip-flop is wired directly to the GTN650.

Utilizing a relay, my design functions such that COM1 is always the default com radio unless the switch is pushed forward, thus driving the relay switch off the N/C (normally closed) COM1 side to the N/O (normally open) COM2 position.  Since I control the COM2 radio freq flip-flop on the EFIS there’s no issue with not having the COM2 flip-flop feature on the stick toggle. Obviously, in the default COM1 position –which I’ll be using 80-90% of the time– engaging the toggle switch in the MOMentary down position has no effect on COM1 ↔ COM2 radio selection.

Ok, so I’m extremely pleased with this setup since it perfectly matches the capabilities of my planned panel components.  One issue resolved, 287 more to go . . . . ha!

In the pic below you can see my inventory and ID’ing ALL the switches I have on hand. Since I had some extra switches that I got from JD when I bought the Infinity stick grips, I was checking out the weight of the larger Carling (B&C) switches vs the smaller toggles. If you’re curious: 3 B&C switches weigh around 0.18 lbs vs. 3 mini-toggles weigh about 0.04 lbs.  As you can see, I am reassessing my panel switchology and trying to attain some weight savings where I can.  I will say that using mini-toggles adds time and complexity to the electrical system build since those switches must be soldered in vs the nice FastOn connector tabs incorporated on the B&C switches.

I also knocked out some of the more background tasks for both the electrical system and in prep for getting back to the build.  I made a run to Harbor Freight and stocked up on some supplies.  And as I was out and about I got a battery for my ever-trusty & ever-present epoxy-laden build WATCH, and got it back online.  And I stopped by FedEx to buy a long 12 ft length of 48″ high plotter paper to lay out and start designing my wiring harness in real dimensions, later on when time allows.

Finally, I spent about 3 hours last night finding/researching/purchasing replacement mini toggle switches, and submitting a decent-sized order with Mouser.  These orders bring me current for all the outstanding bits & pieces (resistors, relays, AMP CPC connector, switches, pins, sockets, etc.) that I need up to this point for my electrical system build.

From here, I plan on finalizing the design and update on my stick wiring diagram and then I’ll transition into focusing on the real build stuff!

Ok, so as I mentioned in my update, I have been working on my electrical system . . . a lot! I’ve probably put in a good 30 hours on my electrical system over the past 3-5 days.

Why, you ask?!  Especially when the plane is not near the point that it needs such detailed electrical diagrams!  Well . . .  I’d argue otherwise.  Having finally got my other house off my plate –it closed last week!– I am getting ready to do another gargantuan push on the build. I have no other real detractors at this point and I am preparing to dive in with all I’ve got. So, besides simply wanting to clear up a few nagging issues in my electrical design, especially before bringing any more on board, I wanted to get my electrical system design and documentation as up to speed as possible.

Below is the end result of my efforts over the last few days.

Here are the individual diagram pages for each subsystem.  To be clear, these are ONLY the ones that I’ve updated over the past week!  There are still about 10 more that need to be tweaked, refined and updated.

An even closer shot . . .

My focusing on the electrical system was some what of a result of 3 things converging on me at once.

First, my buddy Marco bought a beautiful Long-EZ to fly while he finishes up his build. Stemming from discussions on his new plane, our in-depth mind-melding on switchology, control/switch ergonomics and safety really got me diving deeper into a topic that I had been bantering around in my mind for quite some time.

Next, Grand Rapids Technologies debuted their 8.4″ HXr EFIS at Sun ‘N Fun in April. DONE!!!!!!  This is exactly what I have been waiting for FOR YEARS!!!  The right size with the right features to drive my components in meeting my design goals.  With this in hand, combined with a much more refined picture of my switchology, I set forth to conquer any of the major remaining design daemons in my architecture.

Lastly, I’m just bone tired.  I had less than a week to clean a very messy house that my tenants left me, and I had a number of repairs on top of that. I was working 13-16 hour days for almost a week, and I am just exhausted.  Working on the electrical system lets me rest a little physically as I recharge to tackle this beast!  Hoo-ah!

(Below is a pic of my Master Electrical System Diagram, which has been modified over a dozen times in the past month alone!)

Over the past couple of days I’ve been on the phone with EFII, GRT, B&C, Trio, TCW, and a few others confirming my architecture design in the areas that incorporate their respective products.  I also confirmed some key system design features in a discussion with Bob Nuckolls (author of The AeroElectric Connection).  In short, I’ve been able to clear up a number of nagging design issues, streamline my system and really make a number of my electrical design goals a reality… There are a lot of them, so I’ll discuss them individually in-depth as I incorporate them into the build.

Finally, I think I mentioned before that I took a bit of time to really go through my documentation on hand and clear out all the junk, archive most of the gee-whiz stuff and get it fairly organized into binders and work folders.  I had the same idea for my electrical system design documents as well, considering I haven’t really had any of them consolidated into a meaningful system until today.  I finally took the time to build electrical system binders to incorporate ALL the electrical system wire books, system diagrams, etc. into 2 binders, shown above, and I even constructed a table of contents/index.  I have to say by the time I was done I felt a huge sense of relief knowing that my electrical system is looking really, really good as I head into one of the final build surges on my Long-EZ project!

I finally knocked another item off my list  by giving the folks at EFII a call to order a couple of 90° fittings.  Unlike standard right angle fittings, these 90° fittings supplied by EFII can be clocked into any orientation so the exact angle of the connected fuel lines can be dialed in.

I need these right-angle fittings since I’ll be placing the fuel pump in the hell hole mounted on the underside of the CS spar.  The awesome folks at EFII quickly sent me out a pair of the 90° fittings with the only requirement that I send back the stock straight fittings.

Here’s my newly configured fuel pump, now ready for install!

Here are a couple shots of the battery strap in place.

It works as designed, keeping the battery in place nice and secure!

Today I received my custom battery straps to secure the main battery in the battery compartment.  The strap and buckle are military grade that will easily hold a 15-pound battery in place.

Since the main cost was for prototyping up the first strap, I went ahead and ordered a second one in black.

I got these from Strapworks out of Oregon, and for the most part I’m pleased with them.  I will say however that I think they could have done a little better job with the placement of the images, which for some reason seemed to be quite the challenge for them.  Oh well, a minor issue in the grand scheme of things!