VP Duo Saves the day :)

Whew, was saved a bunch of time today when I realized that I needed to wire *both* the Magnetometer and the AHRS on my Dual Chelton system to the same pin.... Ya see, I had designed it in the LPW, but I had pulled the wire to the wrong place. When I went back and looked at the harness and LPW, I found the pin, the wire and re-pulled it to the right place.

Second save was in adding devices. I wanted to provision ahead of time for an in cockpit video camera and Chelton is coming out with a new WAAS certified GPS module that uses redundant power inputs. Ok, that was easy, I added a new wire on an open 12v regulated pin (I'm a 24v dual system), and I added a new wire on an 18A pin on the *other* CU for the second feed to the GPS. Tada. Poof, done.

Try that in a breaker, switch panel that you didn't plan a spare breaker for, or a switch location for :)...

Those are just a couple of recent saves... There have been countless others that I haven't talked about... yet :)

I'm back

Had a death in the family that I had to attend to... I'm back now and heard from Marc. Red Boxes, with real electronics in them should be ready by 1st wk in June. Mind you, these will be BETA boxes. Wiring continues and yes I'm behind on pictures... I'll attempt to remedy that shortly.

Move to the Hangar occurs in 2 wks as well...

Quick update

I've been busy stringing wires, mounting devices, and wiring the panel. However in the middle of all of this, I got a change from the factory on W&B locations, specifically battery locations so I've had to adjust a little. I believe I've minimised the impacts from this. Needless to say I haven't taken many pictures of late. But will catch up on those a bit later. The Red Boxes, are staying were located in the pictures, the Battery(s) *may* be located to behind the baggage bulkhead. Because I'm a FG Legacy in carbon with IO-550, there is only one other built like this and it was the plane the helped determine this W&B issue. Good thing I wasn't trying to figure that as well :).

Stay tuned, working hard to make OSH... Everyone cross your figures, it's gonna take a huge effort...

Before/After panel

Ok, finally got the panel rework behind me. For reference, here is the "old School" design.


And here is the new one similarly equiped.



You can see there are no breakers, and most of the switch panel was done away with. On the left wing there are only 5 switches. 2 - Overrides for the PFD and Comm, 2 - for the AutoPilot Master and GPS select, and one for Start.

This cleaned up the panel a bunch. Also, note the VP display unit is much larger than the MVP-50. At the moment because I don't have an actual display just yet, Marc loaned me an aluminum billet piece that was cut to match the exact size, mounting and cutout. Now that I've confirmed that shape, I'll be sending that back so the next person can use it :)... Also notice the cutout below the display where the VP Mag switch and control switches will go. I would have liked to have put that in the radio stack, but there is simply no room in a Legacy equiped as mine will be.

Panel distraction

Got my new metal yesterday and as luck would have it, it was *close*, oh, so *close*, but I've now wasted 2 days tweaking it. At least I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Should be done with tweaking metal today and can get back to wiring. All of this has to come together to complete this effort, so I suppose it's not wasted time... I just hated having to file, grind, trim, etc... Mind you some of this was on the fiberglass frame where I needed clearance for the new items that go in the panel...

Pictures once I get it all back together so you can at least compare and contrast to the "old school" version... Warning, tho, there are only 5 switches on the new version... 2 for overrides, 2 for AP master and GPS select, and one for Start... No other breaks, switches, etc.... Even in a Lancair, NO CANOPY SEAL switch :)... Thanks Marc for pushing me to get rid of that one...