Lots of good stuff in this update. No major steps completed, but a lot has been done to support some big tasks soon.
Since the last update I have been mainly wiring the panel and installing avionics. I am using fuses in my plane, so the first thing to do was located the position of the fuse blocks. I located them on the firewall. After that was done, I began to install switches and wire them to the fuse blocks. I also began making the radio and transponder rack connectors. My setup is pretty simple, but the G5 acts as an altitude encoder for the Appareo Stratus ESG, so they had to be tied in. The radio was the most involved device as it has headset jacks and some external audio jacks. I wired the left and right ears backwards, but that is an easy fix.
The hardest thing about the wiring for me is trying to keep it neat and functional. It’s hard to see where things are going without all the wires and then it’s hard to route the wires when they are a mess. It has taken a lot of time to try and get them routed sufficiently, but it is getting there.
Another issue I had was a switch I have on the copilot side to actuate the trim servo. I am using a momentary SPDT switch and I had to buy relays to make that switch work because the trim servo works by changing the polarity of the wires depending on which way you want to go. This is an ongoing issue. I just haven’t sat down to fix it.
Mounting a heater in the plane has been a battle I finally found a place that is decent, but it definitely is biased towards one side of the cockpit. An idea I have is to maybe create some ducting to help with that, but that will be after it flies. I need to keep moving and not spend a ton of time on stuff that is good enough to fly.
I’ve also got a beta version of the front half of the case for my engine monitor, so I have temporarily installed it to get some wiring done. I am working on finalizing the back half of the case this weekend and I hope to have it printed sometime next week. It looks great in the panel. My software work on it at the moment is just changes to fix any issues with the computer talking to the engine sensor data acquisition box.
I wanted to put the magnetometer in the wing, but I didn’t make any provision for this prior to covering. To solve this problem, I designed a mount to hold the magnetometer on a tube inside the wing that is accessible from an inspection panel. This was a cool solution and it seems to work great. I ran all the associated wires for the magnetometer and the G5 rewarded me by saying it was connected and everything was working great.
Onto the aircraft structure work. I have installed and rigged the elevators. It wasn’t as hard as I thought in the beginning. The big issue I found was stick interference with the interior cover panel that is forward of the seat. That will be easily fixed by just trimming that panel since it isn’t a structural part of the aircraft. Myself and another builder elected to replaced the riveted aluminum tube on the elevator push pull tube with aluminum split collars. This will allow me to change the elevator travel limits if I find that I have rigged it incorrectly. They work great as far as we can tell and seem to be a good solution. Another change was to exchange the bolts that attach the elevator control horn to the elevator with drilled head bolts. This allows them to be safety wired since the original bolts are relying on a nut plate for the locking feature of the bolt.
I got the wingtips fitted and trimmed. The only thing left is to add the aft rib to the wingtip which I will do when the wing is installed and the ailerons are rigged for neutral. I also drilled the holes in the wingtip to mount the wingtip lights.
An issue I had when I first worked on installing the engine was routing the coolant hoses to the cylinders. In order to clear the engine mount RANS has you exchange two hoses for a hose with an S bend. On the left side RANS instructions worked great, which are to install the S bend hos from the lower coolant pump fitting to the aft cylinder. On the right side, there wasn’t enough clearance. By making the S bend hose go from the lower coolant pump fitting to the forward cylinder, I was able to get decent clearance from the engine mount. I then final installed the bolts that hold the engine onto the engine mount.
I hope the wiring will be really done soon. I want to be finished. This coming weekend I will be installing the wings and checking a big box off. I’m excited to finally get them out of the wing stand. Today I finished assembling the lift struts and getting everything ready to mount the wings. Another upcoming task is routing the heater hoses from the heater to the engine coolant hoses on the forward side of the firewall. This has been a puzzle mainly because I’m trying to use 1/2″ hoses everywhere when it seems 5/8″ hose is much more common. It will be possible, but it’s just taking a little more time.
Stay tuned for more in Ryan’s quest to have a flying airplane!
(80 h)