CHAPTER 7 Wiring and Canopy
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| Sunday, March 3th, 2007 | Canopy job |
| It was quite a hectic week. I decided to spend some time in the project. Tomorrow another busy and long day is waiting so I can use some mind-resetting...
So I started with the roller bar. Putted it in place ans strated to bolt it. |
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| What a hell of a job to put these nuts with the spacers in place. But OK, after some trials I finished this... | |
| Here you see the roll bar in place with a perfect view on Jogan's work of last Satrurday. The handles... | |
| The front tube to the rollerbar bolted in place. | |
| Then I followed again the instructions. They say first to assemble the rolls... | |
| and insert them in the canopy frame tubes tube. I used som second glue to keep them in place... | |
| The roll sliders were cut to length ... | |
| and the four hole pre-drilled with a #40 drill. | |
| Afterwards I clamped them in place. Here the front inside view, | |
| ... the aft inside view, | |
| ... the front outside view aligned with the outside edge of the rollbar, | |
| ... and the aft outside view. Then, normally I had to start with the aft center parts of the canopy but this has to wait until the after fuselage is finally rivetted. I plan to do this on Saturday if Dimi can help... | |
| So, I drilled the hol to put the stall buzzer in place. This is what you see in the front... | |
| and this is the back side. So, on Saturday it will be continued... | |
| Time spent | 7 hours |
| Saturday, March 17th, 2007 | Closing Aft Fuselage and cnt'd panel wiring |
| Dimi came to help closing the aft fuselage. Well, this was going very well. Johan gave the rivets and took the clecoes out, Dimi went into the fuselage to buck and I did the riveting. This is real production... | |
| Some parts of the bucking job needed special attention for previous installed parts. Like here, the brackets for the safety belts obstructed the bucking bar. So we had to disassemble them first... | |
| Not that simple but he is young and has a perfect condition... | |
| Good synchronisation, perfectly working together and in less than 3 hours we finished this completely... | |
| with a magnificent result... | |
| Dimi and Johan decided to go on with the aft canopy slider assembly. Measuring, interpreting, and finalizing... | |
| They both did a perfect job. The slider is ready to install. This is something for next week. | |
| In the mean time Ronny and I finished the complete wiring of the fuel guardian system, the stall buzzer and a final check-up of the subpanel flood light. All is working perfectly... I'm really happy with the progress we made today. We made a huge step forward. The panel is reaching the end, and the slider canopy is going well... |
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| Time spent all together... | 27 hours |
| Sunday, March 17th, 2007 | Closing Aft Fuselage and cnt'd panel wiring |
| After a long time we could already enjoy a spring-feeling, we suddenly we attacked with a new winter experience. Bad stormy winterweather forced me to cancel my flight of today. So, back to the workshop. Johan joined me and later also Ronny came. The major time of today we used for the fitting and further assembling of the canopy frame. First of all, Johan finished this aft canopy slider, | |
| and prepared this teflon slider block. | |
| After preparing the surfaces with zinc chromate to pevent them for coorosion, we mounted it on the back fuselage. | |
| All necessary holes for the reinforcement bolt were drilled. Ready to accept the next... | |
| And then the first time we could enjoy the look of a real sliding canopy frame... | |
| As you can see here it already starts to look lik it has to be... | |
| The small rollers still temporarily attached but... doing their job...
Nice to see this following picture. This is how it will look later... Up to the final assembly and finishing of this thing... In the meantime Ronny and I started to make some brackets to receive and install terminal blocks for the wires coming out from the stick grips. This is the next concerning the wiring... |
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| Time spent all together... | 13 hours |
| Saturday, March 24th, 2007 | Sticks wiring, general electricity... |
| During the morning I made these terminals to receive the wires coming out from the sticks. I ordered these FlexBlocks at Spruce and installed them between the floorribs behind the sticks. One for the Piilot Stick...
Under the blocks a lot of wires come out from the conduit that connects the aft fuselage wiring bundle (strobe box, tail light, tail strobe etc...). I secured this bundle with clamps to the floor rib... |
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| ... and one for the Co Pilot Stick. These blocks receive each 17 wires coming out from the grips I bought from Infinity. Functions I will connect to these blocks are the trims (wing and elevator), PTT, landing Light, flaps, boost pump, autopilot release. The best thing to do is bringing all these wires to these terminals and starting from the terminals to their connecting points... | |
| A volunteer to jump into the non-comfortable position in the cockpit... Ronny started to connect these 17 wires to the FlexBlocks. I was his assistant to reach over all necessary terminals and | |
| The blue thick wire contains all 17 leads from the grip. The complete bundle was secured to the floor rib after we checked a problemless movement of the stick. A clamp holds it position. | |
| All wires connected to the Flex Block terminal. The other bundle of wires has still to be connected and wrapped together of course... | |
| And of course a closer view to this assembly...
In the meantime Gerry arrived and started to connect tghe master relay and the alternator relay to the ExpBus. I didn' take pictures so far but at the end, the masterswitch was connected and we fired up the complete electrical assembly so far. Beautiful to see how everything works. Wonderful job Gerry... |
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| Instead of starting the second Flex Block from the Co Pilot, Ronny and Johan (who joined us later) started to install the second Stick. As required by a mandatory note from Vans, this stick has to be secured with a bolt. To drill the hole for this bolt, they made first a drill conduit with a wooden block. This was necessary to drill the hole decentralized in the stick assembly. | |
| A first test with a bolt through the receiving part... | |
| ... and next position the exact place to drill the next hole in the stick. We had to be carefull to prevent the wirebundle for damaging it while drilling.
At hte end, this fits perfect. Next week we will go on with wiring the copilot terminal. Some news, the propellor will be delivered next week. I went for the MT Constant Speed Prop (3 blades). |
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| Time spent all together... | 18,5 hours |
| Thursday, March 29th, 2007 | Sticks wiring, isolation... |
| I took a day free after some hectic days in Germany. I finished the wiring of the co-pilot stick bus. |
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| And then I started installing the bagagefloor tie-down assemblies I bought at Van's. I installed them in a way that I can always choose which part to secure of the bagage. | |
| I installed the female parts which receive a removable lock which contains a ring that can be used to tie down the bagage... | |
| Afterwards I started to install isolation material inbetween the begage floor ribs. Here you can see the ELT compartiment. I glued the isolation to the inside skin. | |
| And then I installed temporarilly the floor covers with the tie-down rings. | |
| Here a view on the complete bagage area. You see the pattern of the tie down assemblies... | |
| And finally, I installed temporarily the isolation under the seats. | |
| Again a better view... | |
| Time spent all together... | 7 hours |
| Saturday, March 31st, 2007 | Cnt'd Canopy and relay wiring... |
| We went on with the canopy today. Johan brought his son Jef with him and we used this opportunity to teach him the basics of building an aircraft. How to use a squeezer... | |
| How to use clecoes, | |
| and how to assist by putting rivets in place. Pretty well done for this first lesson Jef... Go on lik this and once you will be the boss of a company lile Airbus or Boeing... They had to start with these basics too...
In the afternoon Johan and his familiy left for a winter ski break in the North of Italy. Enjoy your stay there Johan... |
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| We measured the exact position for the slider bars and drilled/clecoed them in place. | |
| And the it was tome to put the canopy frame in the sliders. We started "reshaping" the canopy frame until it matched pretty well... | |
| Afternoon... Ronny came and we went on with the wiring. Today we started with the relay boards to be wired for the elevator trim. All boards received already the coil power feeding. | |
| Afterwards we started by connecting the elevator trim relay board to the up/down elevator trim positions on the sticks. The terminal block shows the common at the most left position. Right of it the up and down wires to the relay...
Next week we cannot go on because I leave for my traditional sailing week in the North of Holland. And the week thereafter, Sanicole organizes the yearly Jochen Kenens trophee. |
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| Time spent all together... | 7 hours |
| Saturday, April 14th, 2007 | Received some nice stuff... |
| Passed week we were in Friesland for our traditional yearly sailweek. Just before we left, the prop was delivered. | |
| Although I planned to pick it up myself last time I was in Germany for my job, I had to cancel this due to the dimensions of this beauty... 1.8 Meter diameter was to huge to bring it with me in my car. So I asked MT to deliver it right to my place. And here it is... | |
| I hesitated quite a long time to go for this Constant Speed 3-blade MT propellor due to the high cost of it, but, normally you build one airplane like this in a lifetime (I don't know this is a "to-believe" statement) and then it is best to go for the best...
Nevertheless, I'm proud to put this top-propellor on the Skypassion's RV7-nose... |
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| After a long decision process how to put the canopy to it's frame, I decided to go for a glue-job... A lot of positive comments came for this Sikaflex-stuff. But, the problem was to find it in Belgium... So, I started to call to several shops. None of them could help me. But... Friesland was the solution. Since Sikaflex is widely used in the yacht-building, Friesland must have this stuff... | |
| And yessssss.... I found a wholesale dealer for this kind of materials and he could help me. Just for your interest why these different things are needed for:
The bottles above contain the Sikacleaner 226 which is clear. Needed to clean both surfaces. The second is the activator which is needed to bring on canopy frame (Metal and powdercoated surfaces. The third is the Sika Primer 209N which is needed to bring on the plexi side. And the, last but not least the Sikaflex which will glue both sides together. A special tape prevents the Sikaflex later to UV from the sun... |
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| Sunday, April 15th, 2007 | Back in business... |
| Sunday but... I lost too much time with that Friesland holiday. It was nice, perfect but... the beast has to fly this year...
So, due to the hot temperature I planned to do the big cut today... |
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| I started with getting some cutting experience by trimming the first edges of the canopy | |
| And then rtying to find the best fit of the frame into the bubble. After Johan and I located this we drilled the 5/8" hole for the latch handle. We used the unibit for this as described. This worked well outside in the sun because the stiffness of the plexi disappeared quite fast. I'm glad I had the patience to wait for this first hot day... | |
| After the drilling we installed the handle upside down to keep the canopy approximately in place. This works well... | |
| And the again measuring, discussing, measure again until the canopy was on the right place. We clamped it to the frame and studied the way the trimming of the canopy had to be done... | |
| The big cut was prepared well. With some layers of perfect quality tape we taped the cutline. This works really fine. The two tape lengths had to protect the plexi while the region in between showed the exact position for the cut. And then 8 helping hands to assist the cut. Keeping the bubble in place and avoiding the last millimeters to break out off the plexi... | |
| And then finally, the result. This worked fine, perfect, wonderful and gorgious... The result is a perfectly separated two parts. | |
| I'm really happy with the way this went. To be honest, I was quite scared for this part but... it went as planned... | |
| Then again in place and a little break to deal with the "emotions" of a fantastic project milestone... | |
| In the afternoon we finished the last trimming. Again by using tape as a guide and protection for the plexi. We measured the aft 1" and finished the final trimming... | |
| Enough trimming and canopy stuff... Ronny and I started again where we left the electricity. We planned to connect the pilotstick elevator trim to the FPS system. This took some time to measure and connect the right wires in place. | |
| The relay board for the elevator trim completely wired... | |
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Then we connected the elevator trim indicator on the panel. Again a perfect result. Another picture of the glareshield floodlight and some |
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| Time spent all together... | 17 hours |
| Saturday, April 22nd, 2007 | Canopy latch blocks |
| Postponed for 1 week to update my website. Reason? Simply because my brandnew Macbook Pro's harddisk crashed... Drama, frustration, lost all my data. But OK, here it is. The pictures were still on the camera.
This Saturday was dedicated on drilling and positioning the teflon rear canopy latch blocks. And this was something Johan proposed to do. Since he's a dentist (specialized in dental protheses) he came with a perfect idea. Have a look... Maybe this can be a good idea for others too. The only thing... you need to know a dentist who can provide you with some special products you will need. Or, maybe you can find some alternatives to do a comparable job... |
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| Johan brought some stuff with him which he uses to make bite templates from his patients. A well tasting, fast drying two component product which he prepares to put in the alu profiles containig the teflon blocks. After mixing both components well he received a substance which is perfcety soft and kneadable. | |
| He pressed this paste in the alu profiles which will keep the teflon blocks. | |
| Both bolts were pressed in place. He did this for both sides of the canopy... | |
| Once the alu profiles were filled with the substance, he closed gently the canopy which pressed the canopy latch fingers nicely into the substance. In other words, he made an exact copy of the teflon blocks position with the two holes in place. | |
| Since this stuff dries in ten minutes, we could remove both very fast and identified them immediately. Both alu profiles were removed from the canopy deck because the position had to be restored later with the cast in place. | |
| On the drill standard, Johan made a base with fast drying chalk. The complete assy was positioned in place after it was slided over the drill. | |
| The chalk base forms the container for the assembly while the two angles are correctly formed with the drill in the assembly. This shows the angle on one side... | |
| ... and here you see a nice picture of the second angle to be drilled... | |
| Johan removed the assembly and gave the chalk the 10 minutes needed to dry. The result was this support on the drill stand. |
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| The only thing left was to remove the substance from the alu profile and replace it by the corresponding teflon block. This was held in place again by the two bolts. | |
| And then...drilling the hole in the teflon. Well, this looks like a "copy-paste" instruction on a computer. It takes some time but the reesult is perfect. | |
| After the holes were drilled we mounted the assy again in place and tried it out. | |
| The result was an exactly drilled hole and a perfectly fitting canopy in these holes. Smart, clever, NICE JOB. Thanks for this professional dental technology Johan... I did not make pictures of the electricity progress but in the meantime Gerry and I continued the wiring. The starter key was connected and we installed the fuel pump wiring on the panel and in the pilot stick. |
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| Time spent all together... | 15 hours |
| Saturday, April 29th, 2007 | Canopy edge deburring and electricity cnt'd |
| Johan continued on the canopy while Gerry and I started wiring the flap motor. The complete wiring from front to the motor was installed together with the two audio cables for the headset connectors. I will show a picture of this later. | |
| We installed some connectors inbetween to have a simple possibility to deinstall the flapmotor later. | |
| Afterwards all wires were perfecty routed along the shaft beside the flapmotor. In the afternoon we continued wiring the panel switch to the flapmotor and to the pilot stick. | |
| Johan made a tool to deburr the edges of the canopy. With a steel plate he made a deburring plate which he used to scratch the edges. | |
| Here I tried to show the result. A good Macro lens should be better but, believe me, the result is as it should be. After this he drew the sideskins as showed on the plans. Fitting these is for the coming week... | |
| Time spent all together...
Me, Johan, Ronny and Gerry... |
27 hours |
| Monday, April 30th, 2007 | Canopy cnt'd and electricity cnt'd |
| Last Saturday, Johan finished these marks on the sideskirts. I continued in the morning fitting these to the canopy frame. | |
| Once fitted, I drilled them and positioned them to the frame. | |
| Some studying on the inside upper skirts before drilling them to the frame and then... | |
| ...finally, I drilled them as explained in the notes. From the front side to the rear and everytime clecoing them to keep the perfect position. Once this was done, I trimmed the inside skirts to length | |
| and drilled them through the sideskirts as guide. I planned to finish this but... time fllies as you know... |
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| In the afternoon Ronny came and we went on with the wiring. We decided first to finish the connectors from the ExpBus 1 to the Expbus two and connect all wires to this ExpBus II. | |
| Once this was done we fired the complete electricity system on. On this picture all the right switches on. | |
| and here everything on... Believe it or not... only one problem was detected. Whe we switch the master avionics on, there seems to be a problem. This is something for coming Saturday... | |
| And also the bagage light works perfect. Even dimmed...
Hereiunder, the front side of the panel with the ExpBus II Leds on top and thereunder the annunciator panel from the ExpBus I showing a problem on the left top. The lighted red annunciation tells there is a short circuit on the Master Avionics... |
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| Time spent ... | 13 hours |
| Saturday, May 4th, 2007 | Canopy cnt'd and electricity cnt'd |
| There was a lot of activity today in the Skypassion project...
In the morning Gerry and Johan came. Together with Gerry I continued the wiring while Johan concentrated to the canopy. He measured and indicated where the lightening holes had to be drilled in the inside frame sides. |
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| After drilling, deburring ... this part was installed carefully in place. | |
| Drill positions to the frame where marked and then Johan drilled and clecoed it in place. | |
| After the two positons where the canopy rolls fit where cut to length, the sideskins fitted perfectly. It was a little scaring for Johan when he saw one of the previous pictures of what I did last time. The fitting was absolutely not as required but this had only to do with the length of the canopy frame tubes where the loittle rolls fit in. So, don't worry, se exactly the dimensions that Van's gives and as you see this fits exactly... | |
| In the meantime Gerry and I went on with the huge wiring job. We started connecting the flaps working from the sticks. But, two relays were quite noisy. So Gerry found out that only the two relays, switching masses were doing this. Reason seems to be a small diode bridge on the PC board of these relays. After desldering them from the PC Board, the problem was solved. | |
| Before installing the stick for the flaps we had to finish two wires from the FPS System to the panel. One for the automatic retract protection switch and one for the FPS Programming switch. | |
| Once this was finished, we could go on with the wiring of the stick. This went on the complete day. Also Ronny joined us in the afternoon and tried to figure out with Gerry why this didn't work. All connections where remeasured, checked etc... but here we have an issue... | |
| The switch on the pilot stick does'n work. A lot of headache, time loose but, the conclusion was that there was something wrong in the hardware part of the FPS system. Ronny will try to communicate with Aircraft Specials to find out what the problem is... | |
| During the installation of the frame we discovered some mismatch in the way the canopy frame fingers fit into the anchor blocks. This had mostly to do due to the length cutting of the two roller positions. So, Johan redrilled the anchor blocks. And now it fits exactly as required... | |
| Again all sideskins were clecoed and yes, now we have a perfect fit... | |
| So, last thing we did was trying out the canopy into the assembly. And this starts to look perfect...
Next week I'm out of business again because we leave for our yearly Alps fly in Nuits-Saint-Georges. Yes, the place where the French fly-in will take place. You'll find more information on the French RV club by clicking here. I will go there too in one month. But first our yearly Nuits event with Sanicole... |
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| Time spent ... | 24 hours |
| Saturday, May 15th, 2007 | Canopy Sideskirts + painted |
| Due to the bad weather in France we came back one day earlier than planned. So, another opportunity to proceed with the project. I planned to finish the fitting of the canopy sideskirts | |
| Both sides were drilled as described. The skirts fit pretty well... | |
| Afterwards I countersunk all drilled holes ready to accept the rivets and blind rivets. | |
| And then I primed and sprayed the skirts with the sypassion grey wich remains visible in the inside. | |
| I also sprayed the canopy frame. Another step forward and ready to start glueing the canopy to the frame. This is planned for Thursday... | |
| Time spent ... | 8 hours |
| Thursday, May 17th, 2007 | Light and compass Console |
| I made this epoxy console to install the front cabin Led light, the two maplights and the magnetic compass on top of the front reinforcement bar of the roll bar. I would never have thougt to work in epoxy but, here you see the result. | |
| On top you can see the led light lens. The two holes on the bottom are for the maplights. I grinded, sprayed and finished the basic. Afterwards I made a back cover for the console with which it will be mounted to the bar. | |
| Here the complee assembly ready to install. | |
| And then the final result. A lot of functions in a small ergonomic position. Maybe it takes away a little view outside but this is really minimal.
In the left down corner you can see a small toggle switch to switch the cabin light off and on. |
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| And a last view from the side. Looks really pretty...
Another thing I did today was rearranging the avionics stack for my new Mode S transponder which came last week. So this is now ready to start installing tomorrow... |
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| Time spent with Ronny ... | 11 hours |
| Friday, May 18th, 2007 | Starting the stack |
| Today I started assembling the stack. I had to remove the cradle of the Mode C TXponder to replace it with the Mode S one. After I did this I connected all wires to the cradles and inserted the Avionics. The complete assembly was then installed in place. | |
| As you can see, a whole lot of cables are coming out the cradles. The big white cables are preassembled by Approach FastStack. Perfect and professional job. | |
| We sorted the wires a little to have a good overview of the wires to be connected... | |
| Another ground bus was installed close to the stack for all the ground connections to be made. And then we started connecting the GMA 340 audio panel. What a job.... | |
| But the result is nice.
I will be happy when all these cables and wires will be tied up. It will give a more professional look. But one after the other... |
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| Time spent with Ronny ... | 13 hours |
| Saturday, May 19th, 2007 | Avionics stack cnt'd |
| As I mentioned yesterday, all wires connecting the Garmin Avionics were prepared by Approach FastStack. Here you can see the way we installed the hub and the cables. | |
| There were some things we did'nt understand well yesterday. I launched a question to Tim Hass from approach FastStack and within an hour I received all answers. So we could continue wiring. So we installed all remaining wires from the avionics. Power leads etc... | |
| And at least, I installed the final headsetplate. I red in the manual from the audio panel that these connectors may not have contact with the airframe ground. So I installed plastic washers in between the chassis connectors and the plate. So, hereunder the first startup of the complete avionics stack. | |
| Time spent with Ronny ... | 10 hours |
| Sunday, May 20th, 2007 | Avionics stack cnt'd |
| I lanned to go flying today but the weather was not so good. So, back to my workshop and proceeding the wiring. I connected the Garmin Glideslope/VOR indicator cable, the EFIS cables and the autopilot connection cable to the HUB. The complete bundles of wires for the EMS (Engine Monitoring System) are in place now. So, again a large amount of cables... | |
| Then I wired the power connections to the Pos Bus for the EFIS D 100 and the power supply fo the Indicator. And here the first power-up of the EFIS... | |
| The GI 106A is a course deviation indicator that displays rectilinear needle movements and contains integral GPS, NAV and VLOC mode annunciators. The panel-mounted GI 106A has a glideslope needle and flag with a VOR/LOC/GPS needle, TO/FROM indicator and NAV warning flag. Again I tried this and Yesss, this works also...
I forgot to make a picture of the new bundle of cables added to the panel. This is something for next week... |
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| And last but not least the powered EMS in the panel. I finished with the final installation of the compass/light assembly which you can see in the right top corner of previous picture. Well, I'm really satisfied about the last 4 days. There is light in the tunnel...
Now back to work... Next week we go on... |
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| Time spent | 8 hours |
| Hobs count project until now: 2225,5 hours built... | |
| Saturday, May 26th, 2007 | Wiring and glueing canopy |
| Concerning wiring and electricity, I started in the morning with the installation of my self-made two maplight assemblies. I made these from epoxy and installed them on the roll bar. One for the co-pilot and one for the pilot. Both are separately wired to separate switches. One set will switch this one together with the maplight in the compass-assembly and the same for the pilot side. All dimmable of course... | |
| It was quite hard to install the wires for these two mini lights. | |
| Here at least the final view of one of these maplights. Looks good isn't it? | |
| ... and another side view of the finished installation.
The complete day, I was working on the connections of the compass assembly wires together with Ronny. We found some misconnected light and this took quite a time to fix. But now everything seems to work properly... |
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| In the meantime Johan continued working on the canopy. All holes were drilled from the side skins through the canopy. Very carefully and increasing drill diameters one after the other. Starting from a very small drill and going up to final match...
After this was done, the plastic protection film inside the canopy had to be removed for preparing the final glue placee on the plexi. Johan measured this out and put tape to the edges, keeping the remaining protection film in place. Afterwards another second tape was placed covering the papertape... |
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| Time to prepare all canopy parts. For this glueing job with the Sikaflex glue a strict preparation has to be followed. Well, just for those thinking to do the same this step-by-step description.
It starts with Scotchbrite to lightly roughen the surfaces on which will be glued. On the plexi side but also on the frame side this Scotchbrite preparation is the first step. |
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| After this step, a good cleaning job of these surfaces is necessary with Sika Cleaner. Both sides are cleaned with this product. After every wipe with the cleaner throw away the paper towels you used... Wear handprotection to protect your skin but also to avoid leaving skin grease on the surfaces...
10 minutes of drying has to be respected after the cleaning... |
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| This is ready for the next step. Take notice of the spacers we put on the frame. Simply use a flexible tube to cut some of these. They are needed to keep an approximately 2-3 mm space inbetween the frame and the canopy. This is absolutely necessary to do because the building up of glue inbetween gives the strength of the connection...
On the frame, the surface has to be prepared with Sika-Aktivator. This aktivator is applied with paper towels. Gently wipe this aktivator to the canopyframe and wait again some 10 minutes before the next step... |
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| This is the Sika-Aktivator.. | |
| While drying the frame, the plexi is ready to be prepared with the Sika Primer. Shake long and hard to become a perfect mix in the Primer bottle before starting. The primer is applied with a brush... | |
| And this is the Primer bottle. Drytime: 30 minutes before you can start the glueing job... | |
| So, 30 minutes later, the Primer is dry and you can start applying the Sika 295 UV. Here Johan is applying the glue to the frame. | |
| This picture shows the amount of glue to be applied. The spacers will be removed later and filled up with glue.
We decided to glue all the frame but so far NOT the sideskins. I will show the installation of the sideskins later because also this will be provided of a glue line between the plexi and the skins. We tried this out and there seems to be no problem to slip these in afterwards... |
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| And then the placement of the canopy on the frame. No problem at all if you have at least 4 hands to do it. Gently place the canopy in place, using the canopy handle as a guide... | |
| An inside vies shows that all parts are connected wih the product. | |
| Some clamps placed on the positions where the spacers are. | |
| This set-up keeps everything perfect in place... So far so good...
A perfect specs diagram tells that an application of about two millimeter needs about 2 days to dry out. The curing time is dependent of the thickness of the product. So, tomorrow another view and Monday continueing... |
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| Time spent together | 27 hours |
| Monday, May 28th, 2007 | Cnt'd glueing canopy and antenna cables |
| The Sikaflex was dry. So we started to finish the glue edges by adding extra glue on top of the first bond. Of cours this needs again a cleaning cycle and an extra adding of activator on the previuous seal. | |
| With electric tape the frame was protected and then extra glue. | |
| Afterwards with a straight plate we removed the seal to become a perfect and smooth surface. Another way to do the final touch is your finger and some shampooed liquid. | |
| Finally we removed the sideskins and again making rough with Scotchbrite, clean, activator... | |
| ... and then again some Sikaflex inbetween the sideskins. Reason is to avoid water coming in via the sideskins. | |
| Another view of the adding of the Sikaflex on the canopy edge to be pressed inbetween the inner and outer sideskins. | |
| Then riveting, blind rivets and the scews that keep the canopy in place and pressed between the skins. And now two weeks of drying... | |
| While drying we started together installing all antenna cables. Here Johan lies in the back fuselage to install the ELT antenna cable to the rudder section because there it is that this antenna will be installed. | |
| Here a better view of the ELT antenna location. | |
| Via the center floor section (where the fuel pump will be installed) the different antenna cables enter the front section. Here we installed the cables for the Com1, Com2, VOR and the cable for the headset/mic input behind the seats. In the middle you can see the Transponder antenna. The only cable missing, but also to be in this section, is the marker beacon antenna cable. But this will be installed in the forward front position of this front section. All cables were tied with cable binders. | |
| Here another view on the incoming antenna cables via the middle of the center section of the main spar...
Next week no project continuation because we will fly to Nuits-Saint-Georges for the French RV meeting... |
|
| Time spent together | 20 hours |
| Saturday, June 9th, 2007 | Reinstalled FPS |
| The FPS came back from Aircraft Extras after repairing. For one or another reason we damaged it due to an overvoltage. Rich Meske from AE repaired it for free which I appreciate enormously. So, it took some time to bring it back in position and to test the programm button. And it seems that we can programm all flap positions now. When Ronny is back we will continue doing this. We made one change. The LED telling in which mode the FPS is in, was brought outside. It is necessary to know what status is selcted. And, a power-on switch is also necessary to confirm the programm and to bring it in another modus. See later... | |
| In order to test all connections, we wired the 12V supply over a 2A fuse. This provides the relays with the necessary power. It was here that the previous overvoltage was created with the FPS. So, problem solved... | |
| Here the position of the switch and the program LED indicator. All wired and functioning...
So, I didn't make more pictures of this day. Johan studied the backward tip-up possibility for the slider. And Ronny is in the US.But Gerry came over to help. So, now we can slowly move to some final connections to finish the wiring... |
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| Time spent together | 21 hours |
| Saturday, June 16th, 2007 | Cnt'd wiring and canopy |
| I planned to connect all BNC-connectors for the antennas. This took almost the whole day in combination with some shopping for some parts. | |
| In the meantime Johan continued the assembly of a system to slide the canopy further backwards to give more space to put things in the bagage area later. I ordered the Aircraft Extra's slider tilt-up system but after evaluating this we decided not to use this system. It looks to fragile to us. One part of it gave us some new ideas to do the job. This little stop system prevents the canopy to slip in the cut-out of the canopy rail we made. | |
| Johan cut out the upper part at the rear side of the rail in a way that the slider wheel can exit the rail. The stop system keeps the slider in front of it. So, when pulled away, the slider can move more rearwards and it gives space to tilt the complete slider assembly out of the rail. | |
| Here you see the cut-out that is exactly the width of the slider wheel. | |
| The stop system keeps the sliderwheel in front of the cut out. So it cannot slip out the rail.
Next step will be to extend the slider rail on top of the fuselage to guide the slideer more backwards. This will give us more room to put things in the bagage area without stepping on the wing. |
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| Another view on the stop system. This will be more clear when finished. But, it gives much more possibilities to load the plane in the bagage area... Will be continued... | |
| All BNC connectors finished. This one is the connection to the Garmin SL40 radio. This needs some special attention because the outside of the cable needs two slips to hold the cable in place... | |
| Time spent together | 22 hours |
| Saturday, June 23rd, 2007 | Coonecting autopilot + Backskirts canopy |
| Johan and i red a lot about the backskirts of the canopy. Replacing them by epoxy skirts was one of the possibilities we investigated, but at the end we decided to go for the alu backskirts. But we will glue them together with some bolts/nuts keeping them against the plexi of the canopy. We decided not using the riveted system as described in the Vans notes due to the fact that the complete canopy is glued by Sikaflex. This means that there is a flexible strip in between the frame and the plexi. | |
| Riveting to the frame as described by Vans would mean that the pressure of the blind rivets would press the flexible strip together and give quite a high risk to break the plexi. So NOT TO DO...
The clecoes are holding the backskirt close to the plexi. The holes in the plexi are located behind the frame in the plexi. Here we will use bolts to fix them in place. In between the alu backskirts and the canopy plexi we will add some Sikaflex to glue them together. |
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| Here the complete assembly in place. This holds already nicely. Once the bolts are in place with the supporting glue this will be perfect. | |
| In the middle you also see the rail backplate exactly positioned. Next week we will finish this. | |
| In the meantime, while Johan was working on the backskirts, Ronny and I continued the wiring. We finished all connections to be made for the two autopilot units. The altitude hold and the heading EZ Trio. We tried them out and this worked well. Afterwards we started figuring out the trim and the flap indicators. This is also something to be done next week... | |
| Time spent together | 21 hours |
| Saturday, June 30th, 2007 | Backskirts Canopy fitting and riveting |
| We decided to bring the rail cover plate under the backskirts. So, Johan trimmed the backskirts exactly to fit and clecoed them. | |
| Then we started to work on the fit of the backskirts to the fuselage. The position were the backskirt connects to the sideskirts was already drilled as described on the drawings. But these positions don't seem to fit perfectly. So, together we pressed the backskirts to the fuselage and redrilled them. To be exactly, we drilled some additional holes while pressing it to the fuselage. | |
| Still some space between the fuselage and the backskirts. So, we had to plie the alu several times until a perfect fit was reached in a way that the backskirts touched the skin of the fuselage. | |
| Here you can see the perfect shape and "touch" from the backskirts to the fuselage. After this was reached, I sanded the edges until I had a straight and nice edge.
So, ready to glue the backskirt to the canopy with some Sikaflex inbetween. |
|
| In the meantime I installed the connectors needed to upload the new firmware to the Efis and the EMS. I installed these on top of the stack. Together with the required switch for these Dynon screens. | |
| Then we repeated as previously described, the cleaning, priming and activator job for the Sikaflex. After waiting exactly the required times we glued the backskirt to the canopy in place and bolted it immediately. | |
| And then... again in place. And look at this...!!
Perfect fit. I'm glad we did it this way and that we didn't divert to the epoxy way for the backskirts. This is just perfect... |
|
| Maybe some extra plying on the edges but these are minor touch-ups to have it 100%. The only thing to look at is a sealing system between the skirts and the fuselage. Just to close it for any water intake from behind... | |
| And last but not least thefinal riveting together of the backskirts and the sideskirts.
Just a tip. Drill these holes after you connected the skirt to the frame. And, you need 4 hands to do this. Start from the middle and proceed to the outside while pressing the backskirt in place. At the end, some shaping is easy. A tip is to use a heatgun to remove the tension in the alu while reshaping. This works well... |
|
| Inbetween I installed the AVmap EKP IV to the expbus. | |
| Here a closer view to this beauty... | |
| Time spent together | 15 hours |
| Sunday, July 8th, 2007 | Canopy paint inside and wiring cnt'd |
| On a Sunday...??? Yes, yesterday I went with the Cessna 172 to Lelystad together with my wife and Ronny. The first meeting of the Dutch RV association. Perfect...
Friday evening I went to the workshop to add some aditional Sikafles from the back frame to the skirt. Just to make it stronger because we glued it on the plexi. And I prepared the complete assembly for spraying. And, additionally I sprayed the complete inside canopy (all frame and skirt parts). Today I sprayed over the Sikaflex. The inside is ready... |
|
| Here a better view of the way I made some Sikaflex reinforcement. The result looks very good. | |
| Afterwards I installed the two reinforcement strips in the bagage area. I installed the canopy back and started finetuning the differences between the skirts and the frame. A picture follows later... | |
| In the afternoon Ronny joined the club and together we finished the connections to the copilot stick.
It took us 3 hours to make the indicators for the trims and the flaps work as required. We succeeded and hereunder you see the result... |
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| Time spent together | 15 hours |
| Wednesday, July 11h, 2007 | Cabin and bagage floors and cleaning up wires |
| I had a day off and decided to start finishing the floors. This will ease the remaining wiring clean-up. So, I started cleaning the compartiments between the cabin ribs and spread some glue in between for the isolation material I planned to put in here. | |
| Here a view of the isolation after glueing it in. Fits perfectly and will keep noise (+extreme temperatures) out of the cabin. | |
| In front I glued with the same Isolation material a barrier to prevent things slipping under the floor. | |
| After this I could start installing the cabin floor. Of course again first clecoeing and preparing for the LP3-4 blind rivets. | |
| Here the floor riveted in place. The place were the stick connections come together had to be trimmed to give space to work on it if necessary. | |
| And then, the bagage floor behaind the pilot seat. Also in place. You can see the latch keeping the door to the ELT compartiment. | |
| And last but not least riveted in place. I finished also the copilot cabin floor and thereafter the bagage floor. This will improve the way of working on the cleaning up of all the wires in the floor? | |
| And this is the first step for this job. I started the tie-up of the two connected sticks, | |
| ... and labelled the wires as I detailed on my electric scheme. | |
| A lot of cable binders will be needed and of course a hell of a job to label all these wires. But, this is now the first to be done... | |
| Time spent | 9,5 hours |
| Saturday, July 14h, 2007 | Cleaning up wires |
| Just to show the beginning of the cleaning up of all wires. Dimi helped me today to start the final labeling and tie)up of the wires in the cabin floor compartments. This is the spagetti we started with... | |
| And after checking the drawings of the electrical scheme, labeling all wires and tie-up this looks like this. Here a picture of the cleaned-up bus of the pilot stick. | |
| Left the relay board 1 servicing the boost pump. Again all cleaned up. The right relay board is the relay for the elevator trim. | |
| Another view on the pilot stick bus after complete finishing. All screws are lacquer sealed now. | |
| This is the relay board for the left landing light. I needed this relay to service a push button on the stick. The left landing light is serviced by a push button activating the right impulse relay which services the left relay wich is strong enough to receive the Amperes of the landing light... | |
| And then last but not least, the cleaned-up co-pilot stick. Only two compartments left under the seats. The relay of the flap and the aileron trim and the FPS compartment. Once this is finished we can proceed behind the panel...
Coming week no project time due to our yearly Sanicole International airshow but, after this, I have some weeks for my project... |
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| Time spent | 17 hours |
| Tuesday, July 24h, 2007 | Cleaning up wires cnt'd |
| So, the airshow was a success. About 25000 enthousiastic visitors... Up to the 32nd edition in 2008.
But, I'm glad this is past. Now I can continue again on my project. Today Gerry joined me to help and Johan came in the afternoon. And later in the afternoon also Ronny joined the club. We labeled all the switches of he left and the right subpanel. What a job... |
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| So as you can see, the wires of the right subpanel labeled and tied-up. On the left side there are some wires to be done from other parts. But, the most important and most time-consuming part is now finished... | |
| Here already the wires coming in and going out from the two terminal buses. Labeld, sealed and tied-up... | |
| And last but not least for this day, the EXP-bus 1 and the master dim-module labeled and waiting for the tie-up... This starts to look as a perfectly wired electrical system. The biggest job was to control every connection against the electrical scheme. Label the wire and adding the name of the label step-by-step to the scheme. Oncce finished I will put the complete wiring diagram on the site... Impressive...!!! | |
| Time spent | 28,5 hours |
| Wednesday, July 25h, 2007 | Cleaning up wires cnt'd |
| Well, again and again tie-up, labeling... I finished the left subpanel today. Ready to accept the instrument panel after some small things to be done. | |
| More in detail, at the left up corner, the stall warning buzzer right of it on top the relay for the switching of the landing light, thereunder a relay for the flap retract protection. Right of the relays the ground bus 1. | |
| ... and right of the ground bus 1, the two terminal buses providing power to the most of the instruments. | |
| I also finished the right subpanel where the EXP2-bus is positioned. Left under the EXP is the master dim module and right of it the Dimmer Terminal bus. | |
| And at the end I also finished the right serie of switches and tied up all wires leaving these switches. So, I see light in this electric tunnel. I hope to finish the electricity so far at Friday...
Ronny and Johan joined me late in the afternoon. Ronny and I started to find a problem with the headset/mic connection. The mic is solved, the headset needs som more attention. Johan started to assemble the canopy latch. He will proceed on this on Friday... |
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| Time spent | 14 hours |
| Friday, July 27h, 2007 | Cleaning up wires cnt'd |
|
Well, I didn't make pictures of the wiring today. Gerry came and together we finished the last labeling tasks. And at the end, we installed the complete panel in the panel frame. See also the larger photo at the end... |
|
| One of the things done is also this switch protection. It prevents to switch off the FPS... | |
| Johan installed the canopy latch and made also a support to hold the canopy in place when e open it completely. Another job Johan did is bringing all wires to the aft section for the electronic compass. | |
| Later Dimi arrived and we continued with the wires in the floor section. Last things to be done before we can celebrate the finishing of a huge electric job. But, have a look here, this is to be proud... Everything in place and working well... | |
| Time spent all together (Gerry, Johan, Paul, Dimitri) | 24 hours |
| Saturday, July 28h, 2007 | Cleaning up wires cnt'd |
| We continued and finished the tie-up of almost all cables. Here the wiring conduit on the copilot's side where the spaghetti of cables connect the panel backside to the compartment under the seat. The pilot's side is identical. Perfectly fixed in place. These conduits will disappear behind the upholstery side panels. |
|
| After cleaning up all mess, Dimitri and I couldn't resist to put the interior Aeroclassic Design stuff in place. Just to have a look... Nice not? | |
| Just for the fun... a little detail of the backseat...
In the meantime, Ronny and I finished the headset problem. The radio and intercom is working perfect now... |
|
| And then, of course, some daydreaming. We HAD to sit inside to feel our work... | |
| Dimi stated that getting in is easy but, it feels so comfortable that it is hard to get out. I would like to stay in it, he says. And I agree. This looks and feels perfect... | |
| Time spent all together (Ronny, Johan, Paul, Dimitri) | 23 hours |
| Tuesday, July 31st, 2007 | Sarting plumbing... |
| The tie-up uf all wires makes a lot of space behind the panel. Only the cable bundles going to the EMS and the EFIS take some room but this is to provide them with some service length. The next thing to do is the tubes for the pitot and the static lines. Today I planned to start the preparation for this. I would like to finish all this before the end of this week. Once my holiday is finished (still this week), I would like to be ready to proceed firewall forward. The last rush to the finish... | |
| Before starting the plumbing (tubes as described hereabove), I finished the positioning of all cooling tubes to the backside of the instruments. | |
| And I finished the last tie-up of some wires... | |
| Here it is where the pitot tube from the wing will be connected to. I positioned this fitting in the left wingroot. The connection with the alu tube coming out of the wing will be done with some nylon tube. | |
| The inside of the inlet of the pitoline. I connected some alu tube going to the backside of the panel. Here the first curve to be made to go up. | |
| Here the alu tube going up to the panel. | |
| And here where the alu tube is coming out together with the static line. Tomorrow I will connect all instruments to these... | |
| Time spent | 9 hours |
| Wednesday, August 1st, 2007 | Proceeding plumbing job for Pitot and static line |
| As I told, I went further to finish the plumbing tasks for the pitot and the static lines. I installed the connectors to the speed indicator and made the connection to the Efis. | |
| The Speed indicator receiving the dynamic pressure (Pitot) and the barometric pressure (Static) and connected to the Dynon Efis EMS 100. | |
| Then I went further with the Static line to the Altimeter. I tied all tubes together to give more stiffness to the tubes. | |
| From the Altimeter I went further to the Pressure sensor which switches the Relay that protects retracting the flaps on a speed higher than the white arc. The arrow shows the sensor/switch. | |
| Here an overview of all connected instruments. The only remaining thing is the extra static port for the altitude hold autopilot. I ordered it at Spruce... | |
| And last but not least, the incoming pressures behind the panel. Easy to connect/disconnect... | |
| I installed my air compressor about 50 cm from the fitting in the wing root and opened some continuous airflow blowing to the fitting. This simulates dynamic airflow. By decreasing/increasing the distance I managed to receive an airflow of about 85 Knots to my instruments. I will need this to regulate the sensor for the retract protection. | |
| In the meantime I have a good view on the way the Dynon measurement is exact the speed indication on the analogue gauge.
So, all plumbing finished so far. I also primed the outside canopy skins with zinc chromate. Ready to receive the primer filler... |
|
| Then I fastened finally all fittings in the forward fuselage section. The fuel vent fittings in the floor, the fittings on the brakes... I shortened the Aeroquip hoses between the left brakes and the Matco Parking brake assembly. And I finished also the parking brake cable from the panel to the Parking Brake. | |
| Here a view on the assembly.
So, for tomorrow I plan to finalize some small things to do in front and then we can proceed to the firewall forward... I'm really looking forward for this new phase... |
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| Time spent | 11 hours |
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