Category: Wiring

Wires and Pneumatic Lines

I haven’t posted in a while, but it’s not for lack of progress. I’ve been slowly working my way with wiring – more specifically, routing and securing the wiring. It’s a major pain, with areas that are hard to reach or have limited clearance. I can’t imagine doing this...

Pitch Servo Right-Angle Backshell

I assembled the pitch servo using a 90 degree backshell as mentioned in my last post. I have a few pictures to show what it looks like. To secure the harness over to the servo, I used a cushion clamp attached to a rivnut that I put into the...

Pitch Servo Connector Issue

As I was laying out the wiring to the pitch servo, I realized there is a slight issue. Can you spot the problem in the next picture? As you can see in that picture, there’s not much room between the autopilot connector and the neighboring rib, meaning the wires...

Bundling Wires with Lacing Cord

It’s a minor detail that you don’t usually see, but I like the finished look of neatly-bundled wire harnesses. While zip ties are convenient, they can damage the wire over time – under vibration, the edge of the zip tie chafes the Tefzel jacket, and eventually can cause intermittent...

Redo of the Connector for Autopilot Servo

In my last post I detailed my first attempt to build up the d-sub connector for the Garmin autopilot; I was using their G3X video series on YouTube for instruction. Surprisingly, the official G3X install manual recommends a process for wiring the connectors that’s quite different, but it’s much...

Main Wiring Harness

I finished adding all the needed wires to the main electrical harness. Now, I can begin adding terminals to the wire ends, and for some of the connectors, putting the terminals into the connectors. I have to leave some connectors off until the harness is installed in the fuselage...

Autopilot Servos Install and Fuselage Wiring

One of my first new year’s resolutions is to complete the fuselage wiring so that I can start tacking on the fuselage skins. So, I spent most of New Year’s Day working on wiring and a few other small tasks. First, I finished off the install of the roll...

More Wire Routing

On Sunday I continued running wires for the fuselage electronics, in particular the autopilot servos and the magnetometer. I also gave some thought about how to secure the wires and created some small brackets so that I could use cushioned clamps inside the center tunnel. The brackets are made...

Wiring for Headsets

I began laying out the wires in the center console for the headsets. I’m using lacing cord, spaced every 12 inches, to tie together the wires into a bundle. I’ll do this for other groups of wires too. This is the first time I’ve used lacing cord, and it...

Instrument Panel Planning

In addition to working out plumbing for fuel and brakes, I’ve spent a lot of time the last two weeks investigating the various avionics options available. I have to do this now because I haven’t settled on what my avionics suite will be. While most avionics are wired similarly,...