This week I'm trying to really hit the wiring hard. I've got a lot of it run from where it terminates to where it's going, but it hasn't necessarily been terminated or finished up.
Over the last several weeks I've been doing a lot of the ground wiring. Other than the one remote ground block and the stuff forward of the firewall, every electrical device in the aircraft will ground to the ground block.
I also had the thought to document which ground connects to which terminal. I made a table in the back of my builder's log. Not sure if it will be useful, but if I ever need to know I'll have it. Every wire is labelled in any case, but I thought a table showing which one goes where might be helpful when this is all closed up and a lot harder to work on than it is now.
Box on the right of the picture is the Dynon transponder. The ground block is more or less in the center with the "forest of tabs".
This is the other side of the same ground block on the forward side of the firewall. 24 tabs here as well. I doubt if I use more than 10 or 12, but they're here if I need them.
I had to re-run some of the PMAG wiring. When I originally started on this (only one wire to each Mag thankfully), I was using the VPX wiring guide. When I went back through the PMag manual from EMAGair (hadn't read it in maybe 6 months and I had a couple of clarifying questions), I realized that even thought Vertical Power and a wiring load chart indicated a 20 gauge wire would be perfectly fine, EMAGair specifies an 18 gauge wire for both the power and the ground wiring. I repurposed my original 20 gauge to use as the kill wire, so nothing was lost, I just had to run a couple of more wires.
This is the left side p-mag. The connector on the left comes that way from the factory. The right hand connector can be unscrewed and is labelled with the various functions. There are 6 wires - I'm only using 4 of them. The other two are tx/rx for connecting to a laptop to use their EICAD software for tuning the advance curves and other functions. I'll probably go ahead and wire these later so I can have them, but for now I've left them open.
Different angle of the same p-mag. You can see they have the connections well labelled. These are captive screw connections. Strip the wire, insert it in the slot, then tighten a screw to capture the wire between the jaws.
Right side mag wired up.
Once the mags were done I started working on getting the power wires hooked up to the VPX.
The VPX uses a special Molex power pin. I got the wiring kit, but since I had a lot of wires that I couldn't run with pins on them, I ended up ordering the pins from Stein. This is what one looks like.
They come in rolls for mass production if you get them from Mouser or someone. Be careful - there are a lot of various flavors of these - Vertical Power/Ballard specifically mentions they must be the gold plated ones, which are not only hard to find but pretty pricey.
You just trim them off of the strip with a pair of side cutters.
I forgot to take a picture of the whole crimp tool. There are two versions of the tool - a hideously expensive pro grade tool that runs around $400, and the lower volume "hobbyist" version. I picked up the cheaper one from ACS. Note - the tool is beautifully made, but has a rough finish - on mine the socket wouldn't quite fit in the tool so I had to file it down very slightly - just to smooth it out. Then it worked fine.
There are slots for 18-22 and 14-16 gauge, both male and female.
Crimp side of the tool. There are two parts of the crimp die - one crimps the wire to the socket, the other crimps the strain relief ears to the wire insulation. It's a ratcheting tool, so you just go until it releases then you're done.
When properly inserted the socket sticks out the back side quite a ways.
Viola - finished power socket. This is keyed and slides and locks into the VPX power connector cage.
The big black connector at the top left is J12 on the VPX. The power sockets get inserted into and lock into this connector. The two primary connectors on the VPX are different sizes - 10 and 12 connections respectively, so you can't cross them up.
The VPX itself is upside down under the rib at the top of the picture. The two power connectors have been inserted just to see how they fit. Still have a lot of cleanup/tie wraps obviously.
At this point I've connected more than half the wires. Pitot, nav lights, landing light, strobe lights, Skyview, left and right p-mags (each is on a separate circuit), Icom A210 and the boost pump.
