I started off today by placing a strong LED light under the engine and searching for gaps in the CF inner baffles… I then slowly and carefully filled any gaps I found at the seams of the CF inner baffles. With this task complete, it finalizes the install of the CF inner baffles.
Last night I worked a good bit on adding hexagons to the sides of the wing light mounting bracket…
Today, after finishing the gap sealing on the CF inner baffles, I then got back to work on finishing up the addition (in CAD) of the hexagon grids on the ends of the wing light mounting bracket. The hexagon grids around the perimeter of the mounting bracket are not only for lessening the weight, but for air flow as well to aid in heat dissipation.
I then 3D printed the wing light mounting bracket.
Here we have a couple more shots of the wing light mounting bracket with the new hexagon grids added to each end.
I then test fitted the actual light unit into the wing light mounting bracket . . .
and it fit very nicely.
Now, with all that work done on the 3D printed wing light mounting bracket, there was one final check I needed to make: weight. Here I checked the weight of the 3D printed wing light mounting bracket (15g) vs the 2024 aluminum wing light mounting bracket (7g). Clearly the ABS mounting bracket is twice as heavy as the aluminum one, so my plan going forward is to stick with the aluminum wing landing light mounting bracket.
In other news, I received the oil sump mounted oil pre-heater from Anti-splat Aero to help heat up the engine on those cold flying days.
Here is the spot where I will mount it: the front right corner of the oil sump on the vertical sump wall. This spot is right at the lower corner of the oil sump so the heater will “hover” just over the bottom of the oil pan, which will be a great configuration for heating the oil up.
I plan on running the electrical cord up over the top of the engine to allow me to gain access to the plug through the oil dipstick door.
Tomorrow I plan on jumping back on the aluminum engine baffles to get those knocked out.
Pressing forward!