Chapter 22 – Prepare to mount!

Mount WHAT you ask?? Well, the Trig TY91 remote COM2 radio, the GRT HXr AHARS, and the Trig TT22 Mode-S Transponder.

Since the weather has turned somewhat and it is quite cold during the mornings, I thought I would let the workshop warm up a bit before venturing out and working on it. And not surprisingly, I’m quite tired from the endless days of working on the shop. So I thought I would take the morning off to work on the plane just a bit. It’s been a while!

Of course, the easiest way to mount this stuff to the top shelf of the Triparagon is to remove the shelf itself. The physical removal of the top shelf is the easy part… getting it unencumbered even with the scant amount of stuff it currently has mounted on it is a bit more time consuming.

Attached underneath is the gear/canopy warning horn as well as the JBWilco gear/canopy warning system module. The tricky part here is simply keeping track of the small screws, washers and nuts after removing this stuff.

Then came the airspeed switches. Same thing… I want to ensure this all goes back together nicely and easily!

Here’s a shot of the JBWilco gear/canopy warning system module and the 3 airspeed switches.

Once the Triparagon top shelf was free of stuff, I could then get to planning out just how I was going to mount these 3 devices.

You’d think mounting 3 components to this top shelf would be a fairly simple and quick thing to do… but finding all the hardware, after deciding what you’re going to use, after figuring out what will fit, etc, etc, etc. . . . Wow, a couple of hours had already flown by after I rounded up all the hardware I was going to need.

Let alone figure out how to mount the two Trigs.

Why are the Trig components a question? Well, as I mentioned before in previous posts, I had not planned on using the Trig TY91 COM radio —but rather the MicroAir M760REM–when I finalized my design for the Triparagon over 3 years ago. Specifically, the top shelf where the TY91 is going to be mounted since the MicroAir was to be mounted underneath in order to, if you’ll recall, save space and minimize the width of the Triparagon’s top shelf.

Moreover, since I “Swiss-cheesed” the Triparagon top shelf to save weight, I effectively removed all but one possible mounting point of the 3 required for the Trig TY91’s mounting adapter. Thus, I needed a decent-sized metal plate that will go on the underside of the top shelf to serve as the bottom-half clamp portion opposite of the actual TY91 mount on the upper side of the top shelf. As I was looking for the unused mounting plate for the EFII fuel boost pump since it was the perfect thickness (which I couldn’t locate) I found this old ELT antenna base (or maybe actually for a transponder?) that I constructed back in Germany.

With my L2 transponder antenna in hand and since this is not required for my ELT, I know I’ll never need this antenna base as constructed. It’s a nice thin, yet strong, piece of aluminum so I lopped off the portion I needed and will use it to mount the Trig TY91 remote COM2 radio unit.

As for the Trig TT22 transponder mount… a few days ago while I had the chop saw out working on the roof I grabbed the stock of 2.5″ x 2.5″ x 1/8″ thick 6061 aluminum angle that I just recently ordered from Aircraft Spruce and cut it at just a hair over 4″ long. I would have preferred 0.063″ or maybe 0.090″ thick over 1/8″, which is a bit more robust than I need. But to get the 2.5″ width required this was all they had. Of course after I add some lightening holes it won’t be overly weighty anyway.

To remove as much unnecessary material as required, I angled the horizontal side that will be mounted to the underside of the Tripargon top shelf. I’ll do the same for the vertical side that the transponder mount will be attached to. Again, I’ll then make some decent sized lightening holes to get this as light as possible.

As a reminder, this bracket will allow me to mount the Trig transponder on the right end of the Triparagon top shelf. In the pic below the panel is left and the nose is right. Also, the bottom half of the AHARS is visible in its position at the center of the Triparagon’s top shelf.

I’ll continue to work on mounting these components as time allows. Speaking of available time to do stuff, a few weeks ago I made the decision that I wouldn’t repopulate the panel mockup with avionics until I get these 3 devices mounted on the top shelf.

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