Here we are, not one steam gauge, all flight, engine, navigation information will appear on the 10" Dynon Skyview display.
And behind the control panel it's not bad either:
Everything is connectorized as explained in this presentation by VANs:
http://www.vansaircraft.com/public/FaceBook/RV-12ElectricalSystem-Skyview.pdf
Next big step will be the power on, but we will need the engine before that, just a few more months before we smoke these nice cables!
A good, gratifying step but still a lot to do as several of the harness seen fully connected in the control panel need to have their other end connected to some gismos that are not all installed.
A few tips for the builders:
- Retrofit harness or new harness?
If you already installed the previous version (D-180) harness, you will have the choice of undoing your wiring and use new harness or use the retrofit harness. This latter solution that I choose creates some burden in the wiring and requires to think deeply, beyond just following the instructions that are not that detailed. You can see the result in the picture above: there are two additional connectors corresponding to the adaptation harness (you see them on the picture as they are the only connectors that are not plugged into a box). The few wires/harness that had to be passed into the tunnel to the tailcone were not that hard to route, thanks to the wise step Vans took to remove the static line to make room through the several bushings involved. I was concerned about routing back the static tube (which is now a pitot tube) but it worked well (I used a fishing steel line to go under the instrument panel as everything is very tight aroung the guide which collects all wires going to the tunnel).
Conclusion: if you already wired the old harness, do the retrofit
- Intercom: there are contradictiong instructions between Vans and Softcom and Softcom is right. It's about the fastening of the box to the panel. However once you install the two rotating buttons, they interfer with the screws. I had to trim the base of the buttons (put the button in your drill press chuck and use a file to grind the extra plastic off)
- Panel fasteners: with the previous avionics, the screws of choice were round heads with optional flat heads requiring countersinking. For the new avionics, Vans chose the flat heads but does not tell you to countersink the holes (there is a lot of them, all around the panel!). I think that the flat heads are a better choice for the look anyway so I went for them. I did the countersinking after the panels were painted (powder coated is best, I chose a black semi gloss with texture) and had no problem as this kind of paint is harder once cooked.
