The weather here is VERY cold, dipping down to ~10° F (-12° C). So NO shop work when it’s that cold.
On the good news side of things . . . I got an email from Eric Page, the friendly neighborhood electronics guru off the AEC forum. He has finished my one-off “Deslumpifiier” that should allow me start my engine with my GNS480 already turned on & flight-plan loaded. Eric also just sent the completed circuit board up to Alec in Canada for chip coding the onboard 4-into-1 video camera signal processing unit that will feed my GRT EFIS video inset view capability. This video signal combiner component will end up being about a 6-7 month long collaborative effort by the time I get it into my hands, so again, I’m glad to be getting the more esoteric instrument/electrical requirements through the queue before the real avionics install takes place.
In addition, Eric is close to finishing the tiny circuit board that will have the Bob Nuckolls’ recommended AD626 op amp chip mounted onto it, which will crisply increase the Electroair spark advance signal x10 to allow a very granular input into the GRT EIS box for displaying realtime Electroair electronic ignition spark advance data on my EFIS screen.
Moreover, since it’s currently so cold, today I started working on finalizing my engine info system installation requirements and EIS wiring harness prep. The bottom line here is that I really need to dig into the manual on my GRT EIS4000 unit to get much smarter on it, both from the installation and wiring standpoint, and the operational integration with the GRT EFISs.
So I’ve been confirming all of the connections for the EIS input sensors, and taking a good inventory of each sensor to confirm what will be plugged into each specific port. I’ve already rewickered and refined some resistor placement requirements, and am confirming literally every configuration –both physically and software-wise– for each connection.
In the next day or so I also plan on doing a bunch more cleanup and labeling on my instrument panel wiring as well, as well as braving the cold shop for some metal work to physically mount the AHARS unit to the Triparagon top cross shelf . . . and figure out my bracket/cable attach points for the 3 heat/air levers.
Over the next few days, I’ll also start gathering all my engine accessories and hardware in prep for my mid-January engine build. I also need to do as much reading as possible regarding the engine build to get much smarter in that area too.