Lindy
11/29/2008
Thanksgiving week FLEW by with no time to work on the airplane/panel, but I did get to start on it today. First I needed to make a make a "bench" stand for the panel so I could work on it with it standing up on the table. I used two of the mounting holes already in the panel to screw the wood to it.
My plan is to fit everything, figure out the wiring (or have it made...still deciding on that), then take it all out to finish the panel color. I think starting from the bottom and working up is the best route for easier access to the stuff on the bottom. The first thing to go in was the Hobbs meter.
Then the Garmin SL40 tray was installed...how quickly the table was cluttered with tools and hardware...
The tray install was a time consuming effort. I made two little angle attach brackets for it, fit them to the tray first, then found the best location for riveting the brackets to the panel, then took it apart to set the rivets, then installed the tray with the screws again.
There's nothing but a cover going in the opening on the right, so the angle isn't a problem there. The other side was trimmed a little for the panel rib. Here's the back side-
The tray goes thru the sub-panel, so I'll also have to make an attach bracket for the rear as well.
Then it was time to slide the SL40 in to the tray...fits great!
Since I started on the left, working right, I moved on to the opening to the right of the SL40. This was going to be the enunciator panel for the Control Vision EXPBUS, but since I scrapped that after I had cut the panel, I'm going to make an ID panel here that says something...not sure what yet though...I made a paper template to transfer to a piece of AL.
I measured .4 around the opening so it will cover the rivets on either side of it, and I'll also round the edges I think.
I had just grabbed the Garmin GTX-320 transponder and moved it to the table as Brit walked in the door with the boyz from a training day. Work on the plane stops, time for a relaxing night in.
3.25 hours