Grounding nav/strobe and landing lights

[bumsteer]

For those who have grounded the nav/strobe and landing lights at the wingtip, please shed some light on how you did it. I don't see it on the Aeroled site but I've only looked at the Microsun installation.

Rick

[Delta Whisky]

Bumsteer - I checked two of their products but both had links to installation documents and those had wiring diagrams. Which light or lights are you installing?

[efwd]

Sounds as though your not interested in grounding at a common ground, usually behind the instrument panel? I have the micro sun as well as the Pulsar NS. Wired them as their installation suggests. I didn't interpret the diagram as telling me to ground at the wing tip. Although it does kinda suggest it pictorially.

[CoClimber]

Unless I'm missing something, you would have to ground through the rear spar and either hope for a good electrical connection between the spar and the frame or add a jumper wire between the two. My plan is to run two wires to the wingtip strobes and ground the negative to the common ground bus behind the panel.

[Shadowrider]

This is something that I had to learn.....on aircraft wiring you want all ground going to the ground bus. (I did mine in the firewall.) You don’t want electricity passing through the frame or spars or anything other than wire. Use high quality mil spec wire. All signal wires need to be shielded. I have built buggy’s and done lots of automotive stuff and you can ground to the frame and all of that ties together so it’s not and issue. Problem on aircraft is this causes ground loops and messes up radios and nav instruments. You need a ground bus and all grounds return to the ground bus.

[jiott]

Since I am not an electrical expert, I wired everything in my Kitfox EXACTLY as the manufacturer said to do it. In the case of wingtip lights, Aeroled instructions said to ground to the spar at the wingtip so that's what I did. I asked Kitfox factory and they said that's what they did on their SLSA; I figured two aircraft manufacturers must know what they are doing and I have had no problems whatsoever with radios, etc. for over 6 years. I know and respect the common rule that all aircraft grounding should be to a common buss and all other items in my SS7 are grounded that way; only in this one item did I deviate.

[bumsteer]

Thanks for all the replies. I initially intended to run to a common ground. I did a search here, and it led to Eddie's (efwd) build posts 113, 114 and 115. Guess that's where I got the idea that some of you were grounding at the wingtip. When Jim mentioned that Kitfox was doing it that way I assumed that was the way to go. I'll have to give the factory a call or email and see if they're still doing it that way and if they've had any problems. Since I couldn't figure out what was a good method to ground at the wingtip (definitely not an electrical guy) thought I'd ask here. Again thanks for the help.

Rick

[Shadowrider]

Areoled are not recommending to ground to the spar, at least the lights I recently installed. They have you run a shielded wire and they have the ground return via the shield. IMO this is better and easier. You run 3 wire shielded wire. nav, strobe, sync, ground via the shield.